Question:
The primary purpose of this assessment task is to assist students to develop skills in the application of Human Resource Management (HRM) principles, work-life balance theories and models in the analysis of the present and future role of the HRM function in organisations. The assessment task encourages exploration of the effectiveness of the HRM functions (work-life balance, flexible work arrangements etc.) in dynamic environments and how that effectiveness should be evaluated. The secondary purpose of this assignment is to give students the opportunity to enhance their research, analysis, critical thinking and written communications skills including the identification and development of an argument.
In this particular study, we have highlighted the pros and cons of work life balance in respect to flexibility in work structure of corporate. Flexibility is giving the employees an option to work less or more according to the need of the organization. This in turn can increase the workload of some efficient employees and can adversely affect the entire organization. Key highlights of this essay are whether flexibility has moved from its main motive or not, affect of excessive workload on the employees and the measures to be taken by employers to motivate employees to work for longer hours during economic downturn balancing their work life.
Keywords: Work life balance, flexibility, economic downturn, employees’ performance, economic crisis, human resource.
In today’s world, work life balance is one of the most important issues that are raised by employers all over the world. In order to maintain balance in work life, flexibility has been adopted by most of the organization in which employees are given option to work for lesser hours when demand is low and work for more hours in the period of downturn due to economic crisis (Anderson et al., 2013). Those employees who are willing to work for longer hours during crisis period must be rewarded and assured that when the company will turn around then they will have to work for lesser hours again.
In this approach of maintaining flexibility in the work life balance sometime organization faces some hurdles like over load of work on few efficient employees of the organization that in turn adversely affect their productive and give rise to health related issues(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
In the context of work life balance, Juliet Brouke the consulting partner of Deloitte Australia has raised the issue that it had adversely affected the idea of flexibility and moved from its original model (Balance, 2013). Previously industries used to face huge problems regarding acquisition of talent from different sources and retention of those talents. Now a day’s employers are ready to make in different sectors to as to diversify the openings in various business sections. They are now focusing on reduction of the working time along with providing the facilities for part time jobs and overtime to improve the flexibility along with maintaining work life balance (Bartlett, 2013). The concept of work life balance means providing an opportunity to the employees to balance their work life along with their personal life as this will definitely improve the implementation of flexibility in corporate work culture.
According to Juliet Brown, the flexibility in work life is not been evenly spread throughout the entire workforce. Because of that, most of the employees in an organization are willing to work less than their scheduled working hours whereas some of the employees are willing to work overtime (Bennett and Ho, 2014). Because of which work pressure is being shifted to few employees, which in turn is adversely affect their productivity and unwillingness to work in long run. Employers are also using the benefit of flexibility in a malicious way at the time of economic emergency by using their efficient employees for more than regular hours by paying them overtime allowances and other perquisite while reducing the work time of less efficient employees. By this way, they are mobilizing the resources of the company towards higher productivity as payments to the employees are based on their working time (Berman et al., 2015). This strategy may be beneficial in the short term at the time of economic crisis but in long run, this will affect the productivity of those efficient employees.
At the time of economic crisis, a company may face decline in the demand of products from clients. In that period they can reduce the work time of the employees by availing leaves, pay wages and salaries accordingly, and reduce cost (Bratton and Gold, 2012). Whereas at the time of high demand employers can take the advantage of flexibility and increase the production by motivating the employees to work for longer hours voluntarily. However, in some companies implementation of work life balance does not affect the redundancy, as it is unavoidable (Burg-Brown, 2013).
The executive officers have identified the advantage of flexibility in work life as they can minimize cost and idleness of the employees and workers. They know that staffs need to be committed towards their work so that the productivity of the company increases. The employers knows that flexibility is all about managing human resources efficiently in order to the goals and objectives of the organization whether the employees are working full time or half time or taking leaves or working overtime. They know that at the time of economic downtime idealness and redundancy will be higher but this economic situation will improve in future and then they can acquire new talents. The employees also knew that they have to work for longer hours sometimes in downtime for which they will get extra payment in term of monetary and non-monetary perquisites as well as get recognition for that (Freeburg et al., 2014). In short-run productivity does not always means getting extra out of a smaller amount. Therefore, when organization requires superior levels of commitment they could find themselves achieving low levels of commitment.
In the present day, companies are trying to achieve high sales quota with lower cost to increase their profit and create value for their stakeholders. In order to achieve this target employers know that employees need to give their 100% commitment toward what they are capable of doing (Gangwisch, 2014). This would also affect the working hours of the employees and executives since in multinational companies, conferences and meetings held through telecommunication and teleconferencing. This also saves the cost of travelling from one place to another but at the same time increases the working hours of the executives, as they have to make video calls at night even due to diverse time zones. Until there is an improvement in the structure of the organizational operational efficiency with respect to idleness programs companies are going to harm themselves in order to achieve more with less resources (Hendry, 2012). It is also a well-known fact that efficient employees may give higher production but at the same time, they will get exhausted at certain point of time.
Therefore, it can be said that flexibility has moved from its unique idea to a certain extent, which cannot be avoided. Advantages and disadvantages are coupled with it and a systematic management with right approach can lead to proper utilization of management maintaining work life balance.
Generally, employees are required to work for longer hours in order to achieve their targets and complete their jobs on scheduled time. They need to be responsible so that company can achieve its objectives and mission. Depending upon the circumstances employees have to either work overtime or reduce the number of leaves taken in order to achieve their targets. They are also given an option to work from home so that they can balance their work life. However, all this situations have negative impact on the productivity of the employees in the end. It harms both the employees and the peoples who are in personal relationship with him. It is seen that working for longer hours can negatively affects the system of human body. Problems like fatigue, sleepiness; negative attitude affects the human system, which in turn affects their performance decreasing production quality and quantity of the company (Hofäcker and König, 2013).
There are many risk associated with the working for longer hours, which are abnormalities in social life, troublesome, control over the employee, job lateness etc. all this factors are to be kept in mind while motivating employees for working for extra time because this in turn can increase the production and operational cost resulting in lower profitability. This also affects the society around them as unintentional errors like road accidents, medical problems arises due to excessive workload. Employees who are working 24*7 face problems decreasing concentration, health related issues, and diseases are not properly diagnosed (Jones, Burke and Westman, 2013). This in turn is decreasing the overall performance of the company affecting its reputation in long run.
So if employees are willing to work for more hours it has bad effects on their health and on their social and personal life if they are not given proper incentives. In order to reduce the adverse effect of working longer hours on the employee’s management must take proper steps to motivate them and make them know their value and importance in the organization (Lewis, 2014). Employees must be reminded of their responsibility and commitment towards the organization. If the management thinks that it is necessary to hear and understand the grievances of the employees and hear from them the problems faced by, they in the organization then they can also do that. After that, management can strategize a proper plan in order to increase their productivity by working longer hours. In addition, the management should look after the imbalance in economic and social movements made by the company in terms of production, operational and financial cost, revenue and profitability of the company as a whole.
Managers play a pivotal role in motivating the employees the employees to work for extra hours. Managers should guide the employees leading by an example and motivate them to finish their job in time so that employees are not required to take extra stress. The employees must be adequately trained and proper testing of their efficiency must be done to understand their expertise level. Proper management of time is required to finish the job in scheduled time. Activities, which are very crucial and important and required to completed on time, needs to be separated from casual work. Managers should conduct training programs to increase communication skills between the employees Managers are required to have a clear understanding about the goals and objectives of the company so that they can motivate and encourage the employees accordingly.
Managers should treat all of their employees equally and partiality should not be there within an organization so that employees are not de-motivated. Managers should be responsible and efficient in making strategic long-term decisions because of which they must be able to allocate works among the employees. Managers must recognize employees when they achieve the desired level of satisfaction and reward them according to keep them encouraged. Managers need to take help of different management tools to measure the performance of the employees so that resources of the company are utilized properly. Different strategies must be developed for employees who are willing to work for late hours so that their productivity is not harmed and their grievances must be addressed. Managers must also push the employees to take their leaves to reduce stress.
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be understand that managers play an effective when they need to motivate their employees to work for extra hours (Lewis et al., 2014). They must make sure that working extra hours and late nights are not adversely affecting the productivity and health of the individual employees and the profitability of the organization as a whole. Managers must give proper incentives and benefits to their employees for working extra hours and coordinate with them so that they can also maintain their balance in work life.
Now a day employer’s role in motivating the employees to work for longer hours in the period of economic downturn is gaining very much importance. Employers are more focusing on the health related issues of their employees rather than giving them monetary and non-monetary benefits, allowances, incentives and perquisites such as providing companies flat, car etc. They are now providing medical support, fitness trainer and various services like cleaning, laundry etc to their employees to minimize their stress to some extent. Employees are given benefits after their retirement like pension, gratuity and leave encashment, so that when the down time is over; the work force remaining can understand their responsibility and commitment towards the company, work for the overall betterment of the organization as a whole, and achieve the targets set (Lyness and Judiesch, 2014).
In today’s world, competition in the market is increasing rapidly and employers are creating pressure on the employees to achieve the set targets maintaining the balance in work life. This is turn is increasing the stress of the employees and affecting their health condition. Many a time’s financial crisis may lead to cancellation of existing company’s policies or postponement of it for a short period. Risk of losing jobs at the time of economic downtime can create stress that may cause health related issues. Employers must motivate the employees by assuring them that company can come over the downtime within very short period if the supports of the employees are there. If they work for longer hours at the time of crisis then when the company turn around they will have to work for lesser time again and will be given benefits and incentives accordingly (Lyonette, 2013).
At the time of economic crisis, every resources of the company being land, labor and capital must be allocated properly do that proper utilization can be made. The employers must motivate the employees to complete their scheduled work in time so that they could find time for their family and society. This will reduce the non-completion of work within deadlines and proper management of time and resources to get the desired results. The employees must be adequately trained to minimize wastage of time and resources (Purce, 2014). Every jobs must be divided into several sub parts, focus must be given to the important subpart, and so that utilization of resources is towards valuable subparts.
Due to higher work pressure grievances of the employees increases which leads to decrease in their productivity. To balance it proper communication between the employees and employers must be assured by the management of the company so that employees can address their problem to the managers. This will lead to harmony and peace within the organization and teamwork will increase the productive of the workers. In case of any crisis in the economy, the employees must be motivated in order to achieve the optimal production.
If there is cooperation between the employees then it will encourage the employer-employee relationship within the organization and a feeling of commitment towards achievement of organizational goals and objectives will grow among them. Moreover, the employers should give confidence to all their employees that downtime will not last forever and company will turn around in the near future so that they work toward the achievement of the objectives of the company. Employers should give proper incentives to the employees for working longer hours like overtime allowances and other facilities (Shanafelt et al., 2012). Proper reward mechanism must be implemented within the organization to recognize the hard work of the employees in the time of downturn and reward them accordingly to satisfy them. In addition, employers should take measures to maintain the balance in the work life so that working overtime does not harm their family and social etiquettes.
From the above discussion, it can be said that if employees adopt a combined way of motivating the employees toward working extra hours providing various rewards and incentives balancing their personal and social life then balance in work life can be maintained in the downtime due to economic crisis by adopting flexibility.
Conclusion
In short, it can be said that that work life balance is the most crucial subject in today’s corporate wok culture as flexibility is gaining too much important. Employees are willing to work for longer hours to earn rewards and incentives which if exceeds certain extent can harm their productivity and give rise to medical problems (Wiese, 2015). They can also get detached from their personal and social life that has negative impact on the overall production and profitability of the organization.
Reference list
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