HEALTH MATTERS: Imagine starting work at a time that suits you, lingering over a leisurely family breakfast and avoiding the rush hour. Taking breaks when your biorhythms are calling for it. Enjoying a cardiovascular work-out before lunch and savouring a siesta before finishing off that report in the afternoon. Doing a full day's work yet seeing quite a bit of your children. Having a disciplined work routine yet flexible enough to adapt to family responsibilities.

Whether that description sounds ghastly or enviable, it is the routine generally enjoyed by this correspondent. Equally effective personally tailored family-friendly or work/life balance is enjoyed by several of my acquaintances. The integration of work and life need not be pie in the sky. It is attainable. And many companies are realising the benefits to be gained from it.

This day next week, Friday March 1st, is family-friendly, work/life balance day.

Culture is the biggest inhibitor to introducing family-friendly or work/life balance initiatives in the workplace, suggests Ms Jackie Conway, workplace diversity programme manager at IBM, which employs some 4,000 people in Ireland. "It is in our own best interests to have workers balance work and life," she says.

Ms Maureen Caulfield, general manager of human resources at VHI, says work/life balance involves matching organisational expectations to individual needs.

Among initiatives for family- friendly day, VHI is inviting in employees' children to see its offices.

The excellent website www.familyfriendly.ie agrees that work/life balance initiatives must benefit the organisation and its employees. The website was created by the National Framework Committee for the Development of Family Friendly Policies set up under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. Chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the committee comprises representatives of IBEC, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), the Equality Authority and other Government departments.

Mr Niall Crowley, chief executive of the Equality Authority, told The Irish Times that next Friday gives a "statement of commitment by the social partners. It provides a stimulus for action at the level of the enterprise, which is where change has to happen.

"Our involvement is based on the fact that the family-friendly workplace is vital if we are to achieve gender equality in the workplace."

Ms Jackie Harrison, director of social policy at IBEC, says that the issues of childcare, commuting to work and housing need to be addressed in working towards family-friendly workplace arrangements.

Ms Denise Hanrahan, ICTU Family Friendly Project co-ordinator, says that family- friendly workplaces, both statutory and non-statutory, are a huge issue for members. Parental leave is "an excellent concept but people can't afford to take it" because it is unpaid. Employers are entitled to insist that workers take it en bloc, whereas many workers would prefer, and could more easily afford, to take it in hourly blocks or a day a week.

Ms Esther Lynch, equality officer at Congress says: "We're calling for the introduction of paid parental leave similar to that which is available for the carer's allowance." She says a Congress survey last autumn showed that workers pay €102 to €126 a week on childcare. The survey showed that 34.5 per cent of workers wanted family-friendly work practices and 53 per cent wanted employers to subsidise the cost of childcare. A survey last summer revealed that 87 per cent of workers wanted unions to negotiate family-friendly working arrangements.