Work-life balance in ecommerce - an overview: Part 1

Work-life balance in ecommerce is a topic we keep finding ourselves drawn to. We have already looked at overtime in ecommerce and how that affects employee sentiments to their role. However, there is still more to be taken from this subject.

In a new two-part #PandaPounds exclusive, we’re going to cover the following…

• The overall feelings on work-life balance in the industry
• What can management do to encourage work-life balance?
• Seniority – does work-life balance become harder to achieve the further you go in your career?
• Do long commutes affect work-life balance?

That’s a lot to cover so, without further ado, let’s learn about all things work-life balance.

Are ecommerce professionals happy with their work-life balance?

As we can see, 62% of our 2019 ecommerce salary survey & insights report respondents are happy with their current work-life balance. While it’s more than half of our respondents, is it indicative of a lack of focus on wellbeing? Should this number be higher?

In our 2017 and 2018 reports, this number stood at 68% so this is the first year we have seen a decrease. With this decrease comes an increase in those who are not happy with their work-life balance. This figure was at 18% in 2017, before rising to 20% in 2018. Now, 22% of ecommerce professionals don’t seem to have found that perfect balance between work and personal life. What can be done to see an increase in ‘yes’ responses in future years? Is it down to management, or does the individual control how they approach their work style?

Can ecommerce management encourage better work-life balance?

We asked our questionnaire respondents if they felt managers could be more encouraging when it comes to work-life balance. Surprisingly, 36% feel that managers can be more encouraging, while 44% feel that they cannot. The remaining 20% specified that they were a manager/owner, so feel it is their responsibility to promote work-life balance in the business.

The graphic below shows just a few of the ways our respondents felt their management could do to help encourage work-life balance in the ecommerce department…

• Flexibility is a popular choice. If employees are trusted to get their work done in the office, should they have the chance to demonstrate the same from home? Even when this is offered as a benefit, our respondents feel it is still a touchy subject so simply choose not to use it.
• Company culture and work-life balance almost go hand in hand. With 51% of our respondents saying company culture is not prioritised in the industry, perhaps this is one to focus on in the next year.
• One response stood out: “Current company is more focused on time spent in office than results. Time is not indicative of anything other than perhaps being under qualified or usually under-resourced. Flexibility on time and location is important…companies should be looking after their employees.” Very interesting comments indeed, particularly the point about location. We will be exploring this in part 2 of this blog when we focus on the commute!

Part 2 of our work-life balance blog coming very soon!

We don’t want to overload you with a tonne of stats, so we will resume part 2 of this blog tomorrow! In the meantime, you can check out all the salary survey exclusives by clicking below!