BRITISH workers endure some of the longest hours in Europe, thanks in part to an entrenched office culture that equates time spent in the office with achievement.

Work is necessary to support life and can be enjoyable - yet working for too long or under the wrong conditions can be harmful. So it seems sensible to assume that some sort of balance needs to be struck between the pressures of work and the demands of family.

At a jobs conference on Wednesday, the Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt will launch a fresh attack on the "workaholic" culture that many believe is harming office life in Britain. Interestingly, the minister herself clocks up 70 hours a week, and so perfectly illustrates the difficulties of matching theory to practice.

According to a new report from the York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation, firms which take a family-friendly approach to their workers are likely to reap a business benefit. The findings of this report "strongly challenge the belief that longer hours, more intensive working and cutting back wage costs hold the key to business success".

This is a very welcome intervention in the long-running saga of the British and the extended hours they work. Only a decade or so ago social thinkers were telling us our lives would be surrounded by hours of leisure time, thanks to advances in technology. In fact the opposite has happened and we are working more than ever.

Greater flexibility, as suggested by the foundation report, is certainly important. Firms which accept that their employees have families and personal lives are taking a modern approach to life. If carried out properly, such family-friendly policies should benefit both the employer and the employee.

Flexibility will have to bend both ways, and while there will be times when employees will be able to alter the shape of their working day to accommodate their family, other occasions will see the demands of work having to take precedence.

Yet however this policy shapes up, it will be for the general good if a better balance can be struck between work and family.

That can only benefit all of us.

Updated: 10:36 Monday, May 27, 2002