Analysis of Work Life Balance!

Human resources of an organization are measured as a basis of workable competitive advantage. The employees of the organization add considerably towards the accomplishment of organizational ideas and aims. It is vital for organizations to have information about the several aspects persuading the conduct of their personnel in the organization to bring out the best in them. One such issue inducing the conduct of employees in the workplace is their insight about their work life balance.

The subject of work-life balance is progressively becoming significant in India as large number of women having kids are joining the workforce, and there are a number of families that are becoming gradually nuclear and dual-earner. Consequently, more and more people working in different professions feel the need to stable their work life and personal life.

In previous days, study in this area was mentioned as conflict of work and family. It was broadly stated in current organizational performance literature (Frone et al., 1992; Williams and Alliger, 1994). More lately, a wider term has developed in the literature to discuss work and non-work conflict, ‘work-life balance’, which suggests a more general tactic to the study of work and non-work conflict as compared to work-family conflict. The idea of work-life balance not only comprises the family-friendly viewpoints of previous HR guidelines, but is also quite broader in the sense that it pursues to help all employees, regardless of married or parental position so that employees can experience a superior fit between their official and private lives (White et al., 2003). Keeping this wider viewpoint in mind, work-life balance has been defined as being ‘about regulating work forms irrespective of age, race or gender, everybody can find a beat to help them combining work with their other tasks or ambitions’ (Maxwell and McDougall, 2004).

Work-life balance gripped attention of the management in the 1980s, mainly because of the increasing figure of women with reliant kids entering the work force . Many variations in the workplace and in employee demography in the previous few years have led to an augmented unease for considering the borderline and the interface between employee work and non-work lives (Hochschild, 1997; and Hayman, 2005). A large number of women are joining the workforce and dual career couples are becoming gradually common. In addition, more employees working from home, thus distorting the borders between work and non-work life (Hill et al., 1998).

Work-life balance is no more an issue related to women only, but a concern of todays entire workforce. Men are similarly finding it problematic to balance their work and private life. A survey in 1991 in UK and Australia revealed that women were more likely than men to work from home, but in 2003 the situation was different, with 14% of men working from home compared with 8% of women. Even though work-life balance was originally recognized and interpreted as an issue for working mothers, it now includes all kinds of employees (Bird, 2006).

The major reasons for this growing concern of work-life balance is due to technical progression, which has transformed the work, and private lives of working employees into a single entity. Lester (1999) claimed that technology can help and hamper work-life balance by making work more available at all times and also in terms of allowing a more flexible method to when and where to work.

With bigger concern by employees for handling the borderline and the communication between their work and non-work lives, the provision of operative work-life initiatives is increasingly becoming significant for organizations and for HRM specialists throughout the business world. Earlier academics have shown that people are more engaged to organizations that propose family-friendly strategies, irrespective to the level to which they might personally use such policies (Grover and Karen, 1995). In terms of business, this interprets into better ability attraction, increased productivity, talent management, less work stress, decrease in absenteeism, better motivation, employer branding and more productive work practices (Byrne, 2005). A disparity between work and non-work roles can be dysfunctional and unfavorable for both the employees and the employers. It is because of this reason that many organizations are increasingly adopting work-life policies such as presenting better work flexibility, if child-care facilities and contributing emotional support (Lapierre and Allen, 2006). Most of these work-life policies are aimed at employees with a family (Young, 1999). Such emphasis tends to lead to a feeling of omission and inequity amongst employees who are single and employees who are not having children (Grandey, 2001).

References
Frone, M.R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M.L. (1992a). Prevalence of work-family conflict: Are work and family boundaries asymmetrically permeable? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 723-729.

Williams, K.J., & Alliger, G.M. (1994). Role stressors, mood spillover, and perceptions of work family conflict in employed parents. Academy of Management Journal, 37(4), 837-868.

White, M., Hill, S., McGrovern, P., Collins, M., & Smeaton, D. (2003). High performance management practices, working hours and work-life balance. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2), 175-195.

Maxwell, G.A., & McDougall, M. (2004). Work-life balance. Public Management Review, 6(3), 377-393.

Hayman J (2005), “Psychometric Assessment of an Instrument Designed to Measure Work-Life Balance”, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, Vol. 13, No. 1.

Hill J E, Miller B C, Weiner S P and Coleman J (1998), “Influences of the Virtual Office on Aspects of Work and Work/Life Balance”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 51, No. 3. 11.

Hochschild A R (1997), “The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work”, Metropolitan Books, New York.

Jim, Bird.(2006), “Work-life balance- doing it right and avoiding pitfalls”, Employment Relations Today, vol. 33, Issue 3.

Lester S (1999), “Technology’s Effect on Work-Life Balance”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23, No. 7, pp. 141-147.

Grover, Steven L and Karen J Crocker (1995), “Who Appreciates Family-Responsive Human Resource Policies: The Impact of Family-Friendly Policies on the Organizational Attachment of Parents and Non-Parents”, Personnel Psychology, p. 48.

Byrne U (2005), “Work-Life Balance: Why are we Talking About It At All?”, Business Information Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 53-59.

Lapierre L M and Allen T D (2006), “Work-Supportive Family, Family-Supportive Supervision, Use of Organizational Benefits, and Problem-Focused Coping: Implications for Work-Family Conflict and Employee Well-Being”, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 169-181.

Young M (1999), “Work-Family Backlash: Begging the Question, What’s Fair?”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 562, pp. 32-46.

Grandey A A (2001), “Family Friendly Policies: Organizational Justice Perceptions of Need-Based Allocations”, in R Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the Workplace: From Theory to Practice, Vol. 2, pp. 145-173, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.