Dubai, UAE,10 March2019: A new poll conducted by Bayt.com – the Middle East’s #1 Job Site – titled Work-Life Balance in the MENA Workplace explores its effect on performance, morale and commitment among MENA professionals. A whopping90% of survey respondents consider work-life balance to be “extremely important”. In fact, it is so important that65% of poll takers have considered leaving their current job to find better work-life balance at some point during the past12 months.
Balanced employees tend to feel more motivated and less stressed out at work, which increases company productivity and reduces the number of conflicts among coworkers and management. Having a good balance between a personal life and career is the top priority for MENA professionals,66% cite their family as the most important factor influencing their happiness, followed by their job (16%), salary (7%) hobbies and activities (4%), and friends and colleagues (3%).
Reducing stress to increase performance in all aspects of life – including one’s job – is the ultimate goal of work-life balance. MENA employers are playing an active role in the wellbeing of their employees –74% survey respondents said that their leadership respects their time and work-life balance and79% say that they have time to exercise and take care of their health and77% have time to pursue their hobbies and passions. In general,75% of MENA employees feel that they maintain a healthy work-life balance.
However, not all workplaces are the same and workload fluctuates overtime– at one point or another during the past year,65% of employees have considered leaving their current job because of a lack of work-life balance. At the same time, more than half of professionals (57%) say that they neglect some personal and family responsibilities due to work.
Long workhours is directly associated with lower work-life balance. In the MENA region,45% of professionals said they work more than40 hours a week. About three-quarters of professionals (74%) said they often have to work overtime or put in extra hours from home.
Modern employees demand greater control over their lives and a bigger say in the structure of their jobs and an influence on their own schedules in order to striking a most sustained balance between their career and family obligations and personal matters.
Data for the Bayt.com’s Work-Life Balance in the MENA Workplace survey was collected online from January9,2019 to February27,2019. Results are based on a sample of9,833 respondents. Countries assessed include UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Sudan.