Category: Work-Life Balance

Abstract

This research paper is based on some changes within the structure of family and how one is to take care of their families. Also how the household is formed in terms of responsibilities and balance between working and taking care of a family. Being that one of the biggest dilemmas as being a parent for most is their balance of maintaining all of their home issues then also being able to deliver their best at work. As individuals there isn’t much help when your household is limited to a certain amount of people who can give you a second hand. Sacrifices have to be made when you have family and you’re also working. Parenting is hard enough on it’s own and is a very complex concept which differs for each person but now when that is combined with working it creates a bigger issue in someone’s daily life especially when they are a workaholic. Children need to be paid attention to and have time dedicated to them so they can properly be nurtured.

Throughout the development of life, families have gone through one of the most changes. Family always consisted of the people who were together and who would have children to build themselves a family as well. Not only was family an essential of life so was working to maintain their family as well. From the early times to present times, working and trying to balance a family life has always been a common issue.

As you familiarize yourself with the changes of how a family is maintained, it is no longer the same as it was once taught. Usually, it is taught that the women would be the caretaker of the kids and the father. The mother’s duties would include cleaning the house, laundry, cooking, anything housework related but then once the father is home they are served and catered to because he would be considered the man of the house. Especially because he is the one bringing an income to sustain a living with their family. The father would also take care of the handy work for instance if something was broken or if something is too heavy to carry and so forth. So basically living as a family, in a nutshell, was the men would work to put a roof over the family’s head while the women were the ones to make sure everything is running smoothly in the house. Now the way families are can still be the same but a lot of it lately consist of fathers doing more things in the house as well as taking care of children then you have the mothers actually having a job and be less at home doing housework. Then with all this working, it’s like how do you maintain a connection with your family or can even able to lay back and really enjoy more time with them instead of having every day your time is revolve around working.

Around 60% of a household that consists of two parents with children younger than 18, usually both parents are working (Karkowski p.167). But with working also comes to the responsibilities of knowing how to prioritize things that can benefit you and your family. So people then start to struggle with working and trying to balance their family. Some parents as individuals can feel pressure with trying to divide their time between work and dealing spending time with their family. Parents that have children under 18 say that it is somewhat or can be very difficult trying to balance their job and the family life. Looking at the percentages of parents who talk about their balance between work and family about 73% of mothers with children under 18 say that they’re doing either excellent or a good job compared to 64% of fathers (Karkowski p.173). Then for married parents, 72% say that they’re doing excellent or very good at balancing work and raising their children compared to 63% of unmarried parents (Karkowski p.173). The time a parent spends with their child is how they evaluate their parenting. Then according to this article by Wadsworth and Facer “ The differences between men and women in their perceptions of work-family interaction have been a major research focus in the last decade” (e.g., Aryee, Tan, & Srinivas, 2005; Minnotte, 2012; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007). For example, research studies have found that women tend to experience higher levels of work-family conflict (e.g., Hughes & Galinsky, 1994) and lower levels of work-family balance (e.g., Ezra & Deckman, 1996; Mackay & Rhodes, 2013; Minnotte, 2012) than men. Yet other researchers have found very few gender differences in the levels of work-family balance (e.g., Aryee et al., 2005; Lyness & Kropf, 2005; Zhang et al., 2012). There are significant inconsistencies in previous findings related to the degree in which men and women perceive work-family balance (Byron, 2005; Green- Haus & Powell, 2006). However, the general consensus is that because of women’s complex family responsibilities (Cunningham, Baines, & Charlesworth, 2014), they face greater challenges in achieving work-family balance.” (Wadsworth & Facer p.387).

Being that women are always associated with being the ones who really deals with the struggles of balancing work and their family life according to a study in Boston college “ combined data set of Millennial, Generation X, and Baby-boomer dads, the fathers broke into three relatively equal-sized groups. The first group of fathers responded that caregiving at home should be divided equally and that it indeed is. We labeled this type the “Egalitarian” fathers and they comprised 30% of the sample. The second group of fathers respond- ed that caregiving should be divided 50/50 but admitted that their partner provided more hands-on care than they did. This second type we labeled “Conflicted” fathers due to the dissonance between their aspirations and their reality. They comprised approximately 38% of the sample. The third group believed that their “partner should provide more caregiving at home” and they were doing so. We labeled this type “Traditional” fathers to reflect their more traditionally gendered views on parental roles and caregiving. They comprised approximately 32% of the sample.” (Herrington, Fraone, Lee 2016). Boston college joined the informational collection of Millennial, Generation X, and Baby-boomer fathers, the dads were broken into three moderately level with measured gatherings. The primary gathering of dads reacted that providing care at home ought to be partitioned similarly and that it undoubtedly is. Which was named the ‘Libertarian’ fathers and they contained 30% of the example. The second gathering of dads reacted that providing care ought to be isolated 50/50 yet conceded that their accomplice gave a bigger number of hands-on consideration than they. This second sort was named ‘Clashed’ fathers because of the discord between their desires and their existence. They involved around 38% of the example. The third gathering trusted that their ‘accomplice ought to give additionally providing care at home’ and they were doing as such. We marked this sort ‘Customary’ fathers to mirror their more traditionally gendered sees on parental jobs and providing care. They included around 32% of the example. (Herrington, Fraone & Lee 2016). Egalitarians were essentially bound to concur that if their child is home sick on a work day, they have a duty to remain home and care for their kid when contrasted with Traditional, in truth the number of fathers who reacted along these lines was multiplied: 58% of Egalitarians versus 24% for Traditional. The larger part of Egalitarian fathers feels that thinking about a sick child is their duty, while not exactly a fourth of Traditional fathers concurred. Almost half of the Conflicted fathers agreed or emphatically agreed that they have an obligation to think about a sick child. There was a considerably more sensational differential between these two kinds Egalitarians and Traditional when inquired as to whether they would feel uneasy if their partner gave more consideration than them. Both Conflicts and Traditional responses lean toward feeling great if this were the situation. Over 40% of Egalitarians agreed or boldly agreed that they would feel uneasy about this prospect, showing their more noteworthy responsibility to shared providing care. What’s more, of course, Egalitarians were more strange than Traditional to see their providing care as ‘assisting their parent.’ On these questions, Conflicts enlisted reactions between the other two sorts. (Herrington, Fraone & Lee 2016)

Working and balancing a family has been made easy a bit by jobs after the family and medical leave act of 1993 was created. This act allowed employers who had more than 50 employees offer up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave during a twelve-month time frame for different medical reasons. The medical reasons can include the birth of a child or taking care of a child within one year of birth. To care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition and some other specifications as well (Karkowski p.177). The only tricky thing about the FMLA which stands for the family and medical leave act of 1993. If it is applied to a single mother who just lives with her child, She would be in financial situations being that the leave is unpaid. Although the balance of working and raising your children seems to be difficult some, it’s all about scheduling. Just setting time or days apart to focus on the family without having to worry about work is that there are seven days a week. Having a family and having to worry about working is almost like watering a plant, there are different components.

Truthfully balancing a work life and raising your children might be a bit of hassle especially when you’re an immigrant and barely have a family to help you raise your children. My mother is one of my prime examples. She mostly worked more than she spent time with me due to her having to provide for my living and always for bringing my other siblings from overseas. I usually was passed on from different babysitters, after school programs, sleeping over my dads for the weekend or her sister’s house. Because she would usually work on the weekends for years, and about a few years ago literally she changed her weekend availability. Sometimes my mom would volunteer at my school to help with the lunch patrol in sitting the kids and watching them. I used to be so jealous and happy at the same being that my mom was there and wanted her attention all throughout the time being since I would only get to see her for a few minutes until my lunch time ended. I always wanted to be with my mom 24/7 and I wasn’t near as spoiled but time with her was everything.

It’s believed that with the right amount of scheduling one’s time and putting things apart you can achieve that balance between working and being with your family. Just having the little moments you least expect would count as time especially since some children can be understanding a bit more than others and they accept things for what they are and just try to make the best out of what they can.

References

1. Brad Harrington, Jennifer Sabatini Fraone, Jegoo Lee, and Lisa Levey. 2016. The New Millennial Dad: Understanding the Paradox of Today’s Fathers. Research report published by the Boston College Center for Work & Family.
2. Guendelman, Sylvia, et al. “Work-Family Balance After Childbirth: The Association Between Employer-Offered Leave Characteristics and Maternity Leave Duration.” Maternal & Child Health Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 200–208. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10995-013-1255-4.
3. Karkowski, Czeslaw, edited (2015). Ethics and the Family. A Reader. CA: Cognella: NY.
4. PENG FAN. “Person-Organization Fit, Work-Family Balance, and Work Attitude: The Moderated Mediating Effect of Supervisor Support.” Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, vol. 46, no. 6, July 2018, pp. 995–1010. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2224/sbp.6915.

ABSTRACT

The study focuses on work life balance in GAIL. The concept of work-life balance has now become centre of attention for almost all companies, political institutions, research institutions, families, individuals and trade unions at both national and international level. Work life balance is an important topic in human resource management that means to combine work and life in a way, that both are achievable. Work life balance is generally related to role overload, time management, time pressure, job satisfaction, job stress, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover, welfare, social security, working time, flexibility, family, migration, consumption, demographic changes, leisure time and so on. In this paper, work means paid work i.e. a person earns money by providing his/her services to the organization. Both work family balance and work life balance is same thing.

The highly competitive globalized environment results in increase in job pressure which lead to distract work life balance among the employees in every industry. Many of the organization started realizing it and the employers were providing work life assistance programs to enrich them further. Organization and employees together seek better way of managing the tension between work and family demands, there has been an increasing research in the work life conflict and family work conflict issues nowadays.This research paper delivers an analysis of the antecedents to work life conflict and family-work conflict among the bank professionals, as well as resolutions that organization may gadget to proliferate the work-life balance of professionals. The output of the analysis revealed that these are considered as key determinants of work life balance both in case of the private and public sector employees.

INTRODUCTION

HRM is the study of activities regarding people work in an organization. It is a managerial function that tries to match organizations needs to the skills and abilities of its employees.

Human resources management (HRM) could be a management operates involved with hiring, motivating and maintaining folks in a corporation. It focuses on folks in organizations. Human resource management is coming up with management systems to confirm that human talent is employed effectively and with efficiency to accomplish structure goals.

Work life balance

Work life balance is a concept including proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) and “lifestyle” (Health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development).Work life balance is a choice an individual has to make. However, it is the organization that needs to take an initiative to help the employees. Today, an employee is not looking at their employer just for a job, also to care for their work life balance and their well-being. If a company addresses these needs, in addition to providing better career opportunities, they can be very successful in providing job satisfaction to the employees. Companies are adopting new means to ensure that their employees get enough time to enjoy their personal life and spend time with family.

Work-life balance is the term used to describe those practices at workplace that acknowledge and aim to support the needs of employees in achieving a balance between the demands of their family (life) and work lives. It is achieved when an individual’s right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society.

Aim

The aim of the work-life balance is to see that both employers and employees equally benefit from a work-life balance.This study aims to suggest suitable solutions for overcoming the problems and reduce the stress which leads to encouraging the employee’s better performance for organizational output.

WORK LIFE BALANCE STRATEGIES

1. Work life balance strategies at individual level

It is not easy task to juggle with the pressing needs of both career and personal life. There is a constant need for reducing stress in work life and maintain harmony in both professional and personal life.

Strategies at individual levels are:

• i) Be assertive and simplify: Learn to say NO if it comes in the way of your schedules. Staying home once in a while helps the frenetic pace of the work place.
• ii) Learn to De-stress: An optimum level of stress often enables people to perform better but the key is to maintain it at manageable so that it can enrich and motivate. Sometimes make sense to ‘take it easy’.
• iii) Share or distribute the work load: An orderly and clean home reduces unnecessary tensions and makes the life simpler. However, when time is tight, learn to let go of expectations of extreme cleanliness. Even at the work place, learning to trust colleagues and delegating tasks and duties which helps in sharing the burden.
• iv) Identify and prioritized implementation: Keep a record of all the work related and non-work-related activities performed during a given week. After identifying the most important and meaningful activities based on your priority, those which are done out of guilt and deemed to be unnecessary can be delegated, if possible.
• v) Manage time effectively: Make proper planning of household chores and duties/tasks scheduling of appointments or tasks which can be clubbed together on the same day minimizes missed work time.

2. Work life balance strategies at organisational level

• i) Flextime: Flextime is a scheduling policy in which full-time employees may opt for starting and ending times within the prescribed guidelines of the organization.
• ii) Compressed work week: In such type of system, normal working hours are extended to a few more hours to give employee a weekly off.
• iii) Job sharing: In job sharing concept, two part-time employees’ carryout tasks associated with a single job. That means a job can be shared between two part-time employees instead of one full-time employee. Employees are here satisfied with less burden of job on their shoulders.
• iv) Flex place/Telecommuting: This strategy gives freedom to an employee to work from virtual office, either sitting at home or any other place with the help of computer or telephone and internet facility.
• v) Part time employment: In this strategy, working hours are reduced from the standard 8 hours or 40 hours per week. In this arrangement employees are permitted to meet both job and personal needs.

Objectives of the study

Every project work must be carried out on the basis of an objective, because these objectives lay down a proper part by clearly mentioning what we are supposed to find out on the study under taken in the chosen organization.

• To develop strategies for balancing both work and personal life
• To identify some of the physical and mental effects of stress and learn ways to minimize these effects.

Scope of Work life balance:

The study covers the various aspects in employee work life balance and measured increase in productivity, accountability, commitment, better team work and communication improved morale, less negative organizational stress.

This study is helpful to identify the balance of work life and personal life at GAIL.

Review literature

Maruthamuthu, D. Chitra, S. Pramothine, G., & Surendar, G. (2018)

Human resource is that the important conjointly the backbone of each organization and it’s also the most resource of the organization. Therefore, organizations invest immense quantity on the human resource capital as a result of the performance of human resource can ultimately increase the performance of the organization. Performance may be a major three-d construct aimed to attain results and contains a robust link to strategic goals of a corporation

In this study identified that the effect of quality of work-life is one the most important for all human beings and it will lead to the success of any organization for the outcome. Work-life balance policies are the key factors for the success of an organization on employees are balancing their working life as well as personal life also. Hence the focusing on employees are how to consider the importance of their personal situations and organization welfare policies towards effective performance management on balancing their work-life that helps to reduce the stress. This study aims to suggest suitable solutions for overcoming the problems and reduce the stress which leads to encouraging the employee’s better performance for organizational output.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The secondary data is collected through company publications and research articles from related journals, manuals, websites and the concerned literature on the subject.

The primary data is collected through questionnaire and also through observations. The questionnaire is spread among the employees to collect information.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

The study has been met the following constraints but made effort to overcome them in order to make this study valid.

• The study was conducted with a very limited time.
• Time is a major constraint in collecting the full data.
• The respondents’ opinions may favour to the management.

FINDINGS

• During this study it is observed that 97% of the employees felt that if the employees have a good work life balance the organization will be more effective and successful.
• It has been observed that 60% of the employees felt that the work is evenly distributed in the organization.
• It has been clear that majority of the employees’ onlydepends on situation work for long hours or overtime and even on holidays at GAIL.
• It has been identified that 67% of the employees are happy while spending time at the work.
• It has been clear that majority of 67% the respondents felt that work longer than standard hours only depends on the situation at GAIL.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the survey brought about the fact that GAIL has been successful in helping its employees attain a proper work life balance. The organization firmly believes that only happy and engaged employees having a balanced life help in achieving their mission and vision and the company’s business strategy. They have been taking proactive steps towards the optimal achievement of employee work life balance but in order to develop a productive, engaged and competitive workforce, the organization needs to further strengthen its human resource policies in this area.

Earning more money is not enough to live, if an employee can’t give time to his/her family. Flexibility is required in the job if he/she has to give his/her best to the organization. If an employee gives his/her best effort to the company then it is the responsibility of the organization to provide a better quality of life.

References

1. WORK-LIFE BALANCE: STRESS AND PERFORMNCE. IJRDO – Journal of Business Management (ISSN: 2455-6661).
2. Asian Journal of Management Research, ISSN 2229-3795, Vol 5, No. 3, pp 323-343
3. 21 Pages Posted: 20 Jan 2015.
4. Atkinson, N Meager Changing working patterns. How Companies Achieve Flexibility to Meet New Needs Posted: 1986.
5. K Bachmann Work-life Balance. Are Employers Listening? Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada Posted: 2000.
6. R Baral, S Bhargava Work-family enrichment as a mediator between organizational interventions for work-life balance and job outcomes Journal of Managerial Psychology, volume 25, issue 3, p. 274 – 300 Posted: 2010.

In today’s world, women have been stepping up to find a place in the workplace and have created their own significant identity; a role in the workplace, a role in the community and a role for themselves. About 20-25 years earlier, women in the workplace was an out-of-box or rather odd thing. Even though women are working now, there are still many stereotypes and beliefs that expect women to manage households and take up the major responsibility in bringing up a child. Handling households and personal life alongside keeping up with deadlines from work is very difficult to cope up with and that is where work life balance is required.

Work life balance is about dividing one’s time and attention between work and home or personal. Work life balance plays a vital role in a woman’s life by ensuring their mental and physical health. It makes things organized and in result, increases the efficiency and work rate of women. It helps them to grow and evolve as a person which helps them not only in their personal life but also in their work life. It helps them to manage work and home responsibilities efficiently. It helps in the growth of companies as well. Women bring diversity and inclusion to the workplace and help in making better decisions.

Work life balance is not only about managing the role of a worker and a mother successfully, it is also about not overburdening oneself with these roles and spending some quality time with oneself.

Causes

Work clashing with household amenities, such as dropping or picking up children from school and cooking food for the family, plays a crucial role in causing inconsistency in work life flow on a daily basis. Women find it difficult to continue their work life flow when stereotypes and gender role beliefs expect them to take care of the children or elderly. Especially when motherhood arrives, work life balance is disrupted when women have to take maternity leaves from work and are demoted in some cases once they are back.

Effects

Attaining work life balance and handling household, work and personal life at once overloads women with work and responsibilities that can lead to health issues such as heart strokes, stress, depression and anxiety. There is also disharmony in family life and lack of support from family members which can also contribute to these effects.

Health issues is a main factor in disrupting work life balance and could lessen the productivity of work. Due to the need for women to handle the responsibilities of work and home simultaneously, women face lower job commitment and less noteworthy roles at work.

Accenture, a consulting firm, conducted a study which found out that about 70% of women responders in India said that they believed that work life balance was the key to success whereas about 40% of men felt that. The study also found out that difficulty of balancing personal and work life is a key reason why women in India leave their jobs.

There is also the imposed belief on women about keeping their family as a first priority and not giving much prominence to their work life which leads women encountering role conflict. Women will not know what they should do, which role they should give more significance to: the role they desire or the role they are expected to do. They get distracted easily and undivided attention is given to work and home which is not good for a person’s mental health. They are discriminated and are not socially acceptable if they give more importance to their work. They start to feel the risk of developing their passion and building a successful career that earns more money. This deprives women’s capable contribution to the world. Also, companies are very spiteful in wages for women and there is a huge pay gap between salaries given to men and women which makes work even more discouraging.

Due to these overpowering gender role beliefs and stereotypes, women may turn down jobs and there will not be much female role models in the world to motivate and inspire other women. Women will not be able to realize their own potential and will encounter low self-esteem and demotivation. Work life balance is hard to achieve when societal beliefs play huge roles to discourage women.

National perspective

In India, the average number of hours that employees are working are 52 hours a week which leaves very less time for women to spend on other areas of life such as personal or home.

Sunita Cherian, vice president of human resources in Wipro, mentioned that her company plans to give flexibility to their workers in accordance to the different or life-changing phases of their life such as getting married or being pregnant. She also stated that her company realizes that the key reason women are dropping out of jobs are due to these changes dominating their life and women feel it would be much easier to quit. The company aims to convince women to stay in their jobs regardless of their temptation to drop out.

India needs more companies to give a similar kind of influence to their workers. A work environment shouldn’t have any implicit communication or workers stressing out over the burden of work given instead it should be interactive and workers should be given work life balance which would reduce the level of anxiety or stress in the workplace and would also be beneficial for the company.

India needs to realize the importance of work life balance in the workplace by building different office layouts and bringing in different ways and schemes in order to get work done.

Global perspective

“Rural women play a key role in supporting their households and communities in achieving food and nutrition security, generating income and improving rural livelihoods and overall well-being”, stated by UN Womenwatch Organization.

In 2015, the global average annual earnings for women were $11000, compared to men’s earnings of $21000. There are huge pay gaps between incomes of men and women which demotivates women to work. Empowering women in economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Denmark is one of the top 10 countries with great work life balance and the average number of working hours of only 37.8 hours a week. They also offer 23 weeks of maternity and paternity leave to employees. This gives a lot of flexibility to workers to manage their home and personal lives. Work life balance strikes up the euphoria levels in a country. Denmark was ranked first in the World Happiness Report 2013 and 2016 and third in the year 2015 due to its freedom to workers of working limited hours.

Course of actions

Women should be given flexibility at work and home which will help them attain work life balance. Childcare facility and transport facility at the workplace will help working mothers by making it easier to take responsibility of their children. They could make sure that their home, their workplace and their children’s schools are near each other so they wouldn’t be wasting their time during the day travelling.

Sometimes, women fear that if they work longer, family members may feel neglected. In this case, women could keep in touch with their family through the internet. If they are at home and they get some work, they should avoid doing the work immediately. This would only make family members feel neglected and may disrupt personal relationships. Both parents should make a flexible schedule and discuss the roles they want to play beforehand with both in complete agreement. This would reduce conflicts in the family at a later stage and will not disrupt work life.

“We want them to strike a work-life balance and prioritise their emotional and physical well-being which will help them overcome challenges both professionally and personally. As part of the curriculum of our workshops, we also address how women should look at themselves as leaders,” said K. Muthulakshmi, a police constable in Chennai, India.

Women should become more emotionally intelligent which helps them prioritise their time between work and home. Women should make an organized schedule, which not only has time to finish household chores and demands from work but also has time to take care of oneself emotionally and physically.

The society should become a collectivist community believing in one cause; the right cause. People should change their mindsets about overloading women with both professional and personal responsibilities. Women shouldn’t let beliefs prevent them from being successful. Self-esteem and motivation are key factors in acquiring work life balance. The world needs more female role models to inspire other women to achieve work life balance. This would only happen if one starts the cycle and others continue.

Women also have the option of starting their own business so that they could be given flexibility and where lower wages and job commitment or burnout won’t be a problem.

Women who have been contributing majorly to the world must be recognized and their stories must be told in a way which invigorates other women to become vocal and esteemed enough to start their own stories.

INTRODUCTION

One of an important attribute of a successful organization is its satisfied Workforce. The term “Work Life Balance” has become the new “buzzword” in today’s Corporate world. The concept of ‘Work Life Balance’ helps employees of an organization to balance their personal and professional lives. It encourages employees to divide their time as per the priorities and maintain balance by devoting ample amount of time to family, health, vacation etc. It not only helps to motivate the employees but also increase the loyalty of employees towards the organization.

This Case study aims to identify the factors affecting ‘Work Life Balance’, the policies and programs availed by the employees in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) sector. Also it will ascertain the impact of ‘Work Life Balance’ on employees’ personal and professional life and their relationship with the management of an organization.

THE BPO INDUSTRY IN INDIA

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) basically refers to outsourcing in all fields. A BPO service provider basically manages and administers various business processes of an organization. In India, factors such as cheap labor cost, economy of scale, maximum utilization and huge pool talent of skilled professionals has contributed in the growth and development of BPO industry in the country.

As per the Research by the National Association of Software Services and Companies (NASSCOM) revealed that the quality orientation of leading BPO companies, 24*7 services, unique geographical location and also investor friendly tax structure has made the BPO Industry very popular in India.

WORK LIFE BALANCE AND BPO

1. Maintaining ‘Work Life Balance’ is one of the tedious task in BPO Sector due to:- Customer Oriented Workforce; 24*7 operations; Unusual work schedule; Daily quality assurance and service measurement, tedious and irate calls etc.
2. One of the biggest challenges in BPO sector is that it has to do work in night shifts as well because of the time zone differential like between India and the US.
3. Imbalance results when the employees finds difficulty in managing between their personal life and demand of work because of stressful working hours and difficulty to say ‘NO’ to the supervisor.

Here comes the responsibility of the organization to frame such policies and programs which could help their employees in attaining “Work Life Balance.”

To analyze how‘Work Life Balance’ affects the productivity of an organization; we took one of the well- established Company of BPO industry: “WNS (holdings) Ltd.” The data is collected from various Press releases and Reports published by the company for public reading to identify the role and relevance of “Work Life Balance” in the Company and how this factor plays an integral role in the growth and development of the company.

ABOUT: WNS (Holdings) Ltd.

WNS is one of the most leading companies in BPO Industry, which was set up in India by British Airways in 1996 in Mumbai. In 2003, it has started offering Business Process Management (BPM) to its clients from various Industries. Started with only 2000 employees, today WNS is working with more than 40,000 employees in India only.

WNS offers an entire spectrum of business process management services in the fields such as finance and accounting, customer services, research and analytics, bank processes etc. With 57 worldwide delivery centers including China, Romania, Sri Lanka, India, United Kingdom and United States; it is ranked as No.1 Company (as per NAASCOM,2018) in BPO Industry in India.

WORK LIFE BALANCE FACILITIES OFFERED TO EMPLOYEES AT WNS

The table shown below is the Short review of key focus areas of WNS to maintain ‘Work life balance’ and to increase satisfaction and motivation among the employees.

The data mentioned in the table is taken from various ‘Press Reports’ released by the Company over the years and the ‘Reviews of the Employees’ posted by them at various Online Platforms.

YEAR NO. OF EMPLOYEES VARIOUS “WORK LIFE BALANCE” POLICIES AND PROGRAMS OFFERED

• 2003 2,000 Paid leaves; Regular training programs; Flexi-time hours; No night shifts; Health insurance facilities etc.
• 2005 8,500 Satisfactory -Pay scale; Easy working environment, Motivational sessions by experts; Stress-buster programs; Special amenities to Women employees; Rewards to loyal employees etc.
• 2010 21000 Maternity leaves and Work from home facilities for Women employees; Paid leaves for Vacations; Compulsory 26 leaves in a year; travelling expenses; Employees’ grievance handling etc.
• 2015 29,672 Prohibits Harassment at workplace; Equal opportunity employer and no discrimination among employees, Public speaking trainings; Sports and Hobby clubs; Get together, parties and festival celebrations etc.
• 2018 35,637 Leaves for education; Special privileges to pregnant women employees; Safety and health facilities at workplace; Trips are organized and funded by the company etc.

HOW WORK LIFE BALANCE HELPS IN THE GROWTH OF WNS?

1. Besides setting up in 2003, it has shown the tremendous increase of number of satisfied professionals employed in the company over the past twelve years.
2. WNS was awarded with “Professional HR Excellence Award” for having 8500 satisfied professionals and innovative ‘Work Life Balance’ policies.
3. In 2010, WNS won “NAASCOM Special Award For Excellence In Gender Inclusivity” for highest 42% of satisfied Women employees and providing special amenities to women.
4. In 2016, WNS managed to achieve the target of employing 31,000 employing which has contributed in the immense growth of the company.
5. It is quite clear from the data that WNS has quite low Employee Turnover Ratio and has considerable number of satisfied employees.

VIEWS OF EMPLOYEES ON ‘WORK LIFE BALANCE’ IN WNS

1. “They provide 21 days of regular leaves which can be taken throughout the year and 9 days of restricted holidays which can be either taken on client holidays or Indian holidays” -Current Employee, Bangalore, Karnataka
2. “Maintaining work life balance is easier as company is flexible enough to provide certain amenities specifically for women ” – Current Employee, Gurugram
3. “Though pay scale is not much but the Best thing here is work life balance , no unnecessary stress and too much workload” -Current Employee, Gurugram

CONCLUSION

After going through the Case Study, it is quite clear that ‘Work Life Balance’ is an integral factor in the growth of an organization especially in case of BPO Industry, as this is one of those sectors which require highest number of human resources.

Like in this study, it is found that how ‘Work Life Balance’ facilities helps the firm to generate satisfied employees which not only increased revenue of the company but also contributed in achieving the top position amongst other BPO companies in a very short span of time in India. Like WNS, other companies regulating in BPO Industry should also work on this integral factor so that it become easy for the employees to regulate in BPO Industry with satisfaction and happiness. Some of the Benefits of ‘Work Life Balance’ that can be drawn from the study are as follows:

1. Employees feel to have more control in their work life which leads to decrease in Absenteeism.
2. Leads to increased productivity, growth and development of the company
3. 3. Happier, satisfied, free from stress and balanced personal and professional life of employees.

REFERENCES

1. For statistical data: www.wns.com/media center/press release from 2002 to 2018
2. www.slideshare.net/work life balance
3. www.Glassdoor.co.in/ reviews of employees in WNS
4. www.ambitionbox.com(naukri.com)/reviews
5. www.indiatoday.co.in/status of employees in WNS in 2010

Introduction

Problem Statement

The task of satisfying key employees is intense. High level of satisfaction and minimum level of conflicts at workplace and home has been shown to be momentous to the development of an organization in terms of gaining competitive advantage as well as wellness of society. Now a day, Level of frustration among people due to socio-economic issues is rising in Pakistan; Organizations are in continuous competition which is putting pressure on employees. Moreover, In traditional family setting of Pakistan, responsibilities level seem quite high as more members demand more care, increase of female workforce or single-parent families (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) over weigh responsibilities. These are the alarming conditions that should be addressed in terms of identification of causes so that proper measures could be taken to ensure wellness of employees, organization and society as a whole.

Work-life balance is an important topic in both professional business practice and academic research. Success of any organization is particularly dependent on the availability of satisfied workforce. Generally imbalance results as depression, and organizations experiencing higher staff turnover, lower productivity and poorer work quality (Seligman, 2011; Hill, 2005). Similarly, an individual can enjoy healthy family life if he/she has a supportive family. High level of dissatisfaction due to family burden leads to lower quality relationships with family members (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002).

In recent years, it is found that level of frustration among people is rising which is resulting in the form of low patience level, depression and increase in number of blood pressure patients due to multiple reasons. To keep away nation from depression is one of the main challenges faced by many countries. A report commissioned by the British Council in 2009 reveals widespread dissatisfaction and frustration in Pakistan. That report emphasized on the socio-economic issues which vast majority face due to unemployment, inequality, intense work pressure and increase in social burden &criticism.

Businesses are in continuous competition that is pressurizing personnel to boom their productiveness and increasing workload for the employees (O’Connell, Russell, Watson & Byrne, 2010). Many people feel under stress to work longer hours to hold their jobs (Wayman, 2010), and to fulfill their family expenses (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). Studies indicate that the main reasons of poor WLB amongst employees are excessive operating hours and a lack of work schedule flexibility.

In traditional family setting of Pakistan, responsibilities level seem quite high as more members demand more care especially elder care responsibilities influence time division factor. Moreover, the number of women continues their professional life even after marriage is raising day by day as literature highlighted increase of female workforce Grady et al. (2008) or single-parent families (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) which seems to result in more role interference and responsibilities overload.

Most of the researchers relate Work-Life Balance with organization policies, organization culture and HR management. Research on WLB and wellbeing also performed but in USA and UK, little research assesses this influence in Pakistan’s context where we observe two systems of family which includes Joint-family system and Neutral-family system. Most of the wellbeing studies either focus merely on female workforce but this study also incorporate male workforce. There seems to be insufficient research conducted on Family- work conflicts and their effects on wellbeing. This study aims to bridge the distance in literature and observe factors associated with family-work Conflicts from a wellbeing perspective. As Frone et al. (1992) argue that the relation between dissatisfaction and family-work conflict is stronger over time than the relation between dissatisfaction and work-family conflict. So, it seems like an important area to study.

It is irrefutable fact that the future of organizations depends upon the satisfaction level of their competent workforce and keeping them satisfied is a big challenge for the management. Eventually an organization suffers by Losing workforce or having workforce with high stress level in this competitive era. Likewise, society’s wellness depends on having happy family system with least conflicts. This study is going to consider the impact of Work life balance factors on the Wellbeing of Employees. Work life balance refers to balance, an individual can enjoy due to minimum conflicts in life, which a person’s family and workplace ensure by taking actions. Also compare which factor of balance is more crucial for bringing contentment in two separate domains.

Literature Review

Work-life balance is vital for individuals’ wellbeing, organization’s overall performance and a functioning society (Grady et al., 2008). There are many strategies to keep the employees content with the present job but work-life balance boost the satisfaction level on regular basis. Family and work are the most crucial elements of everyone’s life. Any competing demands of work and family life cause conflict and negatively affect the wellness of workers (Clark, 2000; Frone, 2000). Work and family life generally affected by three sorts of conflicts which are time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, and behavior-based conflict according to Greenhaus and Beutell (1985).

Contrary to modern belief, monetary compensation is not the highest satisfaction factor for an individual playing two roles simultaneously. Some researchers (e.g. Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Lambert, 1990) referred to compensation theory according to which workers try to find more contentment in one domain to reimburse for the lack of satisfaction in the other domain. This study targeted on compensation but not in economic terms.

A Few studies elaborated flexibility as conflict resolving aspect. Clark (2000) in her border theory shows that WLB is overblown by physical borders (e.g. workplace walls), temporal borders (e.g. working hours) and psychological borders (e.g. conduct and thinking patterns) between work and family settings. Clark (2000) determined that higher flexibility and lower permeability can result in lower conflicts. Contrary to this, Research conducted by Hill, Hawkins and Miller (1996) shows that excessive integration of work and family setting can lead to negative results, as excessive flexibility can blur the bounds between those two settings.

Generally due to economic downturn, expanded competition and evolving technology, organizations reduce expenditure, lower group of workers ranges and pressurize remaining employees to boom their productiveness (O’Connell et al., 2010). The wellbeing of workers who hold their employment may be negatively influenced by job insecurity (Scherer, 2009). Many individuals feel underneath pressure to work longer hours to hold their jobs (Wayman, 2010).

Grady et al. (2008) and Burke (2000) argues that corporations and executives need to recognize the importance of WLB, its influence on employees’, and on organizations productivity and performance. Providing certain non-monetary benefits at slight stage such as flexible working hours, temporal agreements, childcare facilities, and supports such as counseling via an organization strengthen chances of retention of a competent workforce, and its effect on organizational dedication and profitability (Ryan & Kossek, 2008; Hill, 2005; Grady et al., 2008).

A few researchers believes that these factors of work-life balance have bi-directional effects on work and family domains, participation in the work role can also disturb or enhance the performance in the family role, and family position participation may also disturb or enhance performance within the work role (Frone, 2003; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000).

From global demographic changes point of view, multiplied participation of women in the workforce, single-parent households and eldercare have ended in expanded challenges confronted by workers who tried to stabilize demands of work and family life (Tennant &Sperry, 2003; Young, 1999). Change in trends also impact setting of priorities, which sometimes result in the form of conflicts.

Multiple researches have put their emphasis on workplace pressure as a reason for less level of employee’s fulfillment. It is found that less literature focusing exclusively on family aspect as a reason which could affect an individual work-life, intentions and health. Frone et al. (1992) argue that the relation between despair and family-work conflict is getting more energy over time than the relation between despair and work-family conflict.

Individual with larger family size and more dependent care duties face more issues in their lives than individuals without such care obligations (Frone et al., 1992; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Grzywacz and Marks (2000). Grzywacz and Marks (2000) found that family support or burden affects stages of satisfaction. Lower levels of criticism by family and burden indicated less number of conflicts, and lower levels of family support indicated higher negative spillover, decrease degree of WLB (Kalliath & Monroe, 2009), higher job stress and turnover intentions (Netemeyer, Maxham & Pullig, 2005), anxiety and substance disorders (Frone, 2000) and increased stress (Hill, 2005).

Hence, Wellbeing of an individual may be assured by taking certain actions in order to make an individual feel good about life roles, his/her presence and surrounding as stated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics and by Ryan and Deci (2001) while operating on pleasure-pain theory. A glad employee is a more productive employee, and happiness is affected by both work contentment and family life contentment (Spector et al., 2004; Moorman, 1993). Based on the above studies, this research evolves hypotheses linking Conflicts and wellbeing of employees by emphasizing on a few above mentioned aspects not considered much previously, in order to identify at which end more effort is required to ensure wellbeing of an employee.

Work-Family Conflict

This is a type of conflict which takes place when performing workplace role start disturbing home or work activities (Breaugh & Frye, 2007; Hill, 2005) such as decrease in supportiveness i.e absence of compressed workweek and flexi time. This factor is significant to consider as negative experiences at either place can disturb a person.

Family-Work Conflict

This is a type of conflict which takes place when performing family role start disturbing work or home activities (Breaugh & Frye, 2007; Hill, 2005) such as increase in demand of time or workload by family. This factor is significant to consider as negative experiences usually have a negative impact on person’s life.

Dependent Variable

Wellbeing of Employees is the dependent variable. My current study will consider two different dimensions associated with Wellbeing of Employees. These dimensions are:

Work Satisfaction

Work satisfaction refers to an employee overall feeling about supervision and an employee critical assessment of the work conditions e.g. working hours, workload and job security.

“There are two sets of factors figuring out work satisfaction: (a) intrinsic factors consisting of schooling, task meaningfulness, job expectations and family demands; and (b) work-related aspects such as job security, talent range, role overload and conflict, and supervisor guide” (Paton et al., 2003).

Family Satisfaction

This term built on an idea of achieving personal happiness or satisfaction due to the high understanding level of a supportive family.

Clark and Farmer (1998) state that family life satisfaction means achieving personal happiness due to family support.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is to elaborate and clarify the link between work-life balance and wellbeing of employees working in five private organizations of Pakistan, to find out which dimension of work-life balance; work-family conflict or family-work conflict influence work satisfaction and family satisfaction more. Moreover, this study will bridge the distance in literature by analyzing and comparing extent of influence on satisfaction from family’s end in the light of Joint-family system and Neutral-family system.

For the research of Work-life balance in influencing wellbeing of employees, Post positivist worldview will be needed as a way to approach research. As After reviewing the literature related to Work life balance, positivism paradigm seems to be the most appropriate approach for data collection. A Quantitative research will be done by using deductive approach and assessing relationships between variables which will be numerically measured and analyzed then.

Quantitative Design

For Quantitative research, Survey research will be done to examine the influence of work life balance on wellbeing of employees in 5 private organizations of Pakistan only. The nature of the survey would be cross-sectional. In order to test our hypotheses survey would be one of the best tools to collect data and research conducted through surveys provides us with greater confidence to generalize our results to population at large.

Data Collection

Data will be collected by using survey research strategy which involves questionnaires consisting of close ended questions regarding two above mentioned dimensions of Independent variable i.e. Work-life balance and two dimensions of dependent variable i.e. Wellbeing of employees. The questions will be formed in a five point Likert Scale which allows respondents to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement provided. Data will be collected till the time the numbers of participants belong to the neutral family system is equal to the number of participants from the joint-family system.

Sample size and Technique

A sample size of 200 respondents from five private organizations of Pakistan will be used to gather information by using convenience sampling technique for selection of participants.

Data Analysis

Data will be analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social sciences (SPSS) for drawing appropriate conclusions. Descriptive statistics will be used for demographic variables. Cronbach’s alpha will be used to check the internal validity of the scale. I will conduct Pearson correlation to examine the link between the independent and dependent variable.

Significance

The study is significant for an individual, organization and family also as it will provide better insight regarding connection between WLB and wellbeing. This study is based on comparing disturbance due to work activities versus due to family demands (Joint-family system versus Neutral-family system) in an individual’s life. So it will indicate, at which end (family or workplace) more effort is required to raise an employee overall satisfaction level.

In this competitive era, it is very important for the organizations to understand how they can keep their current workforce satisfied by doing better in terms of Lifestyle and wellness programs implementation (family-friendly policies) to improve overall level of commitment, absenteeism ratio, turnover ratio, productivity and performance of its employees.

Moreover, the study highlights significance of clear responsibilities allocation and providing flexibility to a family member by family (either it’s a joint-family or a neutral-family) in order to support that member. Moreover, it would also contribute to the existing body of literature; Academicians would be able to use this study as a basis for further study on the proposed topic in the area of Human Resource Management.

Limitations

• The size of the sample population which is 200 respondents from merely 5 private organizations operating in Lahore could affect the statistical strength of this research. Therefore, future research is recommended on a larger sample population, as a pathway to increase worth of the findings.
• Another limitation is the sampling method. This study is going to use a convenience sampling method, which means that individuals who are easily approachable by me will be the part of this research. Being a student, it is quite difficult to access complete list of employees of these organizations in order to use random sampling method.
• Cross-sectional research is another limitation, as longitudinal research adds knowledge in a sense that we can inference better casual relationship between independent and dependent variables.

References

1. Barnett, R.C. & Hyde, J.S. (2001) ‘Women, men, work, and family: An expansionist theory’. American Psychologist, 56, 781-796.
2. Breaugh, J. A. & Frye, N. K. (2007) ‘An examination of the antecedents and consequences of the use of family-friendly benefits’. Journal of Managerial Issues, 19 (1): 35-52.
3. Burke, R. (2000) ‘Do managerial men benefit from organizational values supporting work-personal life balance?’. Women in Management Review, 15 (2):81-87.
4. Clark, S. C. (2000) ‘Work/family border theory: A new theory of work/family balance’. Human Relations, 53 (6): 747-770.
5. Clark, S.C. & Farmer, P.M.K. (1998) ‘living in two different worlds: Measuring cultural and value differences between work and home, and their effect on border-crossing’. Paper presented at the Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, October, 1998.
6. Diener, E. (2005) ‘Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being’, Applied Research in Quality of Life. 1: 151-157.
7. Edwards, J. R. & Rothbard, N. P. (2000) ‘Mechanisms linking work and family: Clarifying the relationship between work and family constructs’. Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 178-199.
8. Frone, M. R., Russell, M. & Cooper, M. (1992) ‘Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: Testing a model of work-family interface’.Journal of Applied Psychology, 77 (1): 65-78
9. Grzywacz, J.G. & Marks, N.F. (2000) ‘Reconceptualising the work-family interface: an ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family’. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1):111-126.
10. Greenhaus, J. H. & Beutell, N. J. (1985) ‘Sources of conflict between work and family roles’. Academy of Management Review, 10 (1): 76-88.
11. Grady, G., McCarthy, A., Darcy, C. & Kirrane. M. (2008) Work Life Balance Policies and Initiatives in Irish Organisations: A Best Practice Management.Cork: Oak Tree Press.
12. Hill, E. J., Hawkins, A.J. & Miller, B.C (1996) ‘Work and family in the virtual office: Perceived influence of mobile telework’. Family Relations, 45, 293-301.
13. O’Connell, P.J., Russell, H., Watson, D. & Byrne, D. (2010) The Changing Workplace: A Survey of Employees’ Views and Experiences. Dublin: National Centre for Partnership and Performance.
14. Paton, D., Jackson, D. & Johnston, P. (2003) ‘Work attitudes and values’. In: O’Driscoll, M, Taylor, P. & Kalliath T.( eds). Organizational psychology in Australia and New Zealand. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press, 129-149.
15. Ryan A.M., & Kossek, E.E. (2008) ‘Work-life policy implementation: Breaking down or creating barriers to inclusiveness?’. Human Resource Management 47: 295–310.
16. Scherer, S. (2009) ‘The Social Consequences of Insecure Jobs’, Special Issue of Social Indicators Research, 93(3): 527–47
17. Spector, P.E., Cooper, C.L., Poelmans, S., Allen, T.D., O’Driscoll, M., Sanchez, J.I., Siu, O.L., Dewe, P., Hart, P. & Lu, L. (2004) ‘A cross-national comparative study of work-family stressors, working hours, and well-being: China and Latin America versus the Anglo world’. Personnel Psychology, 57:119-142
18. Seligman, M. E. P. (2011) A visionary new understanding of happiness and wellbeing: Flourish. Australia: Random House Australia Pty Ltd.
19. Tennant, G. P. & Sperry, L. (2003) ‘Work-family balance: Counselling strategies to optimise health’. Family Journal-Counselling Therapy for Couples and Families, 11(4): 404-408.

Abstract

Increased job responsibilities due to an increased demands at the workplace to achieve the objectives set at the workplace, together with family responsibilities at the home-front, have created a need to balance both the domains.To overcome this problem, employer and employees can introduce creative methods at the workplace innovate new methods and strategies at their home-front and at their workplace and entrepreneurial activities can also be considered. Employees should have the support of the management in use of creativity at the workplace and also to enhance their productivity without affecting their family-life. Hence, this article throws light on the studies done in this domain, the strategies that could be adopted and the challenges faced in trying to maintain a balance between family-life and work-life.

Introduction

Present situation, world is facing a very competitive environment. People are giving more important on their work, than family-life and people are spending more time at the workplace. Family-Life and Work-Life balance is not an easy task meaning one’s professional and family responsibilities managing both equally in an effective manner. One can have work-family balance but may not have anything left for oneself for one’s community and one’s personal growth and development. Sometimes it is possible to have family-work balance and at times it may seem as individuals still need to achieve work – life balance.

In western scenario, other than work, all activities are considered a part of life. This may include family-life and social-life.But, when we look at Indian scenario, Family and Work are treated as two separate entities. Family is given a top priority and ideally family-life and work-life suits more to an Indian situation. We can say that, experiences associated with family are called family-life. An experience associated with work is called work-life.

Review of Literature

Marta Mas-Machuca et al (2016) in their research, “Work-Life balance and its relationship with organizational pride and job satisfaction”, have found that the work-life balance of employees was showinga positive relation with organization pride and job satisfaction. Further, the results showed that the work-life balance of supervisors of these employees provide autonomy and supports the work-life balance of these employees. In other words, the degree of work-life balance achieved by superiors in an organization affects the work-life balance of their subordinates.

SuchetaAgarwalUshaLenka (2015) in their research paper the scholars have discussed about the problem of wok-life balance for working women executive. To overcome the conflict issue they need to balance between personal life style and work life style. It suggests that women should start their own business to gain more flexibility and control on their personal obligations and on their work.

Salma Semlali, AbderrahmanHassi, (2016)in their research paper the research scholars noticed that employees try to fulfill the private and professional lives. The study was conducted on the work life balance of Moroccan women working in IT sector. Here the organizations are key factor in employees’ work life balance. Some main recommendations of this study is to increase the maternity leave, flexibility of the work, workplace nurseries and also telework may help the women employees in work life balance and their well being which will reduce their stress level in working place.

VeronikaKoubova, Aaron A. Buchko, (2013) in their research paper have discussed on work life balance and emotional intelligence and its conceptual linkage. Emotional intelligence is been viewed as an important aspect in individuals work life balance. Personal life is important and work is viewed as a component to satisfy the overall life. So the organization should develop the Emotional intelligence in work place and improve the abilities of employees.

RupashreeBaral, ShivganeshBhargava( 2010) in their research paper tell about the work-family enrichment, relationships between organization interventions for work life balance and job outcomes. It shows that outcomes of the work life balance are positively related to job outcomes and work to family enrichment will be related to job characteristics. Work family culture and support of the supervisor are also positively related to job satisfaction and an outcome were found between work life benefits and policies.

Observations

By reviewing the above literature, an impression can be drawn about the importance of balancing family and work. The significant points that can be noted are:

• Support of the Superior is required at the workplace.
• A certain level of autonomy if provided can be useful to employees in balancing family and work.
• Employers can consider facilities such as day-care, work-from-home, flexibility of work-time etc., for reducing the stress level of employees.
• It was seen that the outcomes of work-life balance is positively related to the job outcomes.
• Starting off own-ventures/business if possible would be a great initiative for the individuals in balancing life.

Work – Life Balance Definitions

Work-life balance is defined as “the management of one’s professional responsibilities and family responsibilities towards children, ageing parents, and disabled family member, or a partner/spouse effectively. One can have work-family balance, but may or may not have anything left for oneself, for one’s community, for one’s own personal growth and development, rest and relaxation”. (Buddhapriya,2009)

According to Hudson(2005), work/life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a “satisfactory level involvement or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life”.

Analysis of the above definitions

The first definition pertains to the divided responsibilities that the individuals have to fulfill at the family and at work. The responsibility at the home-front is towards spouse, children, ageing parents and other family members. The responsibility at the work-place is in fulfilling and executing the given tasks as per expectations at the work.

The second definition emphasizes on the satisfactory involvement of individuals between multiple roles in life.

A conclusion can be drawn, that in trying to maintain a balance in family and at work, understanding and fulfilling responsibility in both domains is important and this can be done through satisfactory involvement of individuals between multiple roles.

Challenges in Balancing Family– Life and Work-Life

• Excessive work confronts with tasks involving with children, home, in-laws, parents and their social circle. Employees mostly have multiples roles in their personal lives along-with an increase in demands on the job so the working population have to spend long hours in work place, at times can be carried to homes which leads to excessive work both at home and at work.
• Work interference will affect the family-life because mostly working hours are not limited to 7 to 8 hours day it may extend till 12 -16 hours also. This may lead to little time for family-life due to long hours that are spent in completing the work tasks.
• Majority employees are highly stressed and undergo anxiety, they have to manage both work responsibilities together with family responsibilities. This may lead to high levels of anxiety in having to compete with a competitive environment and juggling between the family and work preventing them from aspiring to progress in their career beyond the particular level.
• Everyday decisions on important matters in family-life and/or work-life will be difficult to handle and manage, this may result in stress which will lead to health issues.
• Sometimes due to prioritizing the family, employees may lose many opportunities and by the time they are in a position to accept the greater responsibilities, repetitive and monotonous nature assigned to them also inhibits their creativity. This will lead to imbalance and frustration and resentment which greatly impact their various roles. And hence, sometimes they are unable to realize their full potential in both work and family .
• Work responsibilities interference may often cause displeasure among the family members. This may result in disharmony among the members of the family/at home.
• If at home, there is a tendency wherein, as a primary role for the man results in dumping of all households responsibilities upon the women this leads to biased treatment on the women which will result in the imbalance and frustration in balancing family and work.
• Emotions create imbalance at family and work.
• Targets at the workplace in the form of meeting deadlines, completion of tasks, too much work to be completed in too little time etc., creates imbalance and this can be a reason and will act as a challenge in trying to balance family and work.
• Organization creates imbalances and gives resources to balance the imbalance.
• Whether at home or at work, if lot of energy is consumed then the problem solving ability of a person comes down. Hence this poses as a challenge in maintaining a balance between family and work.

Scope for creativity to maintain Family-Life and Work-Life Balance

In view of challenges, creativity can be incorporated. This has been discussed from the Management and from the Employee point of view.

From the Management context

• The Company can provide with Day-care or child-care with free of cost or with lower cost.
• The company can give a thought to job sharing positions to reduce the stress level of employees together with completion of tasks on time can happen.
• Company can give employees some extension or permissions if asked by employees with regard to the maternity or paternity leave beyond the minimum legal period.
• Flexible working hours can be introduced.
• If employee is full time worker but due to some reason the employee wish to work for part time the company can make way for them.
• The company can have recreational activities such as sports, arranging of talk from diverse fields, cultural programs etc.
• The Company can arrange for career counseling, advisory services like legal, family, financial supports etc.
• Fluctuating phenomenon at the workplace is a common scenario in IT sector hence, outsourcing of work, seeking extra hands during work over-load can be considered by the company.
• The organisation can give more importance for discussions and clarifications of job related matters over phone and mail, and reduce a personal/face-to-face discussions so that time can be saved and performance can be better.

From the Employee context

• Explore the possibilities of doing the work easily.
• To avoid unnecessary worries.
• Not to mix emotions.
• An employee should not imagine the work is difficult; this will lead to energy drain out.
• Employee should get clarity on the responsibility and expectations.
• Employee can ask for help from colleagues when required.
• Be time-conscious.
• Expanding the way of thinking.
• More work consumes more time, hence planning is required.
• Each activity should follow the next required activity.
• Every time an employee needs clarification, then phone, e-mail or texting can be considered instead of reaching out in person.
• Experience teaches creativity. If an employee is involved in doing a particular job for a long period of time, then because of his expertise in that field he will be more creative and knowledgeable in completing the task faster.
• Attitude represents energy; hence the overall attitude of an employee should be positive and accept the situation.

These are the some of the strategies which the company can implement to the employee so that employee can feel better and concentrate on their family-life which can give good results in work-life balance also.

Conclusion

Individuals play multiple role in the family-life and work-life. If there is no satisfaction and balance in both these domains it may result in frustration, inability to realize full potential, stress and anxiety, they do not enjoy the harmonious family-life and health issues may arise. So for this, an employee can consider entrepreneurship and start their own business. They can spend time with family as well as in work which leads to great innovation and creative things can be considered. They can manage and create they own boundaries. Social recognition and social status will give them a boosting power. This also help them to spend more time with the members of family. Employer should give the opportunities to work from home so that employees can have breathing time with family members and children. Today’s world is more career conscious than ever. Employees demand more in terms of career growth and development. Organizations that fail to allow employees to meet their individual career growth needs will lose the best employees. An organization’s most treasured asset is Employee’s creativity. Experience teaches a person to be creative. Employees should be given facilities to enhance their creativity and self development.

Bibliography

1. Buddhapriya, (2009) Volume: 34 issue: 1, page(s): 31-46, Article first published online: January 1, 2009; Issue published: January 1, 2009.
2. Marta Mas-Machuca, Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent, Ines Alegre, (2016) ‘Work-life balance and its relationship with organizational pride and job satisfaction’, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 31 Issue: 2, pp.586-602, https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-09-2014-0272.
3. SuchetaAgarwalUshaLenka (2015), “ Study on work – life balance of women entrepreneurs – review and research agenda”, Industrial and Commerical Training, Vol. 47 Iss 7 pp. 356-362.
4. Salma Semlali, AbderrahmanHassi, (2016) “ Work-life balance : how can we help women IT Professionals in Morocco?’, Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 7 Issue:2, pp.210-225
5. VeronikaKoubova, Aaron A. Buchko, (2013) “Life-work balance: Emotional intelligence as a crucial component of achieving both personal life and work personal life and work performance”, Management Research Review, Vol.36 Issue: 7, pp.8700-719.
6. Rupashree Baral, ShivganeshBhargava( 2010) “ Work – family enrichment as mediator between organizational interventions for work-life balance and job outcomes”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 25 Issue: 3, pp. 274-300.
7. Shelton, LM (2006) Female entrepreneurs, work–family conflict, and venture performance: new insights into the work–family interface. Journal of Small Business Management 44: 285–97.

ABSTRACT

Work Life balance has become an area of concern not only for the employee but also for the organisation as it impacts both in a big way. With the changing business environment change in work place is inevitable causing stress and insecurities in the lives of employees. It had led to reduction in employee productivity and increase in cost for employers resulting in losses for the organisation. Studies have been taken up by various organisations and some governments too to help understand the issues and frame policies and actions which may be beneficial to create a healthy work life balance that can benefit all. This paper attempts to understand the changing situation of work life and the attempts made by organisations and governments to improve work life balance.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present research paper is based on secondary data which has been collected from books, newspapers, websites and research journals.

INTRODUCTION

Work Life balance is a major component of leading a fulfilling and happy life. It is the ability to enjoy all aspects of life that is work, family, friends and self. A person plays multiple roles in personal & professional life and has varied goals. Work life Balance -A comfortable state of equilibrium achieved between an employee’s primary priorities of their employment position and their private life style. (Business Dictionary.com). Work life balance is a term used to describe the balance that an individual needs between time allocated for work and other aspects of life.

• A Healthy Work-Life balance exists when there is Satisfaction with functioning at work and home with minimum role conflict Absence of Work-Life Conflict or spillovers.
• It is reflected in the employee’s personal and professional life. Being free from conflicts and increase in productivity.
• The employee is able to balance his career aspirations, fulfil his family responsibilities and achieved self-contentment. There are four important aspects of an employees life namely work, family, friends and his own self.
• The employee allocate his time and energy to fulfil his responsibilities towards all these aspects which are important for him.

When the employee is able to balance his work and life it leads to contentment, stability and congenial work home atmosphere. For the organisation it means a productive, healthy employee good work environment and increase in efficiency.

FACTORS THAT LEAD TO WORK LIFE IMBALANCE

There are many factors that affect the work and life of an employee which have become a cause of concern for the employee, his organization and society in general. Some are the major factors are mentioned below:

• Globalisation of economies has led to changing Landscape, Demographic and Social changes.
• Increasing use of technology at work place has its own advantages at the same time limitations. Removal of restriction of place and time leading to 24X7 accessibility to employers and clients.
• Increasing family responsibilities and work demands. Extreme ambition, unrealistic expectations, desperate for perfection has increased pressure in the employees.
• Dynamic economy creating capacity crunch of people with right skills. This increases the work responsibilities on the middle and higher level managers in the organisation.

Work Life Imbalance has affected the employees in a negative way by increase in stress, frustration, Health issues, physical and mental burnout and conflicts.

Similarly for the employers it has resulted in Low productivity, absenteeism, high cost and loss in terms of finance and talent in the organisation.

Benefits of Work Life To Employees:

• Improve on the-job and off-the-job relationship.
• Reduces stress and provide self-satisfaction.
• Improvements in ones’ health and well-being.
• More value and balance in daily life

Benefits of Work Life To Organization:

• Reduces absenteeism and Increased productivity.
• A reduction in staff turnover and recruitment costs.
• Improved morale and brand image of the organization.
• Better team work and communication.

Many countries have policies and norms for protecting the rights of employees and preventing exploitation by the employers.

Some developed countries have realized importance of work life balance and passed legislation that promotes it for their citizens.

• Many developed countries have laws that protect the employees right to healthy work life balance.
• France has passed a law that allows employees to disregard work email when they’re not in the office.
• France has 25 federally mandated vacation days.
• The European Union has passed a Working Time Directive that enforces a maximum 48-hour workweek, including overtime.

The European countries are much more aggressive than the United States on this front. One result of this is the fact that in Germany and France, employees take almost all of their time off. In the United States, however, employees use only 73 percent of their available time off.

According to the OECD data which is gathered from United Nations Statistics and National Statics office of different countries. Netherlands enjoys the best work life balance. Only 0.5 % employees work 50 hours or more as compared to the average of 13% among all OECD nations. The people of Germany on an average work for 26 hours a week. In France since 2002 the average has been 35 to 39 hours a week. About 50% of employee of England, 63% of Norway and 58% in Denmark work between 35 to 39 hours. USA stood at 30th position among 38 countries. Turkey scored the lowest with 56.7% employees working 40 to 49 hours a week followed by Mexico where on average employees work for 45 hours a week. Besides hours spent by employees at work, time for leisure, personal time, employment rate of mothers was also considered while calculating the index score.

Another data by UBS mentions India as the country where employees put in maximum working hours that is above 52 hours a week followed by Mexico and China.

The world Happiness report lists the same countries ranking high on work life balance as the happiest country in the world Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and Finland have enjoyed top places in the ranking.

Many reasons can be concluded from the above data:

1. Developed countries have better work life balance and also rank high on the happiness index.
2. These countries are techno savvy and also more aware about the importance of the issue.
3. The future work force and consumer market is dependent upon the work environment and family and work model.
4. Spending more time at work does not lead to increase in productivity but balancing work and life can. There is lack of formalisation of policies and practices among different sectors and organisations.

WHAT WORK-LIFE BALANCE MEANS ACCORDING TO MILLENNIALS

The millennials are those born between 1980s to 2000. The millennial generation according to the survey conducted across all continents desires more leisure time for themselves as compared to all the other perks as their major criteria of work life balance. This is food for thought for the corporate sector which can plan accordingly. They are keen on career paths that will support their lifestyles. Thus there are companies that try to make workspace millennial friendly and overcompensate by having gaming rooms, bean bags, coffee breaks etc.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

• “Don’t work for your Company work for yourself and your family.”
• “Employees in India have a tendency to overcomeit.” (Vikram Net Apps India).
• “Climbing career Ladder faster and bagging fatter pay cheques leads to neglecting personal life.” (Margarita Rodrigues Directi).
• “Indian Education System don’t lend cultivation of hobbies. Our extra office activities are limited to movies and dining. Only place where time investment creates value its work place. Once that perception changes people will focus on balance. (Diwakar Kaza President, Lupins Ltd)

CONTRIBUTION OF CORPORATE SECTORS TO WORK LIFE BALANCE

The corporate employees are dealing with lot of problems and challenges for managing work and life.

They have to deal with tough competitive and dynamic business environment. They are working against different time zones and continuous technological up gradations.

They face uncertainties at work place and long working hours that creeps into their family time. They are left with less time, energy and enthusiasm for other aspects of their life.

Recognition the challenging circumstances of the employees and its impact on the company initiatives have been taken up by corporate sector in India to improve the work life balance of employees. Flexible timings, work from home, Wellness centre for physical and mental health, counselling personal and career, employee assistance programme, reading library, gymnasium, free classes and courses, sabbatical, extended leaves, day care centres, telecommuting, doctor on call, paid holidays. Companies had been coming up with unique programmes to attract and retain talented employees within the organisation. They are designing tailor made policies for staff who are in different life stages and have variant needs. Some organisations provide core benefit common to all employees and optional benefits to choose from. They even design unique names for the schemes.

CHALLENGES FOR WORK LIFE BALANCE

1. Work life balance is not static but will vary over a period of time and even on day to day basis.
2. It may be different for different industry and individuals in different phases of life.
3. Individuals may have different priorities in life so there is no perfect size that fits all in work life balance.
4. Employees and employers must together sincerely understand and cooperate in framing policies and implementing them.
5. Maintaining flexibility in work environment, improving overall work place experience for employees and a healthy work culture in the organisation.
6. Employees should take efforts to delink when needed, avoid spillover effect and manage work life conflicts with all the available resources at his disposal.
7. The government should recognise the importance of work life balance on Human Resource development and frame policies for wellbeing of employees is public and private sector.

CONCLUSIONS

Work life balance is crucial for the well-being of the individual employee, the organisation, the business environment and for the nation. Some developed countries have taken conscious efforts to improve the work life balance of their citizens by enforcing legislation whereas others have yet to take cognition of the same.

Many business organisations have realised the impact of healthy work environment for their employees and taken up initiatives to improve the work place experience for their employees. Since it is estimated that the millennials will take up 75% of the jobs by 2025 organisations will have to redefine their WLB policies to suit their requirements.

Flexible tailor made policies to cater to the employees life stages and lifestyles helps in creating better employer, improves employee engagement and loyalty , provides distinct value proposition, provides competitive edge in recruiting and retaining talent in the organisation. It is important to create awareness at all levels regarding the importance of work life balance for a happy and productive work force and citizens of the country.

REFERENCES

1. Managing Work Life balance (2006): Work Life Initiatives- The Way Ahead Report on the year 2006 Survey. Managing work / Life balance International.
2. Mohammed Niaz, Jouranl of Vocational Behaviours (2003): “Relation between work, family balance and quality of life.

Abstract

The changing nature at workplace coupled with changes in socio-cultural level has led to imbalance in the work and personal lives of employees all over. Increasing demand, rising awareness among women, increasing stress levels, increasing family levels etc., have made it difficult for people to cope with their work and family lives. With increasing stress levels and demands at the workplaces, attrition rate in organization is increasing. Therefore, the present day organizations are required to create a flexible environment which would help employees to manage their work and family together. This paper brings forth such issues and practices prevailing in Indian context. The materials reviewed were obtained through searches of academic, business and sociological data base containing generalized research evidence and case study findings. It includes academic journal articles, books, research reports and materials oriented to business community.

Introduction

Throughout their lives, people play many roles: parents, siblings, spouse, son/daughter, friend, employee, colleague and the list go on. Most people try to handle all these roles competently and are able to cope with the demands that each role puts on them, even when these roles seemingly clash. However, work-life conflict occurs when the time and energy demands imposed by the many roles a person plays, become incompatible with one another. The biggest problem faced by working professionals is the inability to balance the demands and pressure at work and demands and pressures on the home front.

There are two major issues that need to be understood to resolve the work-life imbalance happening among today’s professionals: Role overload (RO) i.e. having too much to do and too little time to do it in limited time frame and Role interference (RI) i.e. when incompatible demands make it difficult, if not impossible, for employees to perform all their roles well. Role interference in turn consists of two factors i.e. work to family interference (WTF), where work gets the way of family life and family to work interference (FTW) where family demands (such as, child or elder care etc.) affects work [1] . However, achieving work-life balance may be a priority and desire of an individual employee; however, it is not his or her sole responsibility to be a lone fighter. Employers being the advocates of setting norms and conditions at workplace are considered to be the facilitators of work-life balance.The contemporary India is witnessing deterioration in quality of home and community life amongst urbanites.

Work-life balance as a concept has got considerable attention and as a campaign has been practiced in various organizations in the form of policy and strategy. However, many of their HR policy makers are not sure about what should constitute an ideal work-life balance program. In this context, it is observed that some organizations provide a bundle of policies and programs such as alternative work arrangements; leave policies, childcare centers while some others provide gymnasiums and recreation/sports facilities at workplace in the name of work- life balance programs. Since, employee work-life balance as a concept has got recognition from employers and HR managers in India only in the recent years, the organizational initiatives in this regard is hardly having clarity in its policy and intent. Therefore, it is apparent to understand work-life balance and its challenges because of its practical incompleteness.

Genesis of Work-Life Balance

The specific expression “work-family balance” was first used in UK in late 1970s to define an individual’s stability between work life and personal life. Over the past years there was a change in terminology from work- family balance to present work-life balance, which acknowledges that besides family; people are occupied with multiple roles in their personal and professional life to fulfill varied goals. The revised term “work-life balance (WLB)” till date remains to be inconsistently defined. Kalliath and Brough (2008) in this connection, has mentioned that, “despite the contradiction in the definition, a large part of literature has defined work-life balance as being either the absence of work-life conflict or work-life spill over” [2] . This is predominantly influenced with less defined role with the genders creating the opportunity for more work-life spill over. Quick et al. (2004) has substantiated that the spill over effect has experienced people to suffer with apprehension about their “life issues during work hours as they feel guilty about the intrusion of their personal life on their work life, and at the same time they do experience more worry about their job during their family hours” [3] . Van Dyne et al. (1994) has noted that when a professional is able to identify their role and personal needs with organizational values and goals their attachment gets much stronger [4] . It is believed that “organizations showing concern for their employee’s lives through work-life balance programs can enhance and stabilize an employee’s perception about their employer in return” [5] . Work-life balance is an issue not just for individuals, but for employers, the market, the state and the society as a whole. The future workforce and consumer market of contemporary society is dependent on women bearing and parent raising children. The move from a single bread winner family model to one where both parents participate in paid employment has made it increasingly difficult to maintain the work- life balance [6] . Therefore, the issue of work-life balance has been developed out of demographic and social changes which have resulted in a more diverse workforce with different family and work models.

How Quality of Work and Life Has Been Perceived by Indian Employees?

Work-life balance is basically a kind of ‘satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict’ [7] . Researchers in India while examining the perceptions of Indian employees regarding the quality of work life at workplace have found four underlying dimensions such as 1) supportive management and favorable work environment, 2) personal growth and autonomy, 3) nature of the job, 4) stimulating opportunities and friendly co-workers. In their four factor model Rao and Mohan (2008) have found that Indian employees viewed a high-quality work life as one in which there were no negative impacts on personal life and would also exhibit an absence of inappropriate work demands [8] . Factor 1, the management support also includes an expectation for a high level of predictability in the work environment, which contradicts the finding of Hofstede (1980) [9] for low uncertainty avoidance countries, where (India scored lowest) one would have predicted less emphasis on predictability. In factor 2 that is personal growth and autonomy, Indian employees generally prefer a positive impact on personal life and an opportunity to develop close personal relationships while trying to achieve their career goals. However, achieving some level of personal growth may be quite related to the quality of communication in the organization. Factor 3 focuses more on the rewarding nature of the job where employees prefer adequate challenges without compromising their work values. Thus, they expect that a high quality job must pay well, has good benefits as well as provides assistance for planning one’s career and exist in a work context that promotes justice and equality. Factor 4 emphasizes on the importance of stimulating opportunities and co-workers where the employees can apply their knowledge and learn new things from their co-workers.

Thus, the model reveals that the aspiring Indian job entrants seek to have a high level of job security, career opportunities, personal development and reward incentives in their work environment [8] .Even though in Indian work set up work-life imbalance is an issue for the employees, they are in better control over their work and personal lives [10] . In this context, organizations have a vital role to play in promoting work-life balance. Most popular work-life strategies include family care programmes, employee-friendly benefits, flexible work arrangements, financial and wellness counselling and personal convenience services [11] . While advocating for organizational patronage Thompson (2002) has suggested for some initiatives like time- based strategies like flexi-time, part-time work etc., information-based strategies such as referral services, relocation assistance, and money-based strategies like leave with pay, child-allowance etc. [12] . Some other Indian researchers have categorized work-family conflict into three dimensions such as time, strain and behavior [13] . Rajadhayaksha & Smitha (2004) has stated that in a dual career family, work family role conflicts and organizational role stress were not significantly different among Indian husbands and wives [14] . Organizational climate is found to have high impact on work-life conflict of both male and female workforce especially the dimension of strain and behavior such as strain on job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction is a serious issue faced by Indian organizations today, especially the IT industries. One of the antecedents of job dissatisfaction is work-life conflict. Employees in the IT sector, especial women professionals do not stay with the same organization for many years because of excessive working hours/odd timing. Hence, in order to avoid the strain arising due to monotony, restructuring of jobs can be done to suit the individuals’ skills and interests by providing some kind of stimulation, by minimizing stressful aspects an introducing growth-oriented settings, allowing employees to have control over the job and take decisions on the job with restricted authority [13] .

Empirical Research on Work-Family Interface in India

Most of the Indian research in 1970s and 1980s has primarily focused on “role conflict” of educated working women who used to face the competing demands of home and paid work. However, the subsequent research in 1990s has been more critical in exploring the processes involved in work-family linkages and documented the importance of some significant mediating variables such as nature of work [15] -[17] , spousal support [18] [19] , child-care arrangements [20] , type of family structure [21] -[23] , perception of family environment [16] , attitude towards wife’s employment [24] , extent of involvement in work or family [25] and their impact on mental health outcomes of employed women. Some strong predictors of work-family conflict have emerged like lack of clarity in division of domestic responsibilities [20] , lack of spousal and social support in sharing domestic responsibilities, inadequate child-care arrangements [20] , and difficulties in commuting to the workplace [26] .These studies also lend support to the earlier finding that women are significantly more susceptible to the effects of work-family stress. This reveals that maximum research on work-family interface primarily concentrated only on working women and family, lacking the focus on male participation in work-family issues. However, subsequently with increasing number of urban educated working women the focus gradually shifted to dual-earner couples, father’s involvement in child-care and domestic work. Some sociological research also explored the dimensions of male involvement in the work-family linkage and found mixed results such a, some studies reported high involvement of dual-earner couples in child-care [27] , fathers in such families spend more quality time with their children than in single-career families [28] , and some have found that husbands of women working full time experienced higher role stress and manifested more neurotic symptoms compared to those whose wives were working part-time or were full-time housewives [29] .But at the same time the changes in the family structure did not match with the changes in the spousal role. Thus, in Indian families the provider role remains primarily the central role for husbands and the nurturer role has been considered to be preserved for women, overlooking the importance of working wives’ co-provider role in family income [30] [31] . Thus, for urban married couples, a dual-earner pattern does not necessarily imply greater share of husbands support in household work, or a greater egalitarian relationship and psychological/ emotional support. Moreover, there is a sample bias in favor of a privileged minority class as 0.005 percent of Indian population comprises working women in the organized sector/workforce [14] [32] . Hence, it has been recommended by the stalwarts (in Indian psychological research community) that it is a high time to expand research much beyond the urban educated middle-class population to get a better/larger picture of work-family conflict as experienced by India population both in organized and unorganized sector [33] .

Work-Family Balance Programmes in India

Research studies related to formal equal opportunity programmes and workplace agreement in India to facilitate work and family balance especially for women workers revealed that such type of formal programmes are limited in their ability to promote work and family-friendly arrangements at workplace [34] . Rather the informal arrangements and managerial discretion remain important in realizing work and care balance. It has also been suggested that appropriate management practices or attribute changes within the workplace can make this critical juggling act/struggle more practicable [35] . In India the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reporting mechanism is management focused [36] . Organizations are directed to analyze gender equality issues in their workplace and to formulate appropriate strategies [37] . During the past/last 20 years, India has moved from a regulatory system of arbitration and central wage-fixing, resulting in federal and state awards (minimum pay & conditions/provisions across industry), to a system of decentralized agreement making between workers (Both unionized & non-unionized) and management [38] . Moreover, the Indian industrial relations system has become extremely complex since the varieties of instruments and agreement making processes that are available have proliferated [39] .

The existing legislations in this regard protect individuals from overt discrimination, but the scope for formal equal opportunity programmes in India to ensure a sustainable work-life balance especially for women workforce still remains limited [34] .Workplace culture and support is important in ensuring that women have or feel that they have access to such formal EEO programmes [35] . Very often, access to arrangements which reduce the work-life tension for women with caring responsibilities is provided in an ad-hoc basis or informal way, or negotiated outside both statutory obligations and union-negotiated agreements. Exchanges in hours or shifts work were widely accepted as mutually beneficial for women employees [34] . However, negotiating to balance individual work and care demands becomes heavily dependent on the goodwill of managers and the economic circumstances of specific workplaces. Government can support work and family reconciliations through supporting programme/s and policies that apply to all types of workers and are independent of workplace size or profitability. Programmes beyond the workplace such as funded childcare, provisions of crèche at the workplace, healthcare and counseling centers etc. are likely to be more effective in these contexts both for male and female employees.

Thus, there is an urgent need for the organizations to develop policies and practices that provide support for the demands of both work and families.A cross-cultural study of the work-family interface in 46 countries [40] confirms that work-family conflict is more strongly (and negatively) related to work-family fit than is family-work conflict. Across the cultural groups work is being thought of as detrimental to family as that family is being thought of as detrimental to work. This study further states that even though load of daily domestic responsibilities among male population has been increasing, is still less than women’s responsibilities [41] .

Thus, men’s domestic labors would have less effect on family-work conflict. Women have reduced their time in domestic labor, but it is still greater than men’s time, and thus it would have more effect on family-work conflict. Moreover, work-family conflict reduced the sense of work-family fit substantially more for female than for male employees. Generally women experience more family-work conflict than men and conflict is more salient feature of their work lives than it is for men. Hence, conflict is more potent in reducing women’s sense of being able to manage the demands of work and family life. Having a supportive partner/spouse may contribute to reduced family-to-work conflict, at least for women in the West and East, but not for women in developing nations. Furthermore, a micro level analysis highlights the fact that cultural, social and public policy contexts affect the way workplaces respond to working parents and how work and family demands and supports are experienced by individual workers [42] . This cross-cultural examination of workplace and government policies can be a critical learning point for policy makers to introduce certain strategies like job flexibilities in location and timing and find some culturally appropriate ways to alleviate the harmful effects of high level of work-family conflict.

Cite

1. Mohanty, A. and Jena, L. (2016) Work-Life Balance Challenges for Indian Employees: Socio-Cultural Implications and Strategies. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 4, 15-21. doi: 10.4236/jhrss.2016.41002. Received 22 January 2016; accepted 5 March 2016; published 8 March 2016

The following section of this project reviews literature related to work-life balance (WLB) and describes why this complex topic with numerous factors and cofactors underpinning its severity calls for much care from business leaders and has captured the attention of many scholars. It also highlights the academic contributions in the interplay between WLB, organizational commitment and workers’ motivation.

Definition of WLB

Originally introduced in 1972 during the International Labour Relations Conferences (Hian and Einstein, 1990), a large and distinctive body of research shed light on WLB which is considered by work-family researchers as a pervasive subject of contemporary interest. Greenhaus and Allen (2006) who are known as famous pioneers in the field of WLB, stated that WLB refers to “the extent to which an individual’s effectiveness and satisfaction in work and family roles are compatible with the individual’s life priorities”. Drawing on previous research studies, many scholars have suggested that WLB involves a two-way functioning dimension to WFC (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992a, 1992b; Frone, Yardley, and Markel, 1997) as family interfere with work and vice-versa resulting in family-to-work and work-to-family conflicts respectively. Consequently, involvement in the work domain becomes more hectic due to participation in the family sphere and vice versa. (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).

As opposed to early studies that frequently pointed out that WLB refers to the absence of WFC (Greenhaus, Collins, and Shaw, 2003), some recent scholarly research lay emphasis on the work-family interface from a relatively more dynamic and integrative perspective. As stated by Aminah Ahmad (2008) in her research titled “Job, Family and Individual Factors as Predictors of WFC”, with shifts in the working culture and patterns and in the demography of the labour market, WLB is of increasing interest. Researches have also proven that work-life imbalance which is widely referred to as WFC may result in serious health issues (Grzywacz & Bass, 2003; Frone, 2000; Major, Klein, & Ehrhart, 2002;Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1997) and poor organizational performance (Kossek & Ozeki, 1998;Allen, Herst, Bruck, &Sutton, 2000).

Employers’ roles and responsibility in driving a WLB culture

In accordance with the study by Thompson and Prottas (2006), it was pointed out that a strong managerial support positively impact WLB. Drawing on an earlier research work by the same author in 1999, it was suggested that management support is one of the key driving force maintaining a healthy WLB culture. It was also found that work-family culture creates work-family benefits by workers, develops an emotional attachment to their job position, prevents WFC to arise and reduces the intentions of quitting an organization.

In a study carried out by Bardoel (2003), an examination of the relative roles of managerial factors as opposed toresource dependent and institutionalcomponents to explain management’s provision of work-family programs and to accommodate a working culture in Australia was made. This research has proven that managerial factors are accountable for most of the variance and that identified benefit and acquired efficiency was linked with a fair provision of work-family strategies being implemented. Managers’ strategies and attitudes were associated to the general number of initiatives offered. Institutional initiatives, strategies and practices of large firms or public corporations were contributors instead of being key drivers of decisions of implementing work and family while individual managers drove the outcome.

From a research by Manfredi & Doherty in 2006, the authors came to the conclusion that the most common arrangements amongst support staff are informal flexi-time, part-time, working from home occasionally, and compressed working hours. Malik, (2007) stated that employers can help their employees to provide alternatives working arrangements in line with business requirements to meet customer’s ever-changing demands. However, the efficiency of recording procedures and systems plays a predominant role to maintain fairness and accuracy across the company. Nigel Marsh (2010) during a speech delivered in Australia on “How to make WLB work” stipulated that to reach the nub of the complexity of WLB, employers’ focus should shift from organizing dress-down Fridays, offering paternity leaves or flexi-time which, according to him, “only serve to mask the core issue” and should instead discuss on the fact that some job positions and career options are fundamentally incompatible with employees being completely devoted to their family life.

Various studies consistently express the crucial role of supervisor support in managing WFCs not only in terms of appraisal but by providing support instrumentally, informationally and emotionally also as identified by Nielson, Carlson and Lankau (2001). An empathetic supervisor shows support in the occurrence of unforeseeable family events, especially when working parents have to care for their sick elderly parents or offsprings and cancellation of child care arrangement (Brough & O’Driscoll, 2005). Conflict and tensions are reduced when workers benefit from flexible work schedule to manage unpredictable demands (Kelloway, et al., 1999; Nielson, et al., 2001).

Employees’ roles and responsibility in driving a WLB culture

In their research titled “Impact of working hours on work life balance”, Sarah Holly and Alwine Mohnen (2012) settled their main objective as analyzing the influence of the working hours of workers on their job satisfaction level. Their research has shown that the majority of workerswilling to reduce their working hours is highly dependable on the overtime allowances offered to them. The final results have also demonstrated that generally long working hours do not lower employees’ satisfaction level but impacts their life positively and a reduction in working hours creates an adverse effect on their job satisfaction.

As observed by Nigel Marsh (2010) after dedicating seven years of his life in studying WLB, each individual is solely responsible for designing his lifestyle as WLB is not the main concern of governments and corporations. Emphasis was laid on the fact that both unethical companies which he considers as “the abattoirs of the human soul” and well-intentioned firms create a false consciousness to exploit workers at the expense of the quality of their life. To explain the corporate ideology of WLB, he pointed out that some firms provide childcare facilities so that working parents can spend longer hours at their workplace. N. Marsh (2010) also stated that by changing society’s perception of success away from the “moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well-lived looks likes”, the quality of life can be radically transformed. Thus, the workaholic culture referred to as “an individual difference characteristic referring to self-imposed demands, compulsive overworking, an inability to regulate work habits, and an overindulgence in work to the exclusion of most other life activities” by Robinson (1997), has to be addressed by changing employees’ attitudes.

Work-family conflicts

Managing a balance between the work and the family domain is a delicate managerial challenge that most organizations have to deal with. As defined by Kahn et al. (1964), work-life conflict is “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect”. While a vast academic body of traditional studies on WLB explores the conflictual relationship between the family and work demands, much of modern literatures suggest that an individual’s quality of life can still be enhanced while being engaged in both roles. In the conceptualization of the sources of conflict, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) identified three major forms of WFC, namely, time-based conflict, strain-based conflict and behavior-based conflict.

When the time spent in performing one role entails painstaking effort to participate in the other role, time-based conflict arises. Time-based conflict encompasses the compulsive hours worked and schedule mismatch as pointed out by Pleck et al. (1980) and role overload as found by Kahn et al. (1964). As endorsed by Buck, Leem MacDermid and Smith (2000), the concept of time-based work family conflicts is based on the scarcity model implying that each individual has a restricted amount of energy whilst a study by Nordenmark (2002) underpins the expansion model suggesting that substitute resources proceeding from multiple roles are more impactful than the plausible stressful outcomes of multiple role engagements. Generally, work-family scholars are acknowledging the complexity of WFC and its multi-dimensional construct.

Herman and Gyllstrom (1977) used work schedule control to demonstrate why university professional staff members encountered more difficulties to carve out time to undertake their dual responsibilities than faculty members who work relatively on longer hours. The conclusion drawn from this investigation is that when employees have control over their work schedules and enjoy flexible working hours, work-family fit is naturally increased. However, a laborious study by Bohen and Viveros-Long (1981) on the development of a flexi time program in a government agency revealed that the provision of basic program may have been insufficient to reduce the work-family tensions of employees with major childcare responsibility, especially working mothers. Thus, the endorsed degree of flexibility and employees’ personal commitments may mutually influence the occurrence of WFC.

Strain-based conflict, the second form of WFC, arises when strain in participating in one role upsets the performance of an individual in the execution of another role. Evidences significantly support that work stressors can engender strain symptoms like burnout, nervousness, tension, irritability and apathy (Brief, Schuler, & Van Sell, 1981; Ivancevich & Matteson, 1980). This form of conflict which results from poor work team support and organizational culture (Hill, 2005) and unsatisfactory spouse support (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985), indicates the mental and emotional strain from undertaking the work and family responsibilities and demonstrate how demands from the two spheres can be incompatible.

Despite the fact that the prevalence of behavior-based conflict was not pragmatically evaluated (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985), this form of conflict arises the specific behavioral pattern required in conducting one role is incompatible with the behavioral expectation in another role. For example, according to managerial perception, a male manager is expected to be self-reliant, emotionally stable, objective and aggressive (Schein, 1973) while in the family domain, the family members may expect him to adopt a sincere, sensitive and affectionate behavior. Difficulties to adapt behavior to fulfill the expectations of different roles thus creates interrole conflicts as suggested by studies by Bartolome (1972), Gudmundson (2003), Greiff and Munter (1980), Steiner (1972), and Walker (1976).

Additionally, evidences have proven that WFC is one of the main sources of work-related stress in the United States (Allen, Herts, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000; Frone, 2003). As pointed out by Duxbury & Higgins (2003), in Canada, the persistent shifts in family structures and the constant increase in the proportion of employees with child care, elder care or both, cause an increase in the time allocated in employment and to participate in non-work related activities. According to Gill & Davidson (2001), the sharp increase in broken homes which has led to a rise in single-father families has resulted in a growing pressure on men to assume more family responsibilities. Consequently, with the burden of family caregiving, many men, like women, are encountering increased stress levels and conflicts as they struggle to reconcile family and work demands (Tennant and Sperry, 2003) although research by Doherty & Manfredi (2005) suggests that women show greater concern for WLB than their career aspirations as compared to men.

Benefits of WLB policies

In the limelight of a study titled “HR interventions for WLB” by R Baral and S Bhargava (2011), it was pointed out that with technological progress, demographic and organizational changes, the concern for WLB is becoming rampant. These scholars suggest that WLB policies must be implemented and fully integrated in the organizational culture for improved employee commitment and productivity. Narayanan & Narayanan (2012), Roehling, Roehling, & Moen (2001), Susi & Jawaharrani (2011) and Yasbek (2004) provide clear explanations on how WLB policies can be cost effective by retaining the talented and committed staff, improving organization’s productivity (Sands and Harper, 2007), reducing work-related stress and creating a healthier working atmosphere. Firms adopting WLB policies can not only reduce their absenteeism (Dex and Scheibl, 1999) and attrition rate but also become an employer of choice which can boost their competitiveness. Other merits of such policies include improvement in recruitment process and retention rates (Allen, 2001; Anderson, Coffey & Byerly, 2002; Honeycut & Rosen 1997; Konrad & Mangel, 2000; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998).

Nelson, Nemec, Solvik, & Ramsden (2004) focus on the benefits of granting financial assistance to firms for the development of the WLB policies and practices via WLB Challenge Fund (WLB-CF). The findings from this research demonstrated that the WLB-CF considerably boost employers’ willingness to bring drastic amendments in their employment practices and elaborate strategies enhancing WLB.

Realistically, WLB implies altering working patterns so that each individual irrespective of the demographic characteristics can synchronize employment and other responsibilities and ambitions (Pillinger, 2001). In fact WLB policies are widely associated with ‘flexible working’, and englobe policies like part-time jobs, job sharing, flexibleworking, term-time working, shift works, annualized hours, e-working, working from home, career breaks and study leaves. The main target of such policies is to reach a fit between work and home demands that are equitably beneficial to both the employers and workers.

However, Hall & Atkinson (2005) clarified that to maximize the benefits from such policies it is essential to effectively formulate them and devise a well-designed and rational mechanism for their implementation. A decentralized approach can expose workers’ needs without interpreting management’s view on the functioning of work-life integration (WLI) policies. In accordance with the Flexible Work Arrangements Guide (2007) and Redmond et al. (2006), conducting a consultation process between employees and the management before implementing the strategies guarantees that to the most effective policies are adopted. Moreover, supervisors need further support to deliver the policies and ensures impartiality and uniformity when integrating WLB policies.

Frameworks to study WLB (models)

Distinctive concepts with varied pool of explanations in their focus have been developed by different work-life researchers. Somehow, for this study purpose, the two following conflicting models have been considered, namely the spillover model and segmentation model.

The spillover model

The spillover model which is the most commonly adopted theory by work-family researches (Zedeck and Mosier, 1990), although strictly criticized by Rice et al. (1980) in a review article, claims that experiences in one role influences experiences in the other role. According to Rothbard (2000), two interpretations of spillover exist, namely positive and negative spillover where the former postulates positive behaviours, achievement and satisfaction in one area can be transferred in the other area and the latter holds that difficulties encountered in one domain entitle similar feelings in another domain.

Studies by Doby and Caplan (1995) which found out that loss of reputation leads to negative feelings in the family sphere and Williams and Alliger (1994) concluding that negative emotions of working parents are more impactful than positive humours, are consistent with Young and Kleiner (1992)’s perspective suggesting that work and family works as a single entity in the spillover theory and thus no boundary exists between these two spheres.

The segmentation model

The earliest stance on the link between work and family viewed these two spheres as independently segmented and hence do not influence each other. This concept was introduced and applied by Blood and Wolfe (1960) in their investigation on blue collar work experiences. Results showed that work and family segmentation occurs naturally for employees performing unsatisfying or un-involving work tasks. In contrast with the spillover theory, the segmentation model considers the role of family and work as distinct entities where experiences from one sphere do not influence experiences in the other sphere (Young and Kleiner, 1992). Lambert (1990) somehow argues that segmentation is not naturally induced but has to be initiated by employees attempting to draw a line of demarcation between their work demands and family responsibilities.

In a research by Parasuraman et al. (1992) where two career couples were considered as population-based sample, the work attributes which includes role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload were associated solely to job satisfaction. Findings revealed that the family attributes are related to family satisfaction but has no effect on job satisfaction and vice versa. Hence, this study supports the segmentation model as it demonstrates the unresponsiveness of events occurring within one area towards the other which helps to reduce strains from assuming multiple roles.

Impact of WLB on organizational commitment

The psychological contract theory developed by Rousseau (1995) identified that women and other family caregivers can bargain to include additional employment arrangements such as family-responsive benefits in terms of flexible work schedule in their psychological contract (as cited in Scandura and Lankau, 1997). In exploring the links between gender, family obligations and flexible hours worked with organizational commitment and job satisfaction, it was pointed out by Scandura and Lankau (1997) that superior organizational commitment level and job satisfaction are experienced by women recognizing that their employers offer flexible working.

Introduction

We all know that Work plays an important role in everyone’s life whether it is paid or unpaid, but it helps us to shape our identity, allows us to structure our time and brings us in contact with each other. In today’s fast paced society, people in the workforce often move from one task to the next, only to find themselves coming up for air on Friday afternoon. Unsatisfied by their weekend and not accomplishing all they hoped, they begin to dread another week of work, and the never-ending cycle it has become. With some simple rearranging and prioritizing, there is a fix to this solution for the majority of people. Work/Life balance is a serious topic of discussion in the workplace, and the ideas are becoming more popular by the week. CEOs and managers all over the world are being faced with this issue, and constantly implementing ways to resolve it. With the vast amount of research and studies to date, majority of evidence shows the importance of work/life balance from both the standpoints of an employer, as well as an employee, as being critical in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. So, that’s why I have taken this topic to learn about the management of our personal and professional life.

Meaning of Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance doesn’t mean an equal balance. It is the power to control and stay competitive at work while maintaining a healthy and happy lifestyle at home as well as work with enough leisure. The main motive of work-life balance is to create balance in each and every area of life, which in turn increases self-fulfillment as well as helps to maintain safe from self-injury like depression and stress. A well-balanced life is when we put equal efforts in both areas. It encourages employees to divide their time on the basis of their own significances and maintain a balance by giving time to their family, health, vacations, and so on along with business travels and career. The field of Human resource management is developing day by day and the innovative techniques are developed for the improvement of the atmosphere at the workplace so that the employees can give their best and come up with a successful life and career. Moreover, it is an important concept which helps in increasing their loyalty towards the company or business.

Importance of Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Maintaining a work-life balance helps reduce stress and helps to prevent burnout in the workplace. Long-term pressure is one of the workplace’s most common health issues. It can lead to physical symptoms such as diabetes, digestive disorders, chronic pain, and heart problems. Chronic stress can also have a negative impact on mental health as it is associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

Excessive pressure over a long period of time leads to burnout in the workplace. Employees who work a lot of overtime hours are at a high risk of burnout. Burnout can cause fatigue, mood swings, irritability and a decrease in work performance. By creating a work environment that prioritizes work-life balance, employers can save money and maintain a healthier, more productive workforce.

You cannot let your business consume you completely. Focusing on your company 100% of every waking hour will ruin your life, your relationships, and your ability to sleep. This is especially true for married entrepreneurs. While your family is likely to depend on your success, they need to be able to spend quality time with you as well. If your relationship gets to the point that you are in trouble feeling more like roommates and less like a married couple. The worst situation for an entrepreneur to be in is that things at the workplace are rough and there’s a lack of support at home because the wife feels depressed.

Causes of Work-Life Imbalance

There are some moderators that are linked to work-life imbalance, like:

• Time: Spending long hours at work due to ‘inflexibility, changing work requirements, overtime or work duties at night’ may lead to inconsistency with work and family duties. It has been shown that ‘time spent at work was positively correlated with work interaction with family and work involvement, but it was not related to cross-domain satisfaction.’
• Gender differences: According to the distinct understanding of role identity, gender differences may contribute to a job-life imbalance. It has been shown that men prefer their work duties to provide financial support to their families over their social responsibilities, whereas women prioritize their family life.

Besides these regulators that could contribute to a disparity, most people are exposed to unsolicited stress at work as they enjoy high social recognition. This aspect of life may also be the source of a mismatch. Certain workplace activities. however, it could also contribute to such an imbalance, such as contributing to house and garden duties, preserving and supporting family members or voluntary tasks. The strong pressure of time leads to increased psychological strain, which in turn affects health. Psychological strain is also affected by the complexity of the work, increasing responsibilities, long-term existential protection concerns, and more. The stresses and strains mentioned could lead to irreversible, physical signs of wear and negative effects on the cardiovascular and immune systems in the long term.

Work-life Balance Programs

To maintain the proper balance in life, the Employer should be aware of these responsibilities to balance work-life as well as personal life.

• Scheduling their time: It is one of the main components that the employer should take care of. They can schedule their time by following these steps-
• Telecommuting: An employee can also work online at home with the help of innovative technology. It is one of the easiest ways for computer-based job employees.
• Compressed workweeks: Some companies also offer 10 hours a day, to give an extra day off as well as offer some amenities like onsite meal preparation and concierge services and so on, to make the home life a bit easier.
• Health and Wellness: We all know that Health and medical insurance is the most widely offered benefit in most of the companies. In most places, there are onsite gym or discounted gym premiums for the employees as well as some wellness programs like diet and fitness workshops.

Moreover, there is one another benefit that can help employers to keep their personal issues under control is the Employee Assistance Program. The most common benefits that are provided in this program are mental health care, elder care, alcohol or drug treatment, and so on.

Personal Development and Care

In many small businesses, just one person handles the human resources function, and sometimes it is the owner of the company. Empowering employees to take responsibility for their own professional development is, therefore, a priority. Internally the company paid training and formal mentoring programs can help the employees to gain the skills to improve their growth in their current roles or help them to move further to the higher roles or positions. Moreover, some companies also offer tuition reimbursement for the employers who want to obtain a degree, certification or specialized training, so this is very helpful for the employees who never attended college or did not complete their degree requirements.

Vacations

So many companies have different norms of vacations. They provide vacation pay to their employees so that they can live their life to the fullest and enjoy their life and quality time with their family and friends. Moreover, seniors receive more vacations in some places as well as there are some of the vacation trips that are given to the employees as a reward for their good work.

Practices towards Work-Life Balance

• An employer should learn to say NO when you are assigned a task that does not fall under your job description and could be easily accomplished by the person who is asking it. It’s important to say no at work because it earns you respect.
• An employer should work out to be de-stress because stress is one of the main problems that can create so many issues in life. We know that there is so much workload, which can put so much pressure on us. That’s why a person should give some time every day to do Yoga, Meditation or deep breathing, which will help in de-stressing and make you feel much better and fresh.
• An employer should also try to share the load with their co-workers. Each and every person in a company should share their feelings, workload or problems with others so that they can help you if you need it. In this way, you can also feel stress-free.
• Each and every person should have a positive approach always, which will help them to be positive and more punctual regarding their work as well as the company.
• A person should always focus on whatever they are doing. However, we should always put our best effort even if its not our core competence. We should maximize our productivity at work and make sure that the unfinished work should never come over in our personal time.
• Moreover, you can have a second phone with you because if you receive phone calls and emails from clients and colleagues on one phone, then you can use another phone for the family and friends. Whenever you leave work you can off the work phone and use another one. So, in this way you can balance your time with family and work.
• An employer should set SMART goals in their life which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
• The last and important step to maintain work-life balance is to be organized always because we should manage our day properly instead of having the day to manage you.

Components of Work-life Balance

There are six main components of work-life balance as following:

Self-Management

It can be difficult to maintain one’s self properly, particularly to get proper sleep, exercise and food. Self-management is the understanding that it is important to use spaces wisely in our lives and that the money, energy and life available are limited. It means being our own ship’s captain; no one will come for us to guide.

Time Management

Effective time management means making the best use of your day and the tools that can be mobilised to help you–you keep pace as the resources exceed the challenges. Time control is improved by clear priorities and the discernment of what is important and immediate, as opposed to important or urgent. This involves knowing what you are doing best and when and getting together the appropriate tools to support you.

Stress Management

In the period of time, societies tend to become more complex. Stress on the person is inevitable, in front of increasing uncertainty. More people, distractions, and noise require each of us to be able to maintain quietly and work out of situations that are full of pressure. Basically, most ways of multi-tasking raise the pressure as opposed to focusing on one thing at a time.

Leisure Management

The most neglected of the work-life balance that encompasses professions, leisure management recognises the importance of rest and relaxation— that one can not cut recreation, and that ‘time off’ is a critical component of human interaction. Curiously, however fun, too much of the same leisure activity will result in monotony. Good recreational planning thus includes a variety of activities

Technology Management

Good innovation leadership means ensuring that you are served by software rather than abussing you. From the first walking stick, flint, knife, and drum, engineering has always been with us. The rate of change is now rising, fuelled by vendors seeking to expand market share. There is often no alternative but to keep up with the Joneses technologies, but innovation must be regulated, not vice versa.

Change Management

Shift is essentially the only constant in our fast-paced world. Adopting new methods on an ongoing basis and adapting others is key to a successful career and a happy home life. Effective change management involves regular and concerted efforts to ensure that you are not overwhelmed or defeated by the volume and rate of change at work and at home.

Importance of Work-life Balance in Human Resource Management

Work-life balance is about creating and maintaining inclusive and stable work environments so that work and personal responsibilities can be managed, and employee satisfaction and performance can be improved. Today’s employees have many overlapping commitments such as school, youth, housework, fundraising, partner and elderly parent care, and this puts stress on the people, households, and neighbourhoods they live in. Conflict in work and life is a major issue that affects employees, employers and societies. Extended hours of work and highly stressful careers not only hamper the ability to harmonise work and family life but are also associated with health risks such as increased consumption of smoking and alcohol, weight gain and anxiety. There have been many physical and mental health effects associated with work-life dispute.

However, it is very important part of an organization because when employees are balanced, then everything is balanced. A more positive mood develops as stress is controlled and has been shown to help protect physical and mental health. A healthy, satisfied community is becoming more positive and productive. In response to the strategic aim of organization, work-life balance is about creating and maintaining inclusive and stable work environments that will allow for a balance between work and personal responsibility. Employers are increasingly aware of the financial effects of overworked practises such as operational and production expenses, absenteeism, timeliness, dedication and efficiency. There are five main reasons that companies engage in work-life balance programmes: high investment gains, recruitment and retention, policy, expenses, and labour rules. So, in these ways it plays a very important role in HR as well as a company wellness and growth.

Work life can influence organizational productivity and the well being of the employees in different ways. Given below are some of the areas in terms of opportunities and concerns on which work life issues can have an impact:

1. Employee Engagement at Work and Quality of Customer Service

A work-life disparity would adversely affect the workers ‘ full participation in the workforce and hamper the quality of the services provided to consumers. On the other hand, the quality of service will be reliable and consistent if the workers believe that the leadership appreciates their contributions, or their involvement and that the organisation is dedicated to both personal and professional success of the employees.

2. Impact on the Profitability and Growth

Excessive pressure to achieve the goals of efficiency and development creates stress, hampers workers ‘ overall productivity and disturbs their work-life balance. A well-planned and executed work-life balance approach will significantly alleviate the work burden on both the workplace and perceived work pressure, which in effect can encourage productivity for workers and lead to a career. A well-planned and executed work-life balance approach will significantly alleviate career pressure as well as potential workforce stresses, which in turn can positively improve employee productivity and lead to a good return on investment.

3. Rising Cost of Health Care and Medications

A large percentage of workers are faced with lifestyle-related diseases and major health issues due to an increase in the rate of job stress and never changing demands. This has become a serious concern for companies due to rising health care costs and a drastic reduction in the worker productivity rate. Such questions prompted the management to give the importance to work-life balance priorities and creating a healthier workplace by executing many developmental initiatives.

So, I think that Work-life initiatives is not a choice but an imperious component for the management. It is because the staff look forward to the management’s guidance and care about issues related to their work-life.

Steps that I Want to Take in Future to Enhance my Knowledge on this Topic

According to me, I think that Work-life balance is one of the main parts of our life because balance is a key toward success and we should manage our time properly. I want to enhance more knowledge on this topic in future because I need to develop and prioritize realistic goals. By working on this topic, I learnt to manage my time effectively at work when it is difficult and busy as well as I can’t delegate most of my tasks. That’s why I want to learn more about work life balancing so that I can be stress-free and happy in my personal as well as professional life.

Conclusion

Work-life balance is a best elusive ideal and useful in everybody’s life. Through work life balance the individual will feel relaxed and organized as well as the productivity of the person increases which will lead to accomplishing tasks efficiently as well as to attain greater success. It will improve relationships with families and friends. Moreover, there will be better mental and physical health as well as enough leisure time.