During the heady boom years, Ireland seemed to become a country obsessed with work.

Anxious to catch up on decades of below-par economic growth, expectations of managers at all levels grew, often with little thought for the personal, professional and organisational impact that a long-working-hours culture would later have.

Last year, IMI researcher Ms Marion O'Connor found that achieving a work-life balance was the top personal challenge for managers in Ireland.

It appears that the accelerated period of business and economic growth has resulted in widespread work-life imbalance among employees in many industries.

Today is the first Irish Work-Life Balance Day and managers will be asking what they can do to enhance the work-life balance in their organisations.

There are numerous practices and approaches that ease the introduction of a balanced work-life environment in organisations. These include practices that enhance flexibility of hours worked, mutual support-systems and teams, educational and learning opportunities, the re-evaluation of practices that adversely effect work-life balance and practices that circumvent challenges arising from commuting and childcare problems.

But is work-life imbalance an issue for managers to deal with? It might be argued that managers should be concerned with the working lives of their employees, but not their personal lives.

International medical, social and business research, however, has demonstrated that the emergence of work-life imbalance as a prominent phenomenon has produced many negative consequences for businesses.

Since terms such as "presenteeism" and "workaholism" were coined in the late 1980s and early 1990s, international research has connected work-life imbalance with more sick days being taken, higher recorded levels of absenteeism and diminishing productivity.

The changing demographic of the Irish population also means that there are growing numbers of workers with family responsibilities.

Organisations that meet the level of flexibility required have a distinct competitive advantage.

The key enablers of any work-life balance initiative are mangers,, particularly middle managers. By proactively supporting the work-life balance needs of employees, managers stand to be rewarded with a more motivated workforce.

The benefits of work-life balance go beyond the creation of a happier workplace. There is extensive research that demonstrates how work-life balance strategies, policies and practices can improve an organisations competitive position. This is particularly true in the areas of productivity improvement and talent retention.

Research carried out at IMI among Irish managers in January 2004 found that 68 per cent of responding organisations do not have a formal work-life balance policy, but many have practices in place that are conducive to helping employees balance their working and personal lives.

The research sought to assess the use and impact that work-life balance measures are having in Irish organisations. Managers were asked to rate the impact that each of 15 tools had on the following organisational concerns: motivation, productivity, retention and recruitment.

Among the practices surveyed were study leave, part-time employment, flexitime, job-sharing, telecommuting, voluntary reduced working time and term-time working. The practice which had the highest impact was job-sharing, with the highest overall impact score on the area of staff retention.

Earlier, Theseus Institute/IMI research also identified the development of work-life balance initiatives as being core to retaining key employees.

IMI conducted research on work-life balance as a management issue in the hotel sector. With the exception of hospitals, there are few other organisations that have the same type of customer-facing, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week working culture.

The hospitality industry had often been accused of providing workers with a poor work-life balance, but the research found the existence of a number of positive, innovative and proactive approaches to providing hotel workers with flexible working arrangements.

The reason most often given for this was that, if flexible work-life balance options were not offered to employees, they would simply leave and find work elsewhere.

In an industry where continuity of workers and quality staff are critical to organisational success, the research noted very high levels of concern for employees amongst the hotel managers.

However, the research also found that hotel managers concern for their own personal work-life balance was often very poor. This group of managers consider work-life balance to be a priority for employees, but managers often persist in working long hours to the extent that a presenteeist management style is widespread.

Perhaps one of the most practical things that any manager can do in generating an organisational culture that promotes and values the work-life balance of employees is to provide leadership by example on this issue.

John Cullen is senior management researcher, IMI Centre for Management Research.