Nowadays people normally stretch their work hours and get stressed as a result. What are the reasons for this? What employers can do to make people’s life easier?
Sample Response
Employees, these days, usually have to extend their working hours beyond the conventional 9 to 5 schedule. This, in turn, negatively affects the employees - both psychologically and physically. Let us examine the reasons for this stress at the workplace, and provide some measures that employers could take in order to break the cycle and have a better work-life balance.
One of the major reasons, which makes working-class people fall into a stressful life, is the heavy workload. Constant deadlines and work pressure make employees' life miserable. Moreover, they need to secure their job by showing better performance and proving their worth and need incentives to support the soaring price of everything. To illustrate, many organizations set monthly targets for their employees so that workers work extra hours to achieve their goals while many employees spontaneously work more hours to earn some extra money. In both cases, employees have to work more hours than recommended and suffer from stress-related problems as a result.
Employers can take various measures to ease the situation and help employees become not only happy but also loyal to the company and more productive in the long run. First and foremost, they can hire more employees, as the work burden can be shared among them. They can also offer incentives to employees who work dedicatedly, not just long hours. Besides, they can make the office environment more favourable for employees. For instance, some large tech giants render many recreational activities, such as meditation and gym at the workplaces which make their employees happier people at work.
In conclusion, happy and satisfied employees work more dedicatedly to increase the productivity of an organisation to a greater extent. That is why it is expected that employers would encourage their workers to work for recommended hours and have a work-life balance.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Remove interrupting commas Original: Employees, these days, Suggested revision: Employees these days Why it matters: These days functions smoothly as an integrated time phrase and does not need commas here.
- 2. Avoid needless article Original: the employees Suggested revision: employees Why it matters: The response refers to employees in general rather than a previously defined group.
- 3. Fix relative clause Original: which makes working-class people fall into a stressful life Suggested revision: that makes employees' lives stressful Why it matters: The restrictive clause does not need commas and the revised expression is grammatically natural.
- 4. Use plural lives Original: employees' life Suggested revision: employees' lives Why it matters: The plural possessive subject requires the plural noun lives.
- 5. Use plural object Original: secure their job Suggested revision: secure their jobs Why it matters: The plural subject naturally takes the plural noun jobs in this general statement.
- 6. Use natural collocation Original: showing better performance Suggested revision: performing better Why it matters: Performing better is the idiomatic way to describe improved work performance.
- 7. Clarify joined ideas Original: proving their worth and need incentives Suggested revision: proving their worth, while also needing incentives Why it matters: The revision clearly separates job security from the additional financial motivation.
- 8. Use precise term Original: the soaring price of everything Suggested revision: rising living costs Why it matters: The replacement is more concise and specific to employees' financial pressure.
- 9. Restore list parallelism Original: help employees become not only happy but also loyal to the company and more productive Suggested revision: help employees become happier, more loyal to the company, and more productive Why it matters: The three coordinated qualities now use parallel comparative forms.
- 10. Use standard collocation Original: work burden Suggested revision: workload Why it matters: Workload is the natural noun for the amount of work assigned.
- 11. Use natural adverb Original: work dedicatedly Suggested revision: work diligently Why it matters: Diligently is the idiomatic adverb for careful and committed work.
- 12. Name activities precisely Original: meditation and gym Suggested revision: meditation sessions and gym facilities Why it matters: The revised nouns distinguish an activity from a facility.
Suggested Rewrites
- Employees, these days, Employees these days
- the employees employees
- which makes working-class people fall into a stressful life that makes employees' lives stressful
- employees' life employees' lives
- secure their job secure their jobs
- showing better performance performing better
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response addresses both questions fully and supports its analysis with plausible workplace examples and a varied set of employer actions. Its main limitation is linguistic precision: several collocations and sentence structures are awkward despite the generally fluent argument; revising expressions about job insecurity, incentives, and workplace recreation would make the discussion more natural and authoritative.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
The response fully covers the reasons for longer hours and several employer measures, extending its main ideas with relevant explanation and examples.
Clarify how each proposed benefit or workplace facility directly reduces excessive hours or stress rather than merely improving morale.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument is logically organised and progresses clearly, with effective paragraph focus and generally natural cohesion.
Tighten the conclusion so it synthesizes the principal causes and employer actions instead of adding a broad productivity claim.
Lexical Resource
A broad vocabulary conveys the argument effectively, but several awkward collocations limit naturalness and precision.
Replace expressions such as stressful life, work dedicatedly, and render recreational activities with more idiomatic workplace language.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of complex structures is generally controlled, although agreement, parallelism, punctuation, and possessive errors recur.
Check long coordinated sentences for consistent subjects and verb forms, especially when linking several employee motivations or employer actions.