Eurobalance activities in Greece

Over the past few months regular meetings – mostly informal - were held between the champions and the Greek partner as well as between the champions and their beneficiaries.

In April 2011 the 2nd Greek Eurobalalnce workshop took place in the island of Naxos with great success, thanks to the participation of our champions’ and some of their beneficiaries. Champions came from micro enterprises, women’s communities and some local municipalities. They presented their methodologies and how they delivered information about work life balance. In particular they were interested in what other partners were doing and their experiences. Additional talks about the impact value of Eurobalance were given by the President of the Foodservice sector (Naxos), Deputy Mayor (Naxos) and President of the Commercial Association of Naxos.

Issues for hotels/catering business highlighted: Hotels and restaurants don’t just face seasonal issues but also need to manage fluctuations in business during the day – this can make it difficult to be flexible with staff – in general staff can swap shifts if they can find cover from a colleague.

The Champions found the tools that the Polydynamo Centre of Social Intervention of Cyclades developed locally to help improve the engagement process very useful and helpful in the cascading process. In general, work life balance opportunities have been well received by the champions and they feel that they were doing something important and found the process educational.

Although work life balance is still a relatively new concept within the islands SMEs are generally receptive to adopting it, considering the work pressures placed upon them and the seasonality of workloads. However, many of the issues surrounding childcare remain a basic obstacle to formal adoption and causes difficult working practices among the Cyclades, resulting in a widening of project work amongst all the islands. The biggest issues for consideration to date surround:

the economic situation in Greece and
the seasonal trends affecting tourism

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