Introduction - Work Life Balance
Introduction - Work Life Balance
Introduction - Work Life Balance
History:
The work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid-1800s.Paul Krassneer remarked that
anthropologists use a definition of happiness that is to have as little separation as possible
"between your work and your play". The expression "worklife balance" was first used in
the United Kingdom in the late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual's work
and personal life. In the United States, this phrase was first used in 1986.
Most recently, there has been a shift in the workplace as a result of advances in technology.
Employees have many methods, such as emails, computers, and cell phones, which enable
them to accomplish their work beyond the physical boundaries of their office. Researchers
have found that employees who consider their work roles to be an important component of
their identities will be more likely to apply these communication technologies to work
while in their non-work domain.
Many authors believe that parents being affected by work-life conflict will either reduce the
number of hours one works where other authors suggest that a parent may run away from
family life or work more hours at a workplace. This implies that each individual views
work-life conflict differently.
Employee assistance professionals say there are many causes for this situation ranging from
personal ambition and the pressure of family obligations to the accelerating pace of
technology. According to a recent study for the Center for Work-Life Policy, 1.7 million
people consider their jobs and their work hours excessive because of globalization.
What is work life balance?
Work-life balance is about effectively managing the juggling act between paid work and the
other activities that are important to people. It's not about saying that work is wrong
or bad, but that work shouldn't completely crowd out the other things that matter to
people like time with family, participation in community activities, voluntary work,
personal development, leisure and recreation.
The 'right' balance is a very personal thing and will change for each person at different
times of his or her lives. For some people the issue is being able to get into work or
find more work rather than having too much work. There is no 'one size fits all'
solution.
A balanced life is one where we spread our energy and effort - emotional, intellectual,
imaginative, spiritual and physical between key areas of importance. The neglect of
one or more areas, or anchor points, may threaten the vitality of the whole.
What's the issue?
Work-life balance is increasingly an issue for any country. Jobs, the workplace and the workforce
are changing as:
More women and sole parents go into work.
More people juggle more than one job.
The workforce ages and is increasingly diverse.
Businesses continue to compete globally to hire skilled workers.
Technology changes the way we work - e.g. cell phones and PCs blur the
distinction between work and personal time.
For any country, the two biggest work-life balance problems are:
People with not enough work or income
People who have too much work: the low paid who need to work long hours to
earn enough and the higher paid who may feel trapped into working more hours
than they want to.
Work-life balance is increasingly an issue for any country. Jobs, the workplace and the
workforce are changing as:
More women and sole parents go into work.
More people juggle more than one job.
The workforce ages and is increasingly diverse.
Businesses continue to compete globally to hire skilled workers.
Technology changes the way we work - e.g. cell phones and PCs blur the
distinction between work and personal time.
For any country, the two biggest work-life balance problems are:
People with not enough work or income
People who have too much work: the low paid who need to work long hours to
earn enough and the higher paid who may feel trapped into working more hours
than they want to.
Through the consultation, employers told that they wanted to address work-life balance
issues in their workplaces, and that they wanted practical tools to implement work-life balance
initiatives. Workers, families and individuals told us that the key issues for them in achieving
work-life balance concerned their caring responsibilities, workplace practices and cultures, and
the need to earn sufficient income.
Effect of Work-Life Balance:
The case for work-life balance tends to be made on two counts.
First, that work-life balance improves individuals health, wellbeing and job satisfaction.
Second, that business can benefit from work-life balance because these policies:
improve productivity and worker commitment
reduce sickness absence
increase retention rates for talented workers and reduce replacement costs
allow organizations to recruit from a wider pool of talent
Enable organizations to offer services beyond usual business hours by employing
workers on different shifts that fit in with caring responsibilities.
Characteristics of work life balance
It takes WORK
Stress and work life balance:The number of stress-related disability claims by employees has doubled according to the
Employee Assistance Professionals Association in Arlington, Virginia. Seventy-five to
ninety percent of physician visits are related to stress.
It is clear that problems caused by stress have become a major concern to both employers and
employees. Symptoms of stress are manifested both physiologically and psychologically.
Persistent stress can result in cardiovascular disease, sexual health problems, a weaker
immune system and frequent headaches, stiff muscles, or backache. It can also result in
poor coping skills, irritability, jumpiness, insecurity, exhaustion, and difficulty in
concentrating. Stress may also perpetuate or lead to binge eating, smoking, and alcohol
consumption.
The feeling that, simply working hard is not enough anymore is acknowledged by many other
Multinational/Private and round the clock working bank workers.
To get ahead, a
seventy-hour work week is the new standard. What little time is left is often divvied up
among relationships, kids, and sleep. This increase in work hours over the past two
decades means that less time will be spent with family, friends, and community as well as
pursing activities that one enjoys and taking the time to grow personally and spiritually.
Unfortunately, many women feel additional stress when they must decide what they feel is best
for their families or what is best for their career. According to Sylvia Hewlett, president of
the Centre for Work-Life Policy, if a woman takes time off to care for children or an older
parent, employers tend to see these people as less than full committed. Its as though their
identity is transformed. Brett Graff, Nightly Business Report correspondent states that
(because a female may have trouble re-entering the market or, if she does find a position, it
will likely be a lower position with less pay) If you thought choosing a baby name was
hard, you have yet to wrestle with the idea of leaving your career to be a full-time mom or
take care of an older parentMost will want to re-enter, but will do so accepting lesser
positions or lower wages. This circumstance only increases the work-life balance stress
experienced by many women employees. Men who take time off or reduce working hours
for taking care of the family experience similar discrimination.
To carry out the study on work life balance of the employees working in Hinduja
Foundries Limited
To find out the overall status of employees working environment in current position
related to work life balance.
Secondary Objectives:
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Review of related literature is an important step in undertaking research. It
helps in clarifying and defining the problem, stating objectives, formulating
hypotheses, selecting appropriate design and methodology of research as
well as interpreting the results in the light of the research work already
undertaken. In this chapter, an endeavour has been made to provide an
overview of various aspects of this study through the review of existing
literature. The sources referred include various journals, books, doctoral
theses, working papers, reports, magazines related to human resource,
internet sites, newspapers etc.
Bardoel et al. (2008) identified the major themes and research methods that
have dominated work life research in Australia and New Zealand between the
period 2004-07. The identified themes were grouped in eight categories, i.e.,
organization approaches to work life and work family issues, work
characteristics, occupations/industries, government policy and legislation,
health outcome issues related to work life, family structure and children,
gender and other additional themes. With regard to the research methods,
out of the total 86 papers examined, 73% of the papers were empirical while
27% were conceptual. Majority of the empirical papers used quantitative
methodology. As many as 51% used survey method for data collection while
the remaining 49% were fairly split among case studies, focus group and
interviews. Out of 63 empirical papers, 20 were classified priori with variables
34 identified and relationships proposed before any theory was apparent. The
remaining 43 articles were classified as post hoc as there were no specific
relationships proposed before data collection and analysis.
In order to have a justified and in-depth review of the literature, the studies
have been classified under the following headings:
The higher the importance accorded to work in life, the higher is the
work family conflict.
Since the approach of work life balance was initially conceived in terms of
work family conflict / work family balance, and work life balance concept has
come to the fore recently, hence much research is focused on work family
conflict rather than work life balance which is a broader term and includes
work and rest of the life (including family). Secondly, much emphasis has
been laid on studying the outcomes of work family conflict or work life
balance as compared to the antecedents especially in the context of work life
balance. Again, the researchers who studied the antecedents, focused mainly
on the work or family related variables; and have not taken individual related
variables into account. There are hardly any studies to be found in the Indian
76 context, and hence the issue of work life balance is wide open for research
in India.
Drawing on the large amount of literature and research this chapter examines
the concept of work-life balance. Fatigue and tiredness are essentially
cumulative (Hildebrandt et al., 1974; Rosa, 1991). They are generated by
excessive hours worked per day, too little time off between work shifts, and
too many consecutive days worked without rest days (Paley and Tepas, 1994;
Smith, 1979). Inadequate roster design and excessive overtime work hours
are therefore particularly associated with fatigue. They are particularly