Dive Brief:
- Acuity Insurance, Digital Prospectors and Ryan, LLC topped Glassdoor’s Oct. 29 list of the 20 best U.S.-based employers for work-life balance. Other notable companies on the top-20 list included Box, Slack, Docusign, SAP and the St. Jude Research Hospital.
- The employment branding and job search company also released a top-15 U.K.-based companies that included Northern Gas and Power, Google and Capgemini.
- Glassdoor said it analyzed millions of company reviews between March and September, with the 20 employers on the U.S. list having an average work-life balance rating of 4.5/5. "Flexible hours, benefits in and out of work and a focus on mental health are some of the key insights highlighted by employees at companies on these lists," Glassdoor said in its announcement.
Dive Insight:
Work-life balance has been a topic of interest since long before the pandemic. But the results of a January Neuvana poll declared work-life balance "nearly non-existent" for many corporate professionals. Addressing this problem moved to the forefront as offices closed due to COVID-19.
For many workers, the boundary between personal space and work time was eroded by working from home and the ability to be connected around the clock. An early study during the pandemic found that workers were spending more time working and more time in meetings.
As a result, employers have expanded benefits, embraced flexibility in scheduling and now often think about employee well-being on equal footing with productivity. While working parents and women in particular appear to be significantly affected by the conditions brought on by the pandemic, Keith Kitani, founder and CEO of GuideSpark told HR Dive "everyone's been impacted. [...] You have to trust your leaders and managers to evolve."