Importance of work-life balance and the law

Nowadays it is common to hear people talk of work-life balance, some even organise seminars on the same topic just to let people understand the importance of worklife balance in this fast and busy world where people are busy working either voluntarily to achieve their own goals or work because their employers or clients are demanding a lot from them. I have read a small book written by Robert Holden and Ben Renshaw on “Balancing Work and Life”. They have written extensively on how to balance work and life, that is; being able to balance between the demands of work and those of life.The authors talk about the need to manage time properly to avoid working long hours, defining that success is to avoid always striving for success which isn’t even defined, etc.Today let us discuss whether the concept of work -life balance has been reflected in our law and in particular the Employment and Labour Relations Act, 2004 (ELRA).

Just for clarity, one may ask what is work-life balance? According Wikipedia ‘Work–life balance’ is a concept which includes proper prioritising between “work” (career and ambition) and “lifestyle” (health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development or meditation). One may also ask, is there any importance in balancing work and life? Melissa Abercromby in an article titled “A Report on the Importance of Work-Life Balance” which is published in the Business Improvements Architects (BIA) writes that “Long work hours and highly stressful jobs not only hamper employees’ ability to harmonize work and family life but also are associated with health risks, such as increased smoking and alcohol consumption, weight gain and depression”. She also writes that work life conflict has been associated with numerous physical and mental health implications.

For purposes of striking the balance between the demands of employers of having employees at work and the demands of employee’s lifestyle, the ELRA bears provisions which regulate those two conflicting demands. The first aspect of striking that balance is on the provisions related to the hours and days of work. Section 19 of the ELRA prohibits employers from permitting employees to work more than twelve (12) hours in any day and more than six days in a week. The law sets six days to be the maximum days an employee can work in a week, nine hours in a day and forty five hours in any week. As for overtime, the law prohibits employers to permit employees to work for more than fifty overtime hours in any four week cycle. In the protection of pregnant employees and infants, section 20 of the ELRA prohibits an employer to require or permit a pregnant employee at night (i.e. between 9.00pm and 6.00am) two months before the expected date or when she produces a medical certificate that she is unfit to work at night. Also mothers are also not allowed to work two months after giving births. It is important to note that by the provisions of section 17 of ELRA, the hours of and days of work which I have discussed above do not apply to employees who manage other employees on behalf of the employer.

The second aspect where the concept of work life balance is reflected under the law is on the forms of leave available to employees. This includes annual, sick, maternity, paternity and other forms of leave. The law requires an employee to be given at least 28 days in each leave cycle. During this time an employee has to be paid and the employer shall not require or permit an employee to work. It is illegal for an employer to pay an employee in substitution of the annual leave. Employees are entitled to sick leave of at least 126 days in any leave cycle (in a year) during which an employee is fully paid for the first 63 days and the second 63 days is paid half wages. However, the payment of salaries whether full or half wages has to be supported by a medical certificate brought by the employee.

Another form of leave is maternity, whereby an employee is entitled to 84 days’ paid maternity leave or 100 days within any leave cycle if the employee gives birth to more than one child at the same time.

As for the father of the child, he is entitled to at least three days paternity leave if that leave is taken within seven days of the birth of the child.

Having highlighted a few provisions of the law, one may note that work-life balance under the law is limited to hours of work and different forms of leave. It is important to have those provisions of the law which sets minimum conditions of balancing between work and life because some employers would like to see employees work productively long hours for their business to earn profits regardless of whether the life of an employee is being affected. On the other side some employees would wish to spend a few hours at work, produce little and yet be able to get lucrative salaries to finance their lifestyle. I can simply say the law as it is, is not enough for someone to say it is striking the balance between the demands of work and those of life.

To be able to balance, it is upon an individual employee to properly manage time because much as the hours of work are set by law still employees would carry their laptops and work from home after hours of work. Proper time management and utilisation will allow employees to work within their allotted time frame, without necessarily having to take overtime. Under the law, working overtime is optional and must only be done with agreement of both parties.

It is noted that since most employees earn meagre salaries, some are tempted to work overtime in order to get that much needed additional overtime pay. My view is that in most cases this practice is penny wise but pound foolish because, as noted by Melissa Abercromby, overworking one’s body and soul beyond ordinary working hours carries health risks and social effects which are far more expensive to cure. Besides, those who set up ordinary working hours did not just do that for no reason, they had good reasons such as the welfare of the employees.

The author is an advocate and partner at NexLaw Advocates. He is also a registered Tax Consultant.