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IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions [Dublin Foundation]

Working time and worklife balance in European companies [11 October 2006]
http://www.eurofound.eu.int/pubdocs/2006/27/en/1/ef0627en.pdf
[full-text, 82 pages]

See also

Summary

http://www.eurofound.eu.int//publications/htmlfiles/ef0669.htm

or

http://www.eurofound.eu.int/pubdocs/2006/69/en/1/ef0669en.pdf

[full-text, 17 pages]

or

Infosheet

http://www.eurofound.eu.int//publications/htmlfiles/ef0625.htm

or

http://www.eurofound.eu.int/pubdocs/2006/25/en/1/ef0625en.pdf

[full-text, 2 pages]

and

More

http://www.eurofound.eu.int//events/sembrussels2006/

Author:
Riedmann, Arnold; Bielenski, Harald; Szczurowska, Teresa; Wagner, Alexandra

Summary:
The Foundation’s Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work­Life Balance 2004­2005 set out to map the use of a variety of working time arrangements in companies, to assess the reasons for their introduction and their impact. This report presents an overview of the survey’s initial findings. It focuses on aspects such as flexible time arrangements in general, overtime, part-time work, nonstandard working hours, childcare leave and other forms of long-term leave, phased and early retirement and company policies to support work-life balance.

TABLE of CONTENTS
Foreword v
Introduction 1

Introduction 1
1 Flexible working time arrangements 3
Types and incidence of flexi-time arrangements 3
Flexible working time arrangements in companies 7
Characteristics of companies using flexible working times 10

2 Overtime 13
Extent and types of overtime 13
Compensation for overtime 14
Willingness to work overtime 16
Overtime in companies with flexible time arrangements 17
Role of employee representatives 17

3 Part-time work 19
Extent of part-time work 19
Patterns of part-time work 22
Characteristics of part-time workers 23
Experience of part-time work in establishments 24
Possibilities to switch between part-time and full-time hours 26

4 Non-standard working hours 31
Unusual work hours 31
Changing work hours 31
Possibilities to switch between changing and regular hours 33
Role of employee representatives in regulating unusual hours 33

5 Family-related leave and leave of absence 35
Incidence of parental leave 35
Returning to work after parental leave 37
Training opportunities following leave 38
Childcare facilities offered by the company 39
Other forms of long-term leave 40

6 Phased and early retirement 43
Phased retirement schemes 43
Early retirement schemes 45
Company attitudes to phased and early retirement 45

7 Work­life balance 49
Preferred working time initiatives 49

Bibliography 53
Annex 1 Survey methodology and technical remarks 55
Annex 2 Employee representative interviews 60
Annex 3 Parental leave schemes in Europe 67
Annex 4 The ESWT consortium 70
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

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Stuart Basefsky                   
Director, IWS News Bureau                
Institute for Workplace Studies 
Cornell/ILR School                        
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor             
New York, NY 10016                        
                                   
Telephone: (607) 255-2703                
Fax: (607) 255-9641                       
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu                  
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# posted by SBasefsky : 7:56 AM