Its widely accepted that money makes the world go around and in order to earn the money needed to give you the life that you want, you have to put in the hours. But, what if working too hard becomes counterproductive? What if your standard of work slips when you put in one too many hours?

Here at Recruitment Solutions Wales we understand the importance of a good work/life balance. A happy workforce that isn’t stretched too thinly is proved to be more productive. Paymentsense recently conducted a survey of 2,000 UK workers to find out just how happy employees are with their work/life balance.

Almost two thirds of those questioned are happy with their work/life balance, with men (73%) slightly happier than women (67%). However, 69% of all workers questioned claim their personal lives have been affected by work.

Personal life

The effects of work on your personal life can be for a wide range of reasons; 33% do not believe their workload would be covered whilst on annual leave and more than 50% go to work when ill.

Guy Moreve, Paymentsense’s Head of Marketing, explained:

“It’s important that everyone within the workplace gets the best possible work-life balance. It’s crucial to the efficiency of a business. If the employees are demotivated, then this will eventually show in the quality of their work.”

Moreve added:

“We need to make sure this ethos is fed down from the top management to all levels of the business. As a business, you should be offering flexible working schemes. This gives employees the opportunity to take care of everyday life tasks and manage their workload effectively. If you own your own business, it can be hard to switch off, however, you still need some respite, so it’s crucial to put practices in place in order to achieve an effective balance.”

Despite the survey indicating that business owners struggle to switch off, it seems there is still a strong desire for many to start their own business. Of the 2,000 Brits surveyed by Paymentsense, 20% plan to start their own business in 2018.