We live in a very commercial world and for most companies their priorities are the safety and comfort of their passengers so that they return to fly again. Most companies will expect you, the pilot, to use your experience and training to know when it is quite safe and comfortable to hand fly, without overloading the PNF and when it would be prudent to use automation.
In my last airline it was mandatory, out of LHR, to engage the autopilot at 400' and fly the SID in LNAV so that noise monitoring points were overflown/passed at the optimum height and track, this worked and violations were few. Similarly if visibility was 1500meters or below then an autoland was recommended, the wording was, "should be carried out". Other wise it was left to our own judgement.
If the weather is fine, the ATC environment is not too busy and the hand flying is smooth then it is to be encouraged but if any of these three conditions can't be met then, in the interests of safety and passenger comfort partial or full use of automation should be considered.