Indeed, the title of this first Commentary for 2006 is not at all original since I am sure that, as in previous years, most of us have already identified those areas in our lives that need to be redressed during this New Year.

With this premise in mind, this Commentary will not refer to dieting, exercise, being good, saving money, moving house or planning a holiday. These resolutions could be the fruit of one major resolution, which is that of intensifying our philosophy of a better quality of life through work-life balance, which is the aim of this article.

A definition of "work-life balance" is: "People having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. It is achieved when an individual's right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society"1.

To arrive at meeting our people's needs to strike a balance between work and life, employers, senior HR managers/directors and other policy-makers in our businesses have to ensure that their family-friendly policies facilitate the reconciliation of work and family life by fostering "adequacy of family resources and child development, favour(ing) the parental choice about work and care, and promot(ing) gender equality in employment This opportunities"2.

However, government legislation and family-friendly policies and programmes are not yet enough to instil a culture where people feel really free to use such benefits. There are a number of factors that could create psychological barriers, causing workers to waver from taking advantage of such initiatives.

Such factors could include leaders upholding career advancement to those workers who are on flexi-time; the regular long working hours leaders tend to spend at their workplace, perhaps neglecting also their vacation leave; and the lack of female visibility in managerial positions. Leaders, executives and managers have to walk the talk to avoid the failure of work-life balance programmes.

People should make full use of family-friendly legislation, policies and programmes without fear and/or hesitation. Organisations need, thus, to value their employees' perspective and understanding of their job, its requirements and their employees' personal needs.

For work-life balance initiatives to be successful, businesses require supportive managers who, with their attitude, would instil loyalty that in turn would improve performance. Middle managers are the link between the company policy-makers and their people.

Therefore it is important that they are knowledgeable on such initiatives so that they can act as ambassadors, informing their people of how to improve their quality of life. It is not that personal life always comes first. It is not that the company always comes first.

But there should be open communication between management and their people to meet both parties' demands. Such a negotiation requires, among other factors, mutual trust, loyalty and performance measurements in place so that everything is transparent vis-à-vis those employees who do not require such benefits.

Creating such a work environment would mean better performance as people are less stressed, take less sick leave and retention strategies could be better managed. Such work-life balance initiatives would also help families to cope better with their work and family responsibilities that impact both present and future society.

This calls for both employers and their people to seriously consider embracing this New Year resolution, which aims at intensifying the work-life balance philosophy for a better quality of life.

Having said that, however, one must not ignore that there is still much more to be done for the country to meet its goals to reconcile work and family while still providing quality of service. Policies, like paid parental leave, childcare centres, reduced hours and others can be very costly to the employer and to the local economy.

So authorities are to monitor very closely the outcome of such family-friendly measures while studying and learning from other countries, like Australia and Sweden, so that such initiatives yield long-term benefits.

1. www.keepmedia.com

2. www.oecd.org