United Nations say flexible working hours can benefit business, productivity and work-life balance

The United Nations in its first report focusing on work-life balances by the UN International Labour Organisation, evaluated the effects of working time, working hours and working time arrangements on the well-being of staff.

Reduced working hours and more flexible working time arrangements, such as those used during the COVID-19 crisis, can benefit economies, enterprises and workers, and lay the ground for a better and more healthy work-life balance, according to the ILO report.

The study, which is the first to focus on work-life balance, found that a substantial portion of the global workforce are working either long or short hours when compared to a standard eight-hour day/40 hour working week. More than one-third of all workers are regularly working more than 48 hours per week, while a fifth of the global workforce is working short (part-time) hours of less than 35 per week. Informal economy workers are more likely to have long or short hours.

View the full report at Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World