Work Life Balance

 






Today, more than ever before, there is an increased concern about the relationship between work and family life and the impact each has on the other. Research about this area has begun way back in the early nineteenth century. The world of work – employment, the nature, the demands, and employee-employer relations, has changed greatly over the years. This has seen a related change in the amount of time that an employee can exclusively devote to his family. Increased expectations of the job, the quantity of time at the workplace, rising competition, lifestyle, and demographic factors, and increased employment rate of women have all contributed to the growing need for a defined policy and well-designed policies to ensure balance in work and life.

According to Greenhaus et.al (2003), work life balance can be defined by the following vital and interrelated components:

“Time balance” – balance between the time spent at work and home, a balance in the amount of time devoted by the employee to his professional and personal roles.

“Involvement balance” - the proportionate level of emotional involvement of the employee to her professional and personal roles.

“Satisfaction balance” - quantum of satisfaction felt by the individual as an employee and as a family member.  

Work-life balance indicates “the extent to which an employee experiences feeling fulfilled and having his or her needs met in both work and non-work facets of life”. (Alison Rife and Rosalie Hall, 2015,).

 

Figure 1 given below indicates the impact of poor work-life balance on an individual which are categorized into three types of impact.

a. Physical

b. Psychological

c. Behavioral 


                 


According to Kabene, Orchard, Howard, Soriano and Leduc (2006), good human resource management practices lead to good service quality.Many organisations view it as an effort which has to be made by the employee to balance his personal and professional life. The perspective is that the organisation has no role or no need to make any effort in this direction. Some go as far as to say that there is no meaning to this term, since work and family are two totally different issues. Some organisations hold a completely radical view that “work and personal life as competing priorities is a zero-sum game, in which a gain in one area means a loss in the other.” (Friedman et al, 2000).

Conclusion 

Good work life balance is directly related to work related attitude. Even if we ignore the benefits that healthy work life balance brings to the organisation, we cannot be blind to the fact that conflict in work and family life always results in a demotivated and stressed employee who would be less productive. Organisations must make available various resources like, better rest rooms, flexible work hours, since these have been directly linked to job satisfaction and organisational commitment for all employees who have family responsibilities. Organisations must invest and innovate to develop practices which make the employee feel engaged and to feel that he is a vital part of the organisation.


References 

Greenhaus, J.H., Collins, K.M. and Shaw, J.D. (2003) The Relation between Work-Family Balance and Quality of Life. Journal of Vocational Behavior,

Alison Rife and Rosalie Hall ( 2015) Work–Life Balance, Retreived from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology data base, 

Kabene, Orchard, Howard, Soriano and Leduc (2006) The Importance of Human Resource Management in Health Care: A Global Context. Human Resources

Dhanda, K.K., & Kurian, S. (2012). An Exploratory Study on Hospital’s Staff with their Patient Satisfaction. Indo Global Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences,

Kripalani, S., Jackson, A.T., Schnipper, J.L., & Coleman, E.A. (2007). Promoting Effective Transitions of Care at Hospital Discharge





Comments

  1. Palitha Samaranayake April 14, 2024 at 3:57 AM

    This is really important aspect that directly impact to the organization productivity,the employees will be more committed to the task at hand if the organization support them in striking a healthy work-life balance. Retention rates, output, and eventually profit will all increase as a result.

    ReplyDelete

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