Recent Great Place To Work research, conducted in partnership with Experian, shows that life admin support is a clear indicator of a high‑trust workplace culture – and that culture, not policy or perk alone, determines whether support actually works.
Life admin support refers to an organisation enabling employees to manage essential personal tasks during the working day without fear of judgement or career consequences. This includes openness to conversation, flexibility in time, and managerial responses grounded in trust rather than suspicion.
Importantly, life admin support is not about unlimited flexibility or tolerance. It’s about reasonable, normalised support that recognises employees as whole people.
Only 57% of UK employees say they receive life admin support, despite clear benefits for wellbeing and performance. The reason isn’t just a lack of policies – it’s a lack of psychological safety.
Our data shows that employees in high‑trust cultures are 3.5 times more likely to receive life admin support. In these environments:
In low‑trust cultures, the opposite happens. Even where flexibility exists on paper, employees may avoid using it due to fear of stigma or negative career impact.
Life admin support works on two levels.
First, it reduces friction by offering direct practical support in navigating the logistical complexities of life, by facilitating time management and work-life balance, if not offering direct tools for life admin itself.
Second – and perhaps more powerfully – it sends a powerful symbolic message of trust and psychological safety: “We know you have a life outside work, and we trust you to manage both as you see fit.”
When leaders openly manage their own life admin – attending appointments, blocking time, speaking honestly about competing demands – they give others permission to do the same. Actions speak louder than words.
For leaders and HR professionals, useful questions include:
Normalising life admin support as a natural, common-sense practice could gradually increase the proportion of UK employees – and their organisations – reaping its benefits.
Life admin support is not a standalone initiative. It’s one expression of a broader, human‑centred culture where trust, wellbeing and performance reinforce each other.
The business case is clear: supporting employees to better manage life’s logistical complexities can drive efficiency, innovation, and productivity. And perhaps most importantly, it gives people permission to be human at work.