An insight into the work-life balance in the Romanian services sector

Beginning from a broad theoretical documentation on an essential dimension of the employees' working conditions, specifically the work-life balance, followed by a comparative statistical data analysis on the situation of work-life balance in European countries in the current period, this paper aims to achieve a comparison regarding work-life balance of employees in five services areas in Romania (advertising-marketing, IT&C, financial-banking, research&development, higher education), through a qualitative research we conducted using face-to-face interviews with some employees without managerial functions and managers of these five sectors services. The results showed that focusing on the work-life balance related to the necessity to provide some hours of one's spare time in order to finish work issues, the best situation (none of the interviewees works in his spare time and the employees' personal lives are not affected) was found in IT&C sector and R&D sector, followed by banking sector, where half of the interviewees work in their spare time, in order to finish their tasks, then higher-education sector, where the majority claims to be working frequently after finishing teaching, in order to solve work tasks preparing lectures, research or administrative activities, coordinating theses, which affects their personal life, and the advertising sector, with two-thirds of respondents claiming that they work in their spare time, after hours, which affects their personal lives. In all five sectors, the management accepts it when employees require 1-2 hours off at a certain moment with a view to solve personal matters, provided these hours are made up for.