Scale library · HRM & organizational behavior
Work-life balance scale: Brough et al. (2014)
Brough, Timms, O'Driscoll, Kalliath, Siu, Sit and Lo (2014) developed a 4-item scale measuring a person's overall appraisal that their work and non-work activities are in balance. Unlike work-family conflict scales, it covers all activities outside work, not only family, so it also applies to single respondents. The scale was validated over time with employees in Australia and New Zealand. It suits theses on remote work, overtime and flexible work policies, and works as a mediator between job demands and satisfaction or turnover intention.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: WLB
- Constructs: 1
- Items: 4 (1 reverse-coded)
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Work-Life Balance (WLB, 4 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| WLB1 | I currently have a good balance between the time I spend at work and the time I have available for non-work activities | No |
| WLB2 (R) | I have difficulty balancing my work and non-work activities | Yes |
| WLB3 | I feel that the balance between my work demands and non-work activities is currently about right | No |
| WLB4 | Overall, I believe that my work and non-work life are balanced | No |
Response scale
5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly agree); respondents think about their work and non-work activities over the past 3 months. Reverse-score WLB2, then average the 4 items; higher scores mean better balance.
Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–5 scale: new score = 1 + 5 − score = 6 − score.
Licence and permission
The items are published in an academic article and widely used in research. We found no purchase or licensing conditions; cite Brough et al. (2014). If you translate and publish a new language version, contact the authors, as the Swedish translation team did.
Sources (APA 7)
- Brough, P., Timms, C., O'Driscoll, M. P., Kalliath, T., Siu, O.-L., Sit, C., & Lo, D. (2014). Work–life balance: A longitudinal evaluation of a new measure across Australia and New Zealand workers. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(19), 2724–2744. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2014.899262
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.