Theories Of Work-Life Balance, Flexibility And Human Resource Management

Work-Life Balance and Flexibility

Question:

Essay on Work-Life Balance.
 

The author analyses the theories of work life balance, flexibility and human resource management and its effect on society and global environment. The author analyzes various theories on the work life balance and flexibility to solve the problems given in case study. The author identifies and discusses how work life and personal life can be balanced what are the things that managers should do during the recession. The essay also reflects the ill impacts of working for extra hours on health and the personal and work life. The main aim of the managers in an organization should be to satisfy employee along with the customers. For this the management unit should ensure that the employees get an equal opportunity to maintain their career and personal life. Work life balance means prioritizing the balance between work and lifestyle (Smeaton et al., 2015). 

Management of the employees and the human capital and assets of the organization is known as human resource management. The main responsibility of the human resource department in an organization is to recruit the right people for right job, training and development of employees, evaluating their performance, motivating the employees to achieve the goals of the firm and also solving the problems that employees face in the organization. The responsibility of human resource department is also to maintain and ensure that no employee in pressurized for work and the employees are able to maintain a balance between work life and personal life (Bratton & Gold, 2015).

Maintaining a balance between career and personal life is known as work-life balance. Since humans work to earn a standard of living the lifestyle of people often changes when they enter the corporate field. The time that they spend with their family reduces. So it is essential for the employees to maintain balances as it will not only benefit society but also the organization in which it is working. The research shows that working extra hour accounts for a total of seventy one billion dollar unpaid work each year. When the employees in an organization have to give an extra working hour in an organization they have to compromise the hour that they could have given to their family and leisure activities (Allen, et al., 2013).

Flexibility is one of the elements of work life balance. Being flexible means choosing a career and office of its own choice and it also includes changing the shift timings and giving leave arrangements to the employees during the time of emergency. Flexible work arrangement is the situation or schedule that is different from the traditional schedule. Work life policy programs in Australia includes flexible hours, part time work, job sharing, work from home, employee assistance program, relocation service and granting casual laves so that employees can invest time for personal needs and family as well (Healey, 2008).

According to Juliet Bourke, the work life balance suffers negativity than spreading positivity. However, the basic original paradigm of work-life balance approach is to enhance the profit maximization principle than cost minimization principle. Although, this paradigm is not able to prove flexibility because there is pressure given on the employees to perform better and for longer hours but only a fewer people are able to meet up to the capabilities of the work management (Cooney, et al., 2016). The work management is now focusing to reduce the week’s work to retain the employees. The pressure build up on good employees is more as extra workload is given to them. Therefore, this results in increase in the workload pressure on the employees by hampering their balanced life (Noon, Blyton & Morrell, 2013).

Human Resource Management and Employee Wellbeing

The work life balance not only hampers the social well-being but it also influences the personal well being because with increased workload will give more responsibility (Nayak & Pandey, 2015). Although, this will become a never ending cycle of work that only deals with concerns and pressures. The work and time are inverse relationship as the work increases; the time will seem to be less. Nonetheless, it is not beneficial if employees are more stressed because this will result in more cost for the organization as well as the employees who are working from home. The teleconference will ultimately result in more cost, time and money wastage. However, to get maximum benefits, the organization needs to formulate a policy that deals with more out of less such that the efficient employees are not properly absorbed on the organization. As a result, flexibility has moved from the original paradigm making it unavoidable as well as necessary. As originally explained, should possess a proper coordination with efficient work-life balance approach (Jones, Burke & Westman, 2013).

The change makes it difficult for the organization to function properly, which not only results in conflicts between different working groups but also results in the challenges faced by time. However, there is a need to establish a proper policy system. Even more, if managers write policies then there will be extreme wastage of time, as the policies need to be re-written in correspondence with the employees demand in the organization. Today’s work-life scenarios are inflexible in nature as there is too much pressure. Nevertheless, there should be more flexibility in the work life balance of work management. According to the recent study conducted by Janssen (2013), after analysing Net survey’s database, only 28% of the working people have good work –life balance rest 72% are not entirely happy with their work.  However, to combat the the rising percentages, many organizations have adopted work-life flexibility working hours, starting with boosting the morale of the employees. The work-life flexibility is important in any organization as it involves a critical path management of the employees as well as employers. On the other hand, flexibility deems to be important for the employees because it reduces cost and provides employees to spend more time with their immediate close ones and family. Inflexibility is involves more working hours and many people avoid regular holidays even (Riley, 2012).

As the saying goes, “excess of everything is bad”, highlights the proficiency that there is a negative impact on the managers and employees. Long working hours after the normal office working hours can prove to be detrimental for both the employees as well as the managers. Moreover, the immediate sufferers are the family of the employees and the managers that need to suffer along with them. It also proves detrimental on the ability of the performance, which creates unwanted deviations like health issues, sleeplessness and fatigue (Nitzsche, et al., 2013). Increased working hours has following impacts. Firstly, it causes an increased likelihood of illness and injury among the employees such as high prevalence of back disorders, hypertension, less physical and ultimately results in job dissatisfaction (Darcy, et al., 2012). However, there is extreme positioning of the fact that other than employees harmful effects, it also leads to increase in cost of the organization. Moreover, as the working hour’s increases, there is less of productivity and increase in risks of safety. However, there are various studies conducted, this study shows that more than 60 hours a week leads to decrease in productivity as well as dissatisfaction of the customers.

The Importance of Work-Life Flexibility

A study was conducted on the workers who rode a truck, which revealed that the company had told them to work for more than 40 hours per week. As a result, the study states that with 60 more hours of work lead to indicators of productivity outcomes with injury rates and the moderate employee workers did not face any situation. The productivity outcomes laid two brief results, one followed physical, and the other followed to be non-physical presenters as in both the cases they were affected by the scenario (Golden, 2012). The other affect that highlights the cause is tiredness in which employees avoid doing any task such as their productivity falls and unproductive time increases. Working for longer durations also resulted in absenteeism, which not only hampered the productivity of the person as that of the organization. The silent sufferers had been the communities and the society in which the one person has born to live (Pencavel, 2015).

The organization should give reward and recognition to the ones who give extra labour in their work by giving their valuable time and energy than required. On the other hand, time management is one factor that needs to be focused always (Lunau, et al., 2014). Conversely, some techniques should be applied that not only mitigates the effect of health and productivity but also studies the impact on the horizontal and vertical communication. If a job requires work, then the employee needs to be ready for the consequences ahead such that there is motivation for the extra hour one sits on the office and completes its work. However, the employees who work extra time will be rewarded with either cash or kind (Maalik, Ahmed & Nazir, 2015).

During the time of economic downturn or recession the working hour of people reduce due to reduction in the workload. This is the time where the employees get the maximum time to spend with their family. The salaries and wages depend on the performance of employees during the recession. But in organizations where the corporate culture is strong managers realize that firms will not benefit by reducing the working hours instead they lay off the workers that are unproductive and using the offices resources and wasting the time of organization. The main problem arises when the organizations are not able to handle the remaining workers in organization efficiently after the layoff (Perlow & Kelly,  2014). 

The employees that are left in the organization are then pressurized due to which maintain the balance between work and life becomes difficult for the employees. Managers can ensure that the employees are able to maintain the work life balance by providing monetary benefits to the employees who have been laid off. Extra incentives should be given to ones who are putting in extra efforts and in form of compensation, insurance policy and retirement benefits. It is essential to ensure that the remaining employees in organization are happy because they are the ones who will help the firm come out of the recession. So it is essential to preserve the interests of the employees and keep them happy by not pressurizing them for work (Vandello et al., 2013). The managers should realize the positive impact of flexible work arrangement on productivity. The organization should form a proper financial strategy to help the firm come out of recession. Proper allocation of resources is also essential be it human or capital during economic downturn. Management unit should also realize that the workers that are laid off are important part of organization. So it is essential to ensure that during the boom period the employees don’t refuse to work again with the organization. Management of time is the most essential factor to maintain work life balance. Flexibility work arrangement should be adopted in organizations so that the employees are satisfied and they can give time to their family along with work. Proper decision of work and strategy is essential for effective utilization of time and resources. Work life balance during the time of economic recession or downturn can be achieved by forming proper policies and strategies. The main responsibility of ensuring the work life balance and flexibility and flexible work arrangement is that of the human resource department (Campbell, 2015).   

Work life balance and flexibility at work arrangement both has pros and cons. If it is managed properly then its result will benefit both the organization and employees. With the change in tradition, the work load is also increasing. There are many ill effects of working overtime and main hamper is on productivity of employees and organization. In order to increase profitability and productivity it is essential for the workers to maintain the family as well as career. The main role of human resource manager is to manage the employees and keep them motivated so that together they can work to achieve the goal of the firm. Both the employers and employees should work together to achieve one common goal set by the organization.  

References

Allen, T. D., Johnson, R. C., Kiburz, K. M., & Shockley, K. M. (2013). Work–family conflict and flexible work arrangements: Deconstructing flexibility. Personnel Psychology, 66(2), 345-376.

B Nayak, A., & Pandey, M. (2015). Work-Life Balance And Imbalance: A Conceptual Model.

Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2015). Towards Critical Human Resource Management Education (CHRME): a sociological imagination approach. Work, Employment & Society, 29(3), 496-507.

Campbell, K. M. (2015). Flexible Work Schedules, Virtual Work Programs, and Employee Productivity.

Cooney, L.L., Tartar, J., Murphy Esq, S., Esq, M. & Stephen, G. (2016). Video: The Balancing Act: Managing Work & Life in a 24/7/365 World.

Darcy, C., McCarthy, A., Hill, J., & Grady, G. (2012). Work–life balance: One size fits all? An exploratory analysis of the differential effects of career stage. European Management Journal, 30(2), 111-120.

Golden, L. (2012). The Effects of Working Time on Productivity and Firm Performance, Research Synthesis Paper. International Labor Organization (ILO) Conditions of Work and Employment Series, (33).

Healey, J. (2008). Work-life balance. Thirroul, N.S.W. : Spinney Press, 2008

Janssen, J. (2013). A poor work-life-balance is bad – both for employees and employers – Netsurvey. Netsurvey. Retrieved 2 June 2016

Jones, F., Burke, R. J., & Westman, M. (2013). Work-life balance: A psychological perspective. Psychology Press.

Lunau, T., Bambra, C., Eikemo, T. A., van der Wel, K. A., & Dragano, N. (2014). A balancing act? Work–life balance, health and well-being in European welfare states. The Euro

Maalik, A., Ahmed, N., & Nazir, I. (2015). Impact of Work Life Balance, Career Development and Reward on Employee. Performance in Petroleum Sector of Pakistan.

Nitzsche, A., Pfaff, H., Jung, J. and Driller, E., 2013. Work–life balance culture, work–home interaction, and emotional exhaustion: A structural equation modeling approach. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 55(1), pp.67-73.

Noon, M., Blyton, P. & Morrell, K. (2013). The realities of work: Experiencing work and employment in contemporary society. Palgrave Macmillan.

Pencavel, J. (2015). The productivity of working hours. The Economic Journal, 125(589), 2052-2076.

Perlow, L. A., & Kelly, E. L. (2014). Toward a model of work redesign for better work and better life. Work and Occupations, 41(1), 111-134..

Riley, D. E. R. E. K. (2012). Work and family interface: Wellbeing and the role of resilience and work-life balance (Doctoral dissertation, PhD thesis). The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand).