Since March 2020, the lines between work and our personal time have become blurred like never before. Whilst the work-from-home policies made popular by the pandemic have given employees more freedom over their work schedules than ever, it’s also made it much harder for some people to truly switch off and achieve a real life-work balance.
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A consistently poor life-work balance can have lasting damage to a company’s culture, resulting in poor job satisfaction levels, high absenteeism, decreased quality of work, and a high employee turnover rate.
To find out which industries offer the best life-work balance, Remote has analyzed 22 different industries, creating an overall ranking based on basic and overtime pay rates, annual incentive pay, the amount of hours worked each week, and employee turnover rates.
Top Five Best Industries For a Healthy Life-Work Balance
| Rank | Industry | Average Salary | Annual Incentive Pay | Weekly Pay (Basic) | Weekly Pay (Overtime) | Weekly Paid Hours (Basic) | Weekly Paid Hours (Overtime) | Employee Turnover |
| 1 | Financial and Insurance Activities | £62,244.00 | £11,843.00 | £985.20 | £5.90 | 33.9 | 0.4 | 25% |
| 2 | Information and Communication | £47,556.00 | £3,734.00 | £870.40 | £5.20 | 35.7 | 0.3 | 44% |
| 3 | Electricity, Gas, Steam, and Air Conditioning Supply | £45,541.00 | £1,680.00 | £854.40 | £41.50 | 36.1 | 1.3 | 67% |
| 4 | Mining and Quarrying | £43,066.00 | - | £808.20 | £53.80 | 39.8 | 3.1 | 54% |
| 5 | Real Estate Activities | £33,355.00 | - | £608.00 | £5.70 | 33.2 | 0.3 | 49% |
Some key findings from Remote’s research include:
- The financial and insurance activities industry offers the best life-work balance, followed by the information and communication industry, and the electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply industry.
- The financial and insurance activities industry also offers the lowest employee turnover rate at 25%.
- Mining and quarrying workers spend the highest number of hours working each week, with almost 40 basic paid hours and around 3 hours of paid overtime on top of that.
To see the full research, please visit: https://remote.com/blog/industries-best-life-work-balance
The Financial and Insurance Activities Industry Offers the Best Life-Work Balance
Remote’s analysis reveals that the industry offering its employees the best life-work balance is the financial and insurance activities sector. Compared with the rest of the sectors analyzed, this industry has the highest average salary with £62,244 and the best annual incentive pay with £11,843.
Employees working in financial and insurance activities also have the highest basic weekly pay rate at £985.20, working just under 34 hours each week to earn this. Offering financial and insurance professionals such an excellent life-work balance could be the reason why this sector has the lowest employee turnover rate of every industry Remote looked at, with 25%.
Other Top Industries for Life-Work Balances Include the Information and Communication, and Electricity, Gas, Steam, and Air Conditioning Supply
Paying an average salary of £47,556, the information and communication industry offers the second best life-work balance according to Remote’s analysis.
Whilst basic pay rates are relatively high in this industry, overtime pay is fairly low at £5.20 an hour and the employee turnover rate is not as favorable as in the financial and insurance activities sector with 44%.
The third best industry for a life-work balance is electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply.
The average annual salary in electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply is £45,541, around £2,000 less than the information and communication industry offers. However, workers in this industry receive a much higher rate of overtime pay at £41.50, the financial and insurance activities industry and the information and communication industry offer just £5.90 and £5.20 respectively.
However, employee turnover in this sector is 67%, the highest out of the top five industries - the slightly higher 36.1 hour working week could be a contributor to this.
Top Five Best Industries For a Healthy Life-Work Balance
| Rank | Industry | Average Salary | Annual Incentive Pay | Weekly Pay (Basic) | Weekly Pay (Overtime) | Weekly Paid Hours (Basic) | Weekly Paid Hours (Overtime) | Employee Turnover |
| 1 | Financial and Insurance Activities | £62,244.00 | £11,843.00 | £985.20 | £5.90 | 33.9 | 0.4 | 25% |
| 2 | Information and Communication | £47,556.00 | £3,734.00 | £870.40 | £5.20 | 35.7 | 0.3 | 44% |
| 3 | Electricity, Gas, Steam, and Air Conditioning Supply | £45,541.00 | £1,680.00 | £854.40 | £41.50 | 36.1 | 1.3 | 67% |
| 4 | Mining and Quarrying | £43,066.00 | - | £808.20 | £53.80 | 39.8 | 3.1 | 54% |
| 5 | Real Estate Activities | £33,355.00 | - | £608.00 | £5.70 | 33.2 | 0.3 | 49% |
Remote’s Senior People Specialist, Keah Nguyen advises employees to help their staff set clear boundaries between work and personal time. Nguyen says, “Remote encourages its employees not to have work apps on their phones and to master the art of working asynchronously. By switching to async workflows, team members can work at the hours that are best for them — and not during hours they would rather be doing something else.
About Remote:
Remote’s mission is to open up the vast potential of the world for every person, business and country. We envision a world where every person and business truly belongs in the global market.
