Go Home on Time Day 2016 date announced

October 5th 2016 is Go Home on Time Day! Will you be joining in?

We are delighted to announce that this year Go Home on Time Day will be taking place on the 5th October. So, mark this date off in your calendar as a day to go home on time, do something you enjoy and assess your work-life balance. Find out how you can get involved at workingfamilies.org.uk.

The day has received a great reaction in recent years and, thanks to the contributions of thousands of supporters, has proven to be successful in raising awareness of issues surrounding work-life balance in the UK. We hope to build on this success again this year and would like this to be the most interactive Go Home on Time Day yet. With that in mind, we ask that you will join us by posting blogs, pictures and videos to let us know what you will be doing to celebrate the day.

Developments are afoot so be sure to follow us online to stay connected and receive updates and information about the day:

 

 

Go Home on Time Day 2016

Following on from a great 2015 campaign, we are already looking ahead to Go Home on Time Day 2016 and would love you to be involved. Please click here to signup to receive Go Home on Time Day news and updates via email. You will be brought back to the Go Home on Time Day homepage after filling in your details.

You can also help by spreading the word on social media. Please share this post and click the buttons below to stay in touch:

We hope you can join us for the 2016 campaign.

Many thanks,
Working Families

We hope you’re on your way home!

Go Home on Time Day 2015 looks on track to be a big success with lots of people from all over the UK showing an interest. We’ve seen a huge amount of activity on Twitter and Facebook with many people letting us know what they will be getting up to this evening and the day has also been covered in the national and local press.

This is all great news because it has helped us to raise awareness of the issue of work life balance and to draw attention to the importance of employee health and wellbeing.

However, it is important to remember that going home on time shouldn’t be an annual, single day event but should rather be the norm for all employees across the UK. We hope that today is just the start of a new way of thinking about your work life balance and that our blogs and the information provided throughout National Work Life Week help you to form the go home on time habit.

Now, please, go and spend some time doing something you enjoy… it is Go Home on Time Day after all.

 

Go Home on Time Day September 23rd 2015: Join the Movement

The Working Families central office is a hive of activity with National Work Life Week and Go Home on Time Day (23^rd September) preparations now in full swing. If you haven’t participated in previous years and are wondering what it’s all about, Go Home on Time Day is a fun day with a serious message designed to draw the attention of employers and employees to the issue of work life balance and the importance of allowing time for home and family life. With ever increasing demands being placed on businesses and consequently their employees, this balance is becoming worryingly difficult to achieve for many, and individuals, families and society as a whole are being negatively affected as a result.

We say it is time for change and for more employers to adopt an enlightened and progressive approach to workload and organisation that will improve productivity, reduce presenteeism and, vitally, ensure that employees have the time and resources to nurture the healthy and long-lasting relationships that are essential to wellbeing and to creating a healthy and fully-functional society. If you would like to play a part in creating this society, you can participate in Go Home on Time Day this September 23rd in a number of ways.

Join in on Social Media

Go Home on Time Day is all about spreading awareness so one of the most useful ways you can help is by spreading the word via social media.

This year we are asking people to take photos of themselves, friends and family taking part in what they do to unwind in their spare time and post them with the hashtag #wherewillyoube, whether it be skydiving, rambling, gardening or simply enjoying dinner at home with the family. You can also download and fill in our pledge note to encourage someone you know to go home on time this September 23^rd and post a picture of it to your social media accounts so you, your friends and family can hold them to it. Click the buttons below and like our pages if you would like to help spread the word.

              
  

Follow the blog

We will be blogging about all things related to work life balance and wellbeing for the next 10 weeks. Topics to be covered include time saving and efficiency tips, importance of diet and healthy eating, other cultures and their approaches to achieving work life balance and activities for parents and children. These blogs will provide you with a wealth of useful information and resources to help you improve your work life balance and general wellbeing and will be published every Wednesday. With the intention of helping you make time to celebrate Go Home on Time Day this year, our next blog will cover time saving and efficiency tips and will be published on the 29/7/15. If you have any useful tips and ideas you think should be included or would like to join the Go Home on Time Day mailing list, leave us a comment or email ghotd@workingfamilies.org.uk

Ask your employer and workmates to participate

Employers that have participated in National Work Life Week and Go Home on Time Day in previous years have included Capital One, Centrica, Cisco, Cushion the Impact, BP, Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Danone Nutricia, David Lloyd Narborough, East Cheshire NHS Trust, Eversholt Rail, Hogan Lovells LLP, Lisa Barnwell, LV=, Mayer Brown, Pinsent Masons.

If you think your employer would like to join this ever-growing list and showcase their progressive attitude to employee wellbeing, please visit our Join In At Work page for ideas on how your workplace can be involved and print off our flyer to display in your staff room.

We also hold an annual National Work Life Week Conference, which may be of interest to your HR Department.

Fundraise for our Legal Advice Line

While Go Home on Time Day is primarily about raising awareness, any money that is raised goes towards the running costs of our Legal Advice Line, which supports over 3,000 people per year who might otherwise be denied access to justice and forced out of employment.

There are a huge number of ways you can help raise money to keep parents and carers in work. Go Home on Time Day can be a great opportunity to introduce a casual Wednesday where your co-workers donate £2 to wear their own clothes for a day, to organise a bake sale or auction, or even to have a sponsored bath in baked beans… the possibilities are endless but take a look at our Fundraising Guide for just a few ideas on how you can help.

Join the Movement

We are looking forward to the next 10 weeks and hope that you can help us reach as many eyes and ears and improve as many lives as possible. However, Go Home on Time Day and National Work Life Week are not just one off, annual events. We are looking to change the way we live and work by instigating a shift in perception so employers and employees alike see the value in making work actually work for all. Will you join the movement?

Connect With Us On Social Media

We hope you can connect with us on social media to stay in touch and help spread the word. Why not send us your pics? Let us know #wherewillyoube.

 

Find Your Fuel: The Importance of Diet for Health and Wellbeing

Go Home on Time Day is drawing near and for this week’s blog we will be focussing on the importance of a healthy diet for general wellbeing. Our latest Modern Families Index shows that a worryingly high percentage of people find their diet negatively affected due to work life balance issues. This can create a vicious cycle where people are tired and unhealthy because they are not eating properly and vice versa. Hopefully by the end of this blog you will realise the importance of diet for improving energy levels and wellbeing and will have picked up some useful tips to cut down the number of harmful foods you consume. Finding balance While the ideal diet will vary from person to person depending on a number of factors such as gender, build, age, and daily level of activity, the government offer a decent general guide for what makes a healthy diet in the form of their eat-well plate. As you can see, the recommendation is to consume a balance of all the food groups and to keep consumption of foods that are high in fat and sugar to a minimum.

Beware of hidden ingredients

What the eat-well plate doesn’t tell us is that many who think they are eating healthily are actually consuming more harmful ingredients than they are aware of. In order to maintain a balanced diet, it is important to try to avoid processed foods and ready meals with high amounts of added salt, sugar and fat. When you do buy ready meals and processed foods, it is a good idea to check the label so you are aware of the ingredients. Shed the sugar

The amount of sugar being consumed has received particular attention recently as the World Health Organisation cut its recommended daily amount of sugar by half while the NHS recommend sugar intake be around 30g a day for those aged 11 and over. To put this into perspective, a can of coke contains around 35 grams of sugar, a bowl of Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut contains 11g, and two slices of plain white bred can contain as much as 3g of sugar.

Beat the sweets

If you would like to cut down on your sugar intake try these tips: [1] Drink water or unsweetened fruit juice in place of fizzy and juice drinks. If you can’t do without the fizz, allow yourself the odd bottle of mineral water [2] Be aware of the amount of sugar in your breakfast cereals and avoid those coated in sugar [3] Always check the labels before you buy. If the nutrition label is covered in red, put it back. [4] When your stomach rumbles, reach for some fruit or a bag of nuts instead of a chocolate bar. [5] Don’t stock up on snacks at home: if they’re not there, you can’t eat them. If you really do decide you want to buy a Mars Bar, at least the walk to the shop will burn off some of the calories you will consume.

Connect with us

We hope you’ve found these tips useful and that you can join in with Go Home on Time Day on September 23rdthis year. In the meantime, why not connect with us on our social media accounts and let us know #wherewillyoube on September 23^rd?  

Making Quality Time: Tips and Tricks To Help You Go Home on Time This September 23rd

Go Home on Time Day is coming and we thought it would be a good time to share some tips and tricks to help you plough through your workload more efficiently so you can spend more time with friends and family this September 23rd. Research has shown that only a third of parents manage to leave work on time every day and 58% of working parents say they stay late because it’s the only way they can meet their workload. This does not only mean that activities with family and friends are disrupted, but employees are denied the time required to rest and re-energise. This often results in fatigue, anxiety and resentment and is bad for employer and employee alike. These tips and tricks should help you go home on time more frequently to relax with friends and family. [1] Prioritise. One of the best things you can do to cut down your working time is write down all the tasks you perform in a week or month, prioritise them and weed out the unnecessary tasks.

[2] Focus on the task in hand. Don’t try to multi-task and be sure to remove any distractions from your working environment. When you have a big task, turn off your emails and phone for a few hours to make sure you can give the task your full attention. This will help you to complete tasks quickly and efficiently to a high standard.

[3] Batch tasks. When you have a group of similar tasks, batch them together. Try setting aside a block of time in the day where you complete all of your errands or reply to all of your emails.

[4] Schedule. When you have a large number of tasks to complete, schedule time to complete each of them throughout the week and stick to it.

[5] Plan. With larger projects, be sure to plan them. This will help you to cut down on errors and unforeseen events and will make sure less time is wasted.

[6] Use technology. Did you know you can set up hotkeys on your computer to open the folders, files and programmes you frequently use? Microsoft have a handy guide on how you can do this on a PC. You’ll be amazed at how much time hotkeys can save.

[7] Stay focussed. Cut down on those long, unnecessary conversations at work. Talking to colleagues is a good thing and it is important to get to know them, but make sure you don’t spend so much time chatting that you end up having to stay late to finish your workload.

[8] Plan your weekly meals. Use the weekend to plan your meals for the week and to buy the ingredients you need. You can even chop the vegetables you need in advance and freeze or refrigerate them. This will reduce the amount of time you spend shopping and cooking so you can spend more time eating and talking with friends and family.

[9] Request flexible working. If you are finding work and life incompatible, you have a right to request flexible working. Hopefully finding the hours that suit you best will help you spend more time with friends and family and get more done when you are at work. If you are interested in requesting flexible working, take a look at the flexible working advice page on our website.

[10] Learn to say “no”. In those periods when everyone wants a piece of your time, take steps to make sure you don’t get snowed under. Try explaining that you are unable to complete some less important tasks or ask for help from colleagues. These are just a few of the tips and tricks you can use to work more efficiently so you can spend more time doing the things you enjoy.

Do you think you can add to this list? If so, please comment below and share your tips with everyone else. Don’t forget to like us on social media and let us know #wherewillyoube on September 23rd and sign up for National Work Life Week and Go Home on Time Day updates.

Go Home on Time Day 2015 is fast approaching

We are delighted to unveil this year’s logo and to announce that this year Go Home on Time Day will be taking place on the 23^rd September. So, mark this date off in your calendar as a day to go home on time, do something you enjoy and assess your work-life balance.

The day has received a great reaction in recent years and, thanks to the contributions of thousands of supporters, has proven to be successful in raising awareness of issues surrounding work-life balance in the UK. We hope to build on this success again this year and would like this to be the most interactive Go Home on Time Day yet. With that in mind, we ask that you will join us in posting blogs, pictures and videos and let us know what you will be doing to celebrate the day.

Developments are afoot so be sure to follow us online to stay connected and receive updates and information about the day. Just click on the buttons below to be taken to our respective social media pages.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Go Home on Time Day – Wednesday 23rd September 2015

The date for Go Home on Time Day 2015 has been set. To stay updated follow us on Facebook and Twitter and help spread the word!

 

Flexible Friday

Wow! What a great Go Home on Time Day on Wednesday! We had so many people supporting the day, including tweets from the National Lottery, Mind, Just Eat and Pukka Pies. Go Home on Time Day was featured in The Guardian, City AM, The Daily Mash and Working Families Vice-Patron Allison Pearson included Go Home on Time Day in her weekly column in The Telegraph.

Thanks to everyone that got involved and went home on time – you helped make this year the biggest year ever!

But, we are not stopping here. Work-life balance is a priority that should be addressed every day of the year, not just on Go Home on Time Day. As we reach the end of National Work-Life Week and as Go Home on Time Day becomes a distant memory, it is so important to keep the conversation about work-life balance going.

That is why we are calling for Flexible Friday – a chance to end the week on a high and continue the conversations so many people have been having across the country this week. This is your chance to really address your flexible working needs and improve your work-life balance.

Why not try a digital detox this weekend to completely switch off and resist that desire to check work e-mails? Or make sure you continue to leave your workplace on time everyday – or at least once a week? Flexible Friday is about continuing the legacy of National Work-Life Week and Go Home on Time Day all year round – make sure you get involved!

 #FlexibleFriday

To keep the conversation going why not like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter