Reduced working hours and work-life balance

ABSTRACT

Little is known about how reduced working hours affects the work-life balance of staff in the Swedish social services, or their recovery off-work in terms of specific everyday choices. Staff at a Swedish social work agency participating in a longitudinal trial of work-time reduction in the public services were interviewed about their experiences of work and private life after their work hours were reduced (n = 12). All the interviewees described feeling more positive anticipatory emotions when going to work, several felt that their relationships with colleagues had improved, and most felt their relationships with clients had improved. Several worried less over work, and most perceived the risk for exhaustion syndrome to be lower. Most experienced more positive anticipatory emotions when returning home from work, most of those with children felt that their relationships with their children improved, and those with partners felt their romantic relationships also improved. Several devoted more time to parents and siblings. Most devoted more time to friendship, and all described having more time for recovery activities. Several worried less over their private life. A process that established and maintained a positive work-life balance is suggested by the interviews as a whole, related to increased control over private life, a larger capacity to meet private demands, improved recovery in terms of both quantity and quality, and having access to more sources of formal and informal social support.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• stress
• work-life balance
• recovery
• reduced work hours

Introduction

Work stress and burnout among social workers has been reported internationally for a long time (McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015). This is also the case in Sweden, where social workers have long been among the professional groups that suffer from a high prevalence of stress-related disorders and work absence due to work-related complaints, which are experienced to a higher degree by women, who dominate the profession (Arbetsmiljöverket 2016, 2018). Problems with retention have long been reported, particularly among those new to the profession (Tham 2007, 2018a). Working conditions seem to have continuously deteriorated during the 2000’s, with Swedish social workers reporting higher demands, more role conflicts, less influence over decisions, less time for clients, and increased intention to leave their workplaces or the profession (Tham 2018a). Social workers active in low income districts seem to be even more vulnerable, with more negative perceptions of work tasks, higher intention to leave, more health problems, and less satisfaction with their organizations, than social workers in middle-income and high-income districts (Tham 2018b). Work stress in Swedish social work may be related to lower quality of client care, insofar as some coping strategies social workers use to reduce stress might actually be negative for client care, such as reducing demand by lowering work ambitions, setting the bar for quality lower (Astvik, Melin, and Allvin 2014) or normalizing lack of time to meet clients (Barck-Holst et al. 2019). Yet, few intervention studies have been performed to examine what might actually alleviate work stress in social work, which makes it important to understand in depth the impact of the interventions that have been tried.

As early as 1996, it was suggested that work stress in social work had become normalized through a ‘culture of stress’ (Thompson et al. 1996). Similarly, it has recently been suggested that lack of time has become normalized in Swedish social work (Olsson and Sundh 2018). Interventions that attempt to reduce stress in social work by manipulating work hours may thus be of interest. Reduced working hours with a proportional reduction in workload has been examined in two separate Finnish trials including social workers. One study found that job exhaustion was reduced (Nätti and Anttila 1999), and the other that work-family conflict decreased, particularly when work time was reduced in the form of 6-hour shifts (Anttila, Nätti, and Väisänen 2005). In Sweden a large quasi-experimental trial examining the possible psychosocial health effects of reduced working hours was performed in the Swedish public services in 2005–2006 by the National Institute for Working Life (NIWL), at the behest of the Swedish government (Bildt et al. 2007), for which the data in the sub-study reported here was collected. NIWL was closed unexpectedly in 2006, delaying all international publication of results. Our first quantitative study of the seven social work agencies in the trial found positive effects on restorative sleep, stress, memory difficulties, negative emotion, sleepiness, fatigue and exhaustion on workdays and weekends, sleep quality on weekends, work demands, instrumental manager support and work intrusion on private life (Barck-Holst et al. 2015). The data is still relevant to explore, as most major changes to the Swedish social services, in terms of reduced resources and reorganizations, took place in the 90’s and early 2000’s, as a result of political demands in the 80’s and a financial crisis in the 90’s (Hedin and Månsson 2012). Yet, the need to alleviate work stress among Swedish social workers may be even higher today, as Swedish social workers in 2014 reported having more to do, being more obliged to work overtime, and more often having to change their work plans to handle emergencies, compared to 2003 (Tham 2018a). Our subsequent mixed-method analysis of one of the social work agencies in the trial found that reduced working hours reduced burnout in terms of emotional exhaustion and also reduced reactivity in stressful situations connected to time urgency and irritation (Barck-Holst et al. 2019). But the interviews performed suggested that the work stress brought on by high caseloads was not fully resolved, whilst all stress-related time conflicts during free-time, concerning chores and social obligations, seemed resolved (Barck-Holst et al. 2019). The aim of the present study is therefore to explore how the social workers at the agency experienced work-life balance during reduced working hours.

Theoretical background

To theoretically understand reduced working hours in the context of social work, several major theories are relevant. The well-established demand/control model predicts that high job demands and low control over work increases stress (Karasek and Theorell 1990), and that low social support at work exacerbates this (Johnson and Hall 1988). Although commonly used to examine work stress, the logic of the model may also apply to the demands individuals face in their free-time. Control over time-off work is associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time (Albrecht et al. 2017). The role of social support has been studied with some regularity in social work. A review found social support in terms of supervision from managers and team support (Lloyd, King, and Chenoweth 2002) reduces work stress in social workers, as well as informal social support from friends and family, which has also been found to positively affect psychological distress in social workers (Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2015).

Work-life balance is also important to consider in the context of reduced working hours, which changes its very premises. Work-life balance has traditionally been explored primarily in terms of conflict between work and family, which is related to negative health outcomes such as emotional exhaustion, poor self-rated health and problem drinking (Leineweber et al. 2013). A ‘loss spiral’ has been identified, where work pressure leads to work-home interference, which leads to exhaustion, which then results in more work-home interference and work pressure (Demerouti, Bakker, and Bulters 2004). Our quantitative study of the seven social work agencies in the trial used non-exclusionary work-life balance items (i.e. not contingent on marital or family status) to examine work-life balance, and found that work intrusion on private life decreased (Barck-Holst et al. 2015).

Recovery theory is another major theory relevant to understanding reduced working hours. Recovery at work and off-work is considered to counteract work stress, but recovery may be impeded if it is obstructed by working long hours (Geurts and Sonnentag 2006). A Swedish study of stress, working conditions and recovery, found 43% of the participating social workers were inadequately recovered, as difficult working conditions led to compensatory strategies such as working intensively, skipping breaks, bringing work home and thinking about work during free-time (Aronsson, Astvik, and Gustafsson 2014). A quantitative study of time use including all workers in all four public sectors in the reduced working hours trial (social services, technology, care, tele call centres), found that all workers who reduced their work hours increased the time spent on domestic work and relaxing hobbies during workdays, and on free-time activities during days off (Schiller et al. 2017b).

Some theories of stress focus on individuals, rather than working conditions. In the case of social work, work stressors have been found to affect stress more than the individual characteristics of social workers (Collings and Murray 1996), and the individual characteristics of social workers have not been identified as central to stress and burnout (Lloyd, King, and Chenoweth 2002). However, some theories that are relatively unexplored in social work may still warrant consideration, as a means of exploring if the interaction between individual social workers and the practice of social work is mutually constituting. Performance based self-esteem is a concept which may capture such an interaction, and refers to self-esteem which is contingent on perceived work performance and is usually measured with the PBSS-scale (Hallsten, Josephson, and Torgén 2005). Performance based self-esteem has been found to be related to increased burnout (Dahlin, Joneborg, and Runeson 2007), and to be experienced more by young Swedish people and Swedish academics (Hallsten, Bellaagh, and Gustafsson 2002). Work experience also stems from the interaction between the individual and the workplace. The ‘healthy worker effect’ suggests a professional selection effect takes place over time, where those who cannot endure leave the profession, whereas the healthy stay on (Karasek and Theorell 1990). Work experience has been suggested as a possible retention factor among social workers in child welfare (Ellett et al. 2007). Intention to leave social work has increased in Sweden, as has the number of inexperienced social workers (Tham 2018a). How social workers perceive themselves in light of their work accomplishments, particularly those that are new in the profession, and how the work experience they are able to form affects their work stress, are thus areas of interest.

The discussion above indicates that there is a lack of qualitative information on how work-life balance is experienced by social workers during a reduced working hours intervention.

Aim

The present study seeks to explore how social workers experience work-life balance during reduced working hours. The following research questions were formulated: How does reduced working hours relate to the experience of work-life balance? How does reduced working hours relate to the experience of social work? How does reduced working hours relate to everyday recovery choices?

Method

Public organizations were recruited by a national call for participation, and were then randomized to either control or intervention group. The intervention group reduced their work hours by 25%, and their workload by 25%, but retained full-time pay. A survey was distributed to the intervention group (n = 449) and the control group (n = 372) at three times during the trial, before the intervention (February-May 2005), and twice whilst the participants were still in the reduced working hours condition (January-February 2006 and November 2006) (Bildt et al. 2007). The trial period was approximately 18 months. To be considered per protocol, i.e. to adhere fully to the trial requirements, participants had to have worked full time before the intervention began, data on hours worked had to be available for at least 14 out of the 18 trial months, and they had to have answered the main survey at baseline, before reduced working hours, and at the first or second follow-up (Bildt et al. 2007). At the end of the trial 265 participants remained per protocol in the intervention group, and 145 participants in the control group, primary reasons for not being included were lack of available data on hours worked, and having worked more than allowed (Bildt et al. 2007). No post-measurement was made after the participants had returned to full-time work, since the National Institute for Working Life, which performed the trial, was closed in 2006. A study of all workers in all four participating public sectors found positive effects on work stress and sleep (Schiller et al. 2017a).

One social service agency in the trial was selected for in depth study. The agency serviced an urban low-income district, where staff worked with children, teenagers and families. Before reduced working hours full-time at the agency amounted to 39 hours a week. The interviews were performed at the agency in the fall of 2006 and were recorded, transcribed, and analysed in NVivo11 (average duration 1 h 37 minutes). The interview guide consisted of two sections. The first section concerned coping behaviour in stressful situations before and after reduced working hours (Barck-Holst et al. 2019). The second, reported here, was based on a structured interview format, and concerned the experience of reduced working hours, and lasted approximately 20–30 minutes. The interview questions concerned dimensions thought relevant to stress and work-life balance; professional relationships, emotions in anticipation of work, support at work, client relationships, work-related worry, performance based self-esteem, burnout, work experience, feelings about returning to full-time work, emotions in anticipation of coming home, private relationships, private support and worry about private life (Table 1). When referring to the period before reduced working hours most likely respondents referred to a year before the interview, as this was the way questions were framed in the first section in the interviews – regarding reduced working hours, one year back in time. To attempt to gauge performance-based self-esteem the interviewees were asked if their self-esteem was strongly affected by work, a question inspired by the PBSS-scale (Hallsten, Josephson, and Torgén 2005).

Table 1. Interview questions.

(1) What is your relationship with your colleagues like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(2) What is your relationship with your clients like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(3) How do you feel about going to work? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(4) What support concerning stress do you get from your workplace? On whose initiative?

(5) Do you worry about work? Even if nothing special is happening? Has your worry been affected by reduced working hours?

(6) Is your self-esteem strongly affected by work?

(7) Have you ever been on sick leave for exhaustion syndrome, aka Burnout? Has reduced working hours affected how you view your own risk for exhaustion syndrome? How do you view this risk?

(8) Is your experience of stress affected by how long you’ve worked in the profession?

(9) How do you feel about returning to full-time?

(10) Have your feelings about coming home been affected by reduced working hours? How do you feel about coming home?

(11) What is your relationship with your children like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(12) What is your relationship with your partner like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(13) What is your relationship with your friends like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(14) What is your relationship with your family like? Has it been affected by reduced working hours?

(15) Does your relationship, or being single, affect your stress?

(16) What support do you get from your private relationship concerning stress? Who initiates it?

(17) Do you worry about your private life? Even if nothing special is happening?

Qualitative content analysis was used, a method in which text is typically condensed into meaning units to generate themes, categories or codes, and researchers focus on interpreting manifest or latent content (Graneheim and Lundman 2004). Our analysis is primarily based on manifest content, as we felt more interpretative stances were not suitable in this context, which focuses on letting the social workers speak. Our interpretations are instead based more on theories concerning work stress. Interview transcripts were entered into Nvivo11, the social workers’ answers were then analysed per question, and condensed into meaning units, that generated categories, and subsequently tentative themes, related to work-life balance.

Study population

All of the 22 participants at the social work agency who participated in the intervention group in the reduced working hours trial were contacted by the first author and asked if they were willing to be interviewed, and all agreed. At the end of the trial, however, only 12 remained per protocol according to the requirements of the trial, and thus only their data was analysed, in order to align the findings in this study with our previous studies on social workers. Their ages ranged between 28–62 years, mean age 45, SD 13, median 45.5. The range of years in service was 4–34, mean years in service was 14 (SD 11), median 10. The interviewees work positions, gender, age and years in service, are presented in detail in Table 2. Social workers worked with children, teenagers and families. Social assistants lacked the formal right to make decisions such as placing children in custody of the state, and worked with families, with tasks such as gathering information about supportive family networks, or investigating paternity issues.

Table 2. Interviewees positions, gender, age and years in service.

Interviewees		Gender		Age			Years in service
Position	n	Men	Women	18–35	36–50	51–65	1–10	11–20	21–30	31–40
Manager	2	1	1		1	1		1		1
Social worker	7	1	6	3	2	2	4	1	2
Social assistant	3	1	2	1	1	1	3
Total	12	3	9	4	4	4	7	2	2	1

Results for the intervention group

Emotions in anticipation of work

All described a strong shift in emotion in the mornings when getting up to go to work, from feelings of resistance and exhaustion, to positive emotions in anticipation of a good day: ‘It’s more fun to go to work, cause I know the hours are shorter, there’s time … to get more things done afterwards. So it doesn’t feel as heavy.’ Interviews took place in the fall, so the darkness of this season in Sweden seems not to have influenced the participants.

Support at work, collegial relationships and client relationships

Several described that the main support they received from colleagues was in the form of solution-focused discussions. Some social workers described using colleagues primarily to ventilate negative emotions after facing stressors, or when feeling overburdened. However, it was unusual that colleagues helped by taking over actual work tasks in order to alleviate workload. Some described receiving no support from colleagues at all, both before and after reduced working hours. Particularly managers described lacking sources of support, and few opportunities to receive support from other middle-managers, or their own managers, regardless of work hours.

Some social workers described experiencing positive changes in their collegial relationships after reducing their work hours: ‘Everybody is a little happier. […] There’s another tone at work’. Improved general mood in the workforce was described: ‘There’s been a more positive vibe in our workplace. Nobody has quit, people have been more motivated for work, and more positive.’

Managers did not meet clients directly, but most of the social workers and social assistants described that their own relationships with clients had improved, mainly due to improved mood: ‘I feel better. […] I’m calmer.’ Improved mood could enhance their patience with clients, and in turn enhance client trust: ‘Maybe I’m more patient. […] They trust me more.’ Improved mood was also described as helping them be more engaged during sessions: ‘Maybe I’m a little happier. […] I give more of myself, and also give them more space, and maybe I listen more.’ One reason suggested explicitly for this stronger engagement level with clients was improved daily recovery from work: ‘If you take away 10 hours of something I can fill that with something else […] that gives me a kind of energy to be present when I work.’

Worry over work, burnout, and feelings concerning returning to full-time work

Most described that their worry over work had decreased. This was attributed to a variety of factors, such as less daily exposure to job stressors: ‘It doesn’t infect my home as much.’ Increased durability in the face of work stress, due to having more recovery opportunities, was also described: ‘I feel better as a person, so it doesn’t create as much stress and irritation as it used to.’ Recovery seemed to be linked strongly to improved general mood: ‘Because free-time has improved, my baseline mood has improved, and the worry has decreased.’ Improved work detachment was also described as reducing worry: ‘It’s easier for me to be off-work when I’m off-work.’ Those who perceived themselves as being ‘non-worriers’ tended to describe their worry as stable over time, and thus as unaffected by reduced working hours.

Several social workers reporting having been close to burnout, or having experienced burnout symptoms on and off, and one had previously been on formal sick-leave for exhaustion syndrome. Most of those interviewed believed the risk of developing exhaustion syndrome had decreased, regardless of whether they had experienced burnout symptoms or not before reduced working hours. Some social workers and social assistants saw reduced working hours as lowering burnout risk, as it resolved life-balance issues: ‘I’m really affected by having more free time, I always thought I had to choose between free time and work time.’ Some social workers and social assistants based their assessment on actually having experienced a reduction of stress and burnout symptoms after their work hours were reduced and workload decreased, and compared this with their experience at full-time: ‘There was an intense period when I had chest pains, a period with a lot of stress and emergencies in client cases, when I thought ‘I can’t handle this!’ Burnout assessments tended to raise speculations regarding the long term consequences of working full-time as a social worker: ‘23 years to retirement, how will I make it?’

All the interviewees described being wary of returning to the daily pressure of full-time: ‘There’s some resistance. […] A feeling that I won’t be able to do what I have time to do now.’ Some social workers described fear of their stress increasing and recovery opportunities decreasing, and worried about not being able to cope: ‘At my age, and feeling like I do, if you add two hours per day, and look ten years ahead, I fear I’ll be more tired. And less happy.’

Performance-based self-esteem and work experience

Some of the interviewees described performance based self-esteem, i.e that their self-esteem was strongly contingent on their work performance, and thus felt upset with themselves if things went badly at work, or better about themselves if things went well. They tended to be younger, and to have spent less time in the profession. In contrast, those who described their self-esteem as more stable, and not contingent on work performance, tended to be somewhat older. However, in their answers several experienced social workers also described that their self-esteem had been much more contingent on job performance when they first started out in social work.

Most felt that their experience of social work affected their work stress. Experienced social workers and managers, with ten or more years in the profession, often described that their long work experience alleviated work stress, as they rarely encountered any new stressful situations: ‘Most of the situations you’ve experienced before and you know how to solve them’. They also described catastrophizing less regarding the final outcomes of client processes: ‘You have the routine, and the knowledge, that even if it feels like everything’s gone to hell it probably hasn’t.’ But several experienced social workers and managers also felt that their time in the profession had worn them: ‘I get tired, I get stressed, I can feel that I can’t think, can’t concentrate.’ Those who felt their work experience did not affect their stress were either new to the profession and had no substantial work experience to lean on, perceived social work to be inherently stressful, regardless of their own work experience, or were unsure of the impact of this. The relationship between experience and stress did not seem to be clear-cut. Personal tendency to worry was described as one aspect which could modulate the effect of experience. For some, a few years of experience seemed to have quickly reduced work stress, whereas others had many years of experience, but felt it had not availed them to the same extent.

Emotions in anticipation of going home

Most described experiencing more positive anticipatory emotions when going home: ‘I don’t feel as tired when I come home, I feel I want to do things.’ The emotions seemed connected to knowing that there would be sufficient time for a varied recovery process during the evening: ‘It’s a lot easier cause I get home earlier, and once I’ve sat down to rest a little while, I feel I want to get cracking.’ In contrast, they described being overwhelmed by the off-work demands they had to face at full-time: ‘It felt heavy, like starting another job’, at times described as a type of semi-collapse, with social workers having little or no energy for meeting other people, or for doing chores: ‘Tired, off, I’d go straight to the sofa to rest and then do nothing, despite wanting to.’

Children, romantic relationships, partners and stress

Most of those who had children described having more time to be with their children, more time to vary their children’s activities and to include their children in everyday chores, improving the quantity and quality of their interactions: ‘It gives me so much, and I think it does the same for her.’ Being less stressed, and being able to be more present with children off-work, seemed to help parents engage with their children in their children’s tempo: ‘I get a better sense of what kind of an 8-year old he is, an opportunity to talk with each other, instead of just nagging him about eating his food.’ A higher threshold for feeling irritation towards children was also described: ‘I’m more accessible for doing things. […] they enjoy having a dad that’s not screaming all the time.’

Most felt the romantic relationships they were in affected their stress. Romantic relationships were primarily described as reducing stress, as they provided opportunities to receive emotional support and problem-solve. It was, however, less common for partners to attempt to alleviate their stress by offering to perform more household tasks or perform other off-work responsibilities. Several noted that being in a relationship also placed demands on them that could be stressful, and if things went badly, the relationship itself could become a temporary stressor. Being single was described as stressful, due to loneliness and financial reasons.

Those with partners experienced that their relationships had improved, as they had time to do spontaneous, enjoyable things together that strengthened their relationships: ‘There’s more time for doing things beside the everyday, it’s not that fun to just do the dishes together. We now have more time for each other in a way that is remarkable.’ Some also reported being less tired and less irritable with their partners: ‘When I’m tired I get cranky, when I’m not tired I get in a better mood. I have more to give. My attention and time.’

Friendship, family and informal social support

Most devoted more time to friendship, which was described as related to positive mood: ‘It’s fun to do things. I listen in a different way. […] Things get better overall. […] It puts me in a good mood.’ For some, meeting friends more frequently also alleviated guilt over neglecting them when working full-time: ‘I felt guilty over not having time for them. […] thank god they stuck with me, friendship requires time.’ Reciprocity in friendship increased, attributed both increased frequency of contact, and to improved mood: ‘I meet them more often and I talk more with them on the phone. And foremost I’m happier.’ Some did not describe their friendships as affected by reduced working hours, as they had fixed routines for how and when they met friends, which they did not feel a need to adjust, regardless of working hours.

Several described that reducing their work hours made it possible to increase the frequency of family contacts, which strengthened family relationships, and alleviated the feelings of guilt they had felt at full-time over not having time to meet family: ‘If my parents call me and I’m not home, and then I get home and I see that they’ve called me, and I feel “I don’t have the energy to call, I’m so freaking tired.”, of course it gives you a guilty conscience.’ In some cases caring for sick or elderly parents was described as easier: ‘My mother died […] She needed care, and I could be with her a lot. I was there when she died. […] I probably would have taken the time anyways, but it would have had other consequences.’ Those who experienced their relationships to their families as unaffected stated a variety of reasons, such as having family that lived in other parts of Sweden, or to their level of contact with their families being stable, regardless of circumstances.

Most sought informal social support in their private relationships to alleviate work stress. Most sought support from friends, which primarily consisted of venting their emotions, doing distracting, pleasurable things together, or, if the friends were social workers, discussing solutions to stressful work situations. Another effect of talking to friends was described as getting some perspective on their problems, and to normalize having problems in itself: ‘You walk around feeling depressed over how things are but then you notice … You’d think everybody else is so happy. But everybody has the same situation.’ Seeking support from partners was also common, primarily to achieve distance from stressful situations. Parents were rarely consulted concerning work stress.

Free-time use

The two extra hours of free-time a day were spent on a mixture of activities, but some recovery activities were described more frequently than others. Several of the interviewees described exercise as a strategy to increase overall wellbeing and as a way to engage socially: ‘It gives me more energy, I feel better and I’m happier with myself.’ Several described spending part of their extra free-time on friends, which provided joy, emotional support, and other takes on life: ‘[…] meeting people that don’t necessarily work as social workers provides new input and perspectives.’ Some described having time to pursue, or start, various hobbies, like singing in a choir, gardening and reading: ‘I enjoy reading in the garden […] immensely relaxing.’ Sleeping more was described by some: ‘I’m more alert, much kinder when I get in, sleeping longer makes me happier, I’m not a morning person.’ Some described doing more household chores: ‘I’ve got more time for practical errands that have to be done.’ Parents tended to describe using the extra time to make every day routines with children more playful, and being able to engage with children more:

Every other week I spend a lot of it on my son. […] I can pick him up earlier from day care. […] I feel like a better dad, that I’m able to give him a little more time and energy.

One social assistant described spending more time with family: ‘Parents, siblings, family. My closest relatives. […] It makes me feel good.’ One social worker actively chose to spend more time alone to find peace of mind: ‘I get a chance to be with myself without having to do anything for anybody else for a while.’

Worry about private life

Most described that their worry about private life had improved. One type of worry that was described as lower was that burnout symptoms would lead to full-blown burnout: ‘A year and a half ago, before reduced working hours, I thought “I have to quit this and do something else. I don’t want to be a social worker anymore.”’ Worry was described as lower for various reasons, such as improved recovery: ‘I have more energy, and because I have more energy I don’t get worried as easily’. Friends also provided opportunities to vent and problem-solve work stress: ‘Because I have the possibility to hang out more and talk more with friends I also get help if I worry about something.’ Compared to full-time the time and energy available to handle previous off-work stressors, such as lack of time for maintaining highly valued relationships, increased, thus reducing worry about private life. Those who did not feel that their worry about their private life had improved did not perceive themselves to be ‘the worrying kind’.

Discussion

A possible positive spiral of improved recovery, improved work-life balance, reduced stress and burnout risk, is suggested by the interviews, disrupting the ‘loss spiral’ brought on for some by work pressure at full-time (Demerouti, Bakker, and Bulters 2004). This process may explain part of our previous findings on the effects of reduced working hours in social work, particularly those concerning reduced exhaustion syndrome symptoms and burnout symptoms (Barck-Holst et al. 2015, 2019). The process includes tentative recurring themes from the interviews, such as positive emotion, support, control and recovery, see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Improved work-life balance as a process.

Positive experiences of reduced working hours were reported, or a lack of effect, but no negative experiences. This may be as all positive experiences are theoretically expected, whilst there are no theories of work stress that would suggest negative effects of reduced working hours with proportionally reduced workload and retained full-time pay. Why then do not all social workers reduce their work hours? Only parents with children up to eight have a legal right in Sweden to reduce their work hours. Secondly, outside of this trial context, not only work hours but also salary would likely be reduced, which might offset those workers who fear economical stress.

The described transformation of negative anticipatory emotions into positive anticipatory emotions, indicates a re-appraisal of the stressors of the working day. Reappraising stressors to cope more successfully with stress, a central component of coping (Lazarus 1993), may thus have occurred without any need for individual therapeutic intervention.

Work experience seemed to function as a buffer against work stress, but not as a miracle cure. Older, more experienced social workers often described having learnt over time to separate their self-esteem from their work performance and to have changed their catastrophic appraisals of stressful situations over time, but the price of gaining experience, during long careers in social work, was described as a profound tiredness and a feeling of vulnerability to burnout. Work experience may thus still not be able to offset the long term effects of the work stress that negative work conditions may generate. This may be particularly true for the excessive caseloads which were reported at this agency in our previous study and were described as difficult to handle regardless of work hours, and seemed to create an intense work environment with little time for on-work recovery and reflection (Barck-Holst et al. 2019). It follows that it may be unhealthy to some degree even for ‘healthy workers’ (Karasek and Theorell 1990) to remain in social work if working conditions are unbalanced. The relationship between performance based self-esteem and work performance would be interesting to explore longitudinally, to see if it is mediated by work experience. It would also be interesting to examine if work experience in social work primarily consists only of gaining skills, knowledge of work processes and outcomes, or if, in the current climate of untenable working conditions, developing professional attitudes that places excessive responsibility on clients also plays a part, which has been suggested (Astvik, Melin, and Allvin 2014; Barck-Holst et al. 2019).

Measuring work pace, as well as work hours, has been suggested as important to understanding profession-specific demands (Kristensen et al. 2004). As we have noted previously (Barck-Holst et al. 2015, 2019), future studies of reduced working hours in social work should also examine the effects of reducing caseload, which might lower work intensity, allow more on-work recovery and reduce the need for off-work recovery, although likely not resolve time-conflicts off-work.

Professional relationships were largely experienced as improved

Collegial relationships and organizational climate were described as providing more opportunities for the social workers to receive social support, which has repeatedly been identified as important for reducing burnout (McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015; Lloyd, King, and Chenoweth 2002). The described improvements in client relationships seemed related to mood, and thus may be related to the positive effects on restorative sleep, stress, memory difficulties, negative emotion, sleepiness, fatigue and exhaustion found in our quantitative study of all seven social work agencies in the trial (Barck-Holst et al. 2015). The social workers’ ability to perform emotion work seemed improved. Doing emotion work means to display organizationally desired emotions regardless of client behaviour, such as being sensitive to clients’ emotions, and accepting of negative dissonance, which is to express emotions that are not actually felt (Zapf and Holz 2006). Experiencing emotional dissonance has been found to be stressful, whilst being able to express positive emotions, and be sensitive to clients, has a positive effect on the burnout dimension personal accomplishment (Zapf and Holz 2006). Furthermore, organizational problems, when co-occurring with a demand for emotion work, may lead to burnout (Zapf 2002). Reduced working hours were described as improving the mood of the social workers at work, likely enhancing positivity and sensitivity with clients, thus reducing negative dissonance, improving emotion work, and lowering burnout risk.

Worry was experienced as lower, work detachment as increased

At full-time, worry over work was often described as related to intention to leave the social work profession altogether. The decrease in worry was described as related to less exposure to job stressors, increased durability in the face of work stress. This is consistent with studies based on recovery theory which have found that psychological detachment from work protects against emotional exhaustion (Sonnentag, Binnewies, and Mojza 2010). Worry about private life was primarily described to be lower as the social workers had more time to meet their social obligations, and thus more control over private life demands.

The risk of developing exhaustion syndrome and burnout was perceived as very low, or non-existent. This is not surprising, as individual and organizational factors associated with resilience in social work were reflected in the experiences described, such as having a highly valued private life outside of the work environment, getting support from others, experiencing compassion satisfaction (the pleasure derived from helping others), reduced workload and improved organizational climate (McFadden, Campbell, and Taylor 2015).

The role of friendship as providing informal social support in the form of a distraction from work stressors, as an outlet for emotional venting and problem-solving, was a recurring theme. Partners were also described as a central source of informal support. Informal social support is important as it reduces psychological distress (Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2015).

Control over off-work recovery and over off-work demands seemed increased

One general impression is that, regardless of their working hours, the social workers safe-guarded certain private relationships and activities, such as caring for children or elderly parents. Which activities were protected could vary between individuals, and also depend on how life circumstances unfolded. The results suggest two important aspects that may be needed to establish work-life balance; increased control over off-work recovery, and increased control over off-work demands. After reduced working hours a range of new and old recovery activities were typically described, that were employed to varying degrees, depending on daily mood and current need, in a way the respondents considered optimal. That more time during weekdays was spent on recovery activities was also found when time-use in all four public sectors in the trial was examined quantitatively (Schiller et al. 2017b). Control over off-work demands, such as social responsibilities, was described as strongly increased. Interestingly, demands such as chores could be adapted to include children, which made them enjoyable and transformed them into recovery-like activities. When contemplating the return to full-time, the upcoming loss of control over private life was frequently mentioned as a reason for the negative emotions described experiencing in anticipation.

Limitations

Data was collected 13 years ago, which may be considered a limitation, but as the working conditions for social workers seem to be similar over time to a large extent, only worsened, the results can still be considered relevant. The data is qualitative, which does not allow for conclusions concerning causality or transferable to the population of Swedish social workers at the time of the interviews. However, our previous quantitative and mixed method studies lend credence to the described improvements in mood and life-balance, and our first quantitative study may be considered generalizable to the larger population. It could be argued that the interviewees exaggerated the positive aspects of reduced working hours, in the hopes of their organization adapting it as a permanent condition. However, none of the interviewees claimed that reduced working hours had improved all aspects of their work or their private lives, and there was a recognition of the broad spectrum of stressors in social work. We chose not to attempt any analysis based on gender as there were few men among the interviewees in the intervention group. Although no major gender differences were found in a quantitative study of time use in all four public sectors in the trial (Schiller et al. 2017b), this is a limitation, as social work in Sweden is dominated by women, and Swedish women are more likely to experience work-related psychosocial complaints than Swedish men in the same professions (Arbetsmiljöverket 2016). Future studies would benefit from incorporating strategies facilitating gender analysis, such as diverse sample recruitment strategies.

Conclusion

The 12 participants in this study described how reduced working hours improved work-life balance, which was experienced as improved mood, likely through increased control over private life demands, enabling improved, more varied recovery, a way of receiving more informal social support. A process establishing and maintaining positive work-life balance is suggested by the interviews. The improvements in positive emotions were described as having had substantial positive implications, both for perceived burnout risk and for client care.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The reduced working hours trial was financed by the Swedish government.