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These Are the Highest-Rated Employers in the UK for Work-Life Balance, According to Glassdoor

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The U.K.'s Office for National Statistics has been named the country's best employer for work-life balance in 2021, according to rankings compiled by jobs website Glassdoor.   

The ONS is the U.K.'s largest independent producer of official statistics and is a non-ministerial department which reports to the U.K. Parliament.

Glassdoor analyzed more than 600,000 reviews left by full-time U.K.-based employees on its website between the beginning of the year and the end of Sept. 2021, to compile the rankings, released on Wednesday.

The jobs website looked at how workers rated their employer out of five, in terms of work-life balance, to get an average score across the reviews. Glassdoor also looked at specific reoccurring keywords in the reviews, such as "mental health" and "wellbeing," in order to gauge sentiment.

It found that ONS employees liked the department's flexible working policy in particular. According to its website, ONS offers flexible working arrangements between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

IT infrastructure and services provider Softcat ranked second on Glassdoor's list, with employees praising its "people first" culture, as well as its part-time and job-share working options.

British semiconductor and software design company Arm came in third place on the list. Employees at the firm have access to a workplace mental health app, which offers help with different areas like productivity and sleep. Arm employees are also encouraged to use workdays to volunteer and are offered four additional "day of care" holidays each year.

Lauren Thomas, economist at Glassdoor, said that those employers which topped the rankings offered a "range of options to help workers harmonize their home and professional lives."

"Whether it is the autonomy to set one's schedule, hybrid working policies or simply trust shown by management that work will be delivered without being tied to an office, it is clear that a healthy balance is best achieved when employees can individualise their approach to work," she said.

Here's a rundown of the top employers on Glassdoor's list for work-life balance.

Top 10 U.K. employers for work-life balance

  1. Office for National Statistics
  2. Softcat
  3. Arm
  4. Sky Betting & Gaming
  5. Mastercard
  6. Bank of England
  7. Dell Technologies
  8. FirstPort
  9. Sage
  10. SAP

Additional research, also published Wednesday by Glassdoor, found that 48% of workers had taken action to improve the blend of their work and home life amid the coronavirus pandemic.

However, 52% admitted that work still regularly ate into their personal life and more than a third believed that it wasn't possible to find a healthy balance in their current job.

This was according to a survey of 2,017 full-time U.K. employees, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Glassdoor, in early October.  

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