While performing mandatory practical training at Social Work Centre, I have noticed that a lot of employees work overtime and carry their work home. I started to ask myself, how they can reconcile their work and family life. Thus, I got an idea to research how the employees in Social Work Centres reconcile their work and family life.
By means of a questionnaire I asked employees of Social Work Centres how much time on average they spent at their work post; how much job related work they do at home per week; how much time they spent with their families; how well do they know the rights they have as working parents; do they have difficulties in reconcile their work and family life; do men and women cope differently with reconciliation of work and family life; do employees of different Social Work Centres cope differently with reconciliation of work and family life. 70 people took part in the research – 67 women and 3 men. 26 people work at Social Work Centre Spodnje Podravje region, 21 people at Social Work Centre Celje, 13 at Social Work Centre Maribor, and 10 at Social Work Centre Pomurje region.
The findings of the research show that men and women cope differently with reconciliation of work and family life; moreover, the employees of different Social Work Centres cope differently with reconciliation of work and family life.
While reconciling their work and family life, the employees of Social Work Centres face obstacles; the main problem is not in the reconciliation itself, the main problem is employee’s overload. In my opinion, there should be changes in the reconciliation of work and family life.
Possible solutions for easier reconciliation of work and family life of employees at Social Work Centres are new employments, alternation of business hours, better organization of work, and encouragement of employers to support the measures which could ease the reconciliation of work and family life.
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