Work Life Balance

ABSTRACT:

Published research studies have determined that while other countries have considered shortening a workweek and setting laws that govern maximum hours, America employees seem to be working more hours than before (http://www.worklifebalancecentre.org). Many graduates that enter the job market seem to appreciate more flexible hours than the wages. Work-life balance has been credited for reducing stress at work. Organizations need to understand work-life balance programs that might be appropriate for their employees.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE DEFINED:

Work-life balance as it is literally is the ability to balance one’s work and life with approved arrangement from his/her organization. These work –life balance theories and programs came to exist when organizations widely considered how to help working mothers manage their work and life at home. Jack Welch former CEO of GE says:
“Today, work-life balance remains largely the purview of working mothers, in that they are the people most likely to be grappling with the issue on a daily basis, but without a question, work-life balance as a concept has grown and expanded. It isn’t just about how mothers can make time for all the demands in their lives. It’s about how all of us manage our lives and allocate our time, its about priorities and values.”(Welch p 317)
Work-life balance is about priorities, priorities at work and in life. Work-life balance does not discriminate men or women at work. It simply emphasize about efficiency while maximizing work and life aspects of an individual. It is no coincidence that work-life balance entered the public domain about the time that women and especially mothers in dual career households started working in the workforce. Suddenly, there was a whole group of people juggling two mutually exclusive and colliding demands: being great parents and great employees at the same time (Welch pg 317)
Work-life balance is a program that has increased popularity and that no company or CEO can ignore it. Studies show that work-life balance expression was first used in 1986 and 1970 in the USA and Britain respectively. It is widely believed that work-life balance has been instrumental in reducing stress at work.
“Stress will occur when there is a basis inconsistency or incompatibility between a person’s works –life dimensions. For example, if a person is a sole care provider for a dependent elderly parent but has a job that requires considerable travel and evening work, stress is likely to result.”(Moorehead and Griffin, 2 001, p. 241)
Since I have established one way on how stress can occur at work in the absence of work-life balance, I would prefer to establish work-life balance relationship at this early stage.
“Work-life relationships can be characterizes in any number of ways. Consider, for example, the basic dimensions of the part of a person’s life tied specifically to work. Common dimensions would include such things as an individual’s current job (including working hours, job satisfaction and so forth), his or her career goals (the person’s aspirations, career trajectory and so forth), interpersonal relations at work (with the supervisor, subordinates, coworkers and others), and job security (p. 240)

PURPOSE AND STUDY RATIONALE:

Work life balance (flextime) is a complicated subject. Personally, I have struggled with this throughout my career and it has taken a toll on my family before. Some reports are compelling on the subject, other companies that dedicate a great deal to the cause such as Smuckers that has been doing a flextime for a while now. Countries such as France only allow 35 hours workweeks to be considered full time. In Europe workers have more than 26 public holidays in a year compared to six or seven in the USA. Work life balance is a program that in its initial stage did not make business sense. It is comforting that many organizations seem to understand that employees have a life outside work. (Robbins, 2003) Robbins gives us an overview how it used to be in early years
“The typical employee in the 1960s and 1970s showed up at work place Monday through Friday and did his or her job in 8- or 9- hour chunks of time. The work place and hours were clearly specified. That is not true for a large segment of today’s work force. Employees are increasingly complaining the line between work and non work time has become blurred creating personal conflict and stress” (p. 25)
Robbins goes on to outline a number of forces that have contributed in blurring the line between employee work life. Work and the world never sleep after the creation of global economy. With different time zones form one area of work to the next, and the need to consult with either customers or colleques makes employees work around these time zones. In the 1960s women place was to either raise kids or just plain housewife. Nowadays more and more women are joining the work force and this dictates the change in chores, roles and responsibilities between men and women. In luxury to the masses article, authors have been able to show us how women have joined the work force in recent years. (Silverstain and Fiske, April 2003) “According to U.S. Census Bureau date, the percentage of married women in the paid labor force increased steadily from 30% in 1960 to 62 in 2000. Today, 70% of women in their peak earning years, ages 25 to 54, participate in the workforce”

BALANCING WORK-LIFE PROGRAMS:

A flexible schedule may work for an employee under the following conditions:
• If the employee has a job that doesn't require her presence at all times during normal working hours, or if someone else can easily fill-in for her during the time she is away,
• If the job responsibilities are more measured by results rather than by hours on the clock,
• If the employee can work longer hours to make up for days off.
As is the case with most good employee programs, there are benefits to the employer as well as the employee. These include:
• Happier and more loyal employees,
• Positive word of mouth about the company.
With appropriate scheduling, longer periods of overall coverage (without overtime) which result from employees working longer hours during working days in exchange for more days off. In an effort to balance work and life an individual employee has to decide what are the priorities in his/her life and at work too. Both an employee and the company must decide on the trade off that both of them are willing to either trade or give up. (Moorehead and Griffin, 2001). “Seek first to understand before condemning and disciplining the employee” is the position of Dr. Stevens (2007). This position is very difficult for managers to grasp but it could be the answer to increased productivity and providing additional motivation by appearing to care about the individual’s situation by offering employees flexible work hours rather than dealing with every problem by the book.
“employees have to decide for themselves what they value and what trade offs they are willing to make. For instance, consider the dilemma faced by a dual-career couple when one partner is being transferred and turn it down, risking a potential career setback or loss of the job. The other partner may resign from his or her current position and seek another one in the new location. The couple might also decide to live apart with one moving and the other staying. The partners might also come to realize that their respective careers are more important to them than their relationship and decide to go separate ways. (p. 241)
Once an employee figures out his needs and the company’s needs then the employee and his/her boss can sit down and look for ways to work an arrangement for a work-life balance. The biggest obstacle in designing and implementing work-life balance is the management. If management believes in change and maximizing employees’ commitment to their work then it is obviously that a work-life balance schedule will be agreed. Change is always not welcomed to management as long as it does not promise immediate return on investment.
“Many executives try to change organizations. Few succeed. And as most executives who have lied through change initiatives will admit, fewer still want to try again. Who can blame them for their reluctance? The process is terribly painful, the logistic are enormously complex, the organizations want deeply not to change – and the success rate is abysmal. Yet most organizations must change, and change profoundly, if they are to stay alive. It’s the oldest cliché in the book, and it’s also true.”(Campaign for Change p. 98)
Changes that are suitable for growth within an organization and maintaining what is needed to continue success involves a list of factors. As noted by the authors, Hodge, Anthony & Gales (2005) there needs to be top management support, which involves support from the top, because without it others will not accept it as well; structural support involves organic (flexibility and creativity required to generate new ideas and mechanistic characteristics (strategies that require some degree of formalization, standardization, and centralization); champions are individuals who have vision, drive, and determination in order to oversee the development and success of the goals; communications deals with informing employees of all changes that will affect them directly or indirectly; and, resources, make sure the changes can be afforded, such as finances, people, equipment, and other required resources that are need to sustain the changes (pp. 566-567).
GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING WORK-LIFE BALANCE:
For every program there is always guidelines and challenges; below are guidelines and how they should be approached so that an organization can transition into work-life balance program.
• The scheme needs to be well organized and managed.
• Flextime may not suit all types of work (where continuous cover is necessary, for example.)
• You may incur additional costs in administering the scheme, and in additional heating and lighting if you keep your premises open for longer.
• Your staff require a certain amount of self-management.
• Flextime should be open to both full and part time staff.
• It may be easier to introduce flextime where your staffs work Independently or in small units.
• You should credit your staff with hours for absences such as sickness and holidays,
• The scheme will require a system of central administration.
• You will rely on the voluntary co-operation of your staff.
• Flexible rostering should be equally available to all staff.
Flexible work alternatives may be the single most important factor in allowing employee to create lives they want for themselves and their families. Longer work hours have robbed them of irreplaceable hours with their families. Longer hours have depleted the energy they need to be fully contributing members of their community, and drained away the time it takes to be fully informed citizens.

While some are running out of time from overwork, others are hurting financially and emotionally from lack of work. At least some flexible work options serve to spread existing jobs further, creating a model for a saner more humane work system. Hardly a month goes by without a major corporation like Xerox or IBM announcing a layoff or downsizing. According to Barney Olmsted and Suzanne Smith, this trend could go in one of two directions:
“Our work structure could move further into a core-ring configuration. In which a small core of full-time employees receives most of the training. benefits, and relative Job security, while the ring' short-farm contractors, temporaries, and leaded staff' have little job security, few benefits, and receive minimal training. “
The alternative is to move toward a three' way stretch, an approach that requires flexibility on the cart of work organizations, employees and society at large. The areas of flexibility include a variety of schedule options, on and off-site work possibilities, and staff cross training. If change is to be effective within an organization all of the members within the organization must participate and be a part of the changes. According to Woodman (1998) people will participate, given the opportunity, in organizational changes that affect them because people prefer participation to non-participation.

REALITY ABOUT WORK-LIFE BALANCE:

Large corporations have gradually acknowledged the cost effectiveness as well as the importance to staff morale of working cooperatively with employees to make new working arrangements. Among the bottom line advantages they've recognized are:
1) Reduction in the cost incurred by losing an employee, especially the costs associated with recruiting and retraining;
2) The positive role that flexible work options play in recruiting new staff and
3) The capacity of a flexible work force to respond to a rapidly changing almost volatile economy.
Creating a flexible workplace may be one way in which firms can gain an advantage over competitors in both domestic and international markets. Shell Canada Ltd, Converted from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, giving employees 3 days off per week.
The reality about work –life balance is that once an organization has introduced this program, most employees have no idea where to begin exercising the program. Most companies do not have awareness to educate and fledge the program at all level and have some training about it.

Here are some of realities about work-life balance as enumerated by Jack Welch:
1. “Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness. Of course, he wants you to be happy, but only in as much as it helps the company win. In fact, if exciting that your personal life becomes a less compelling draw.
2. Most bosses are perfectly willing to accommodate work-life balance if you have earned it with performance. The key word here is, if.
3. Bosses know that the work-life balance policies in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes and that real work-life arrangements are negotiated on one- on- one in the context of a supportive culture not in the context of “But the company says…!”
4. People who publicly struggle with work-life balance problems and continually turn to the company for help get pigeonholed as ambivalent, entitled, uncommitted, incompetent or all of the above.
5. Even the most accommodating bosses believe that work-life balance is your problem to solve. In fact most know that they are really handful effective strategies to do that and they wish you would use them.”(p. 316-317)
Jack Welch has been in the workforce for more than 35 years and he began working for GE as a midlevel manager. He has much experience in corporate management and employee programs. His insights about work-life balance are to me, a first hand experience from an experienced executive who has been in the system and knows how the work-life balance works and its reality.
Changes that are suitable for growth within an organization such as flextime and maintaining what is needed to continue success involves a list of factors. As noted by the authors, Hodge, Anthony & Gales (2005) there needs to be top management support, which involves support from the top, because without it others will not accept it as well; structural support involves organic (flexibility and creativity required to generate new ideas and mechanistic characteristics (strategies that require some degree of formalization, standardization, and centralization); champions are individuals who have vision, drive, and determination in order to oversee the development and success of the goals; communications deals with informing employees of all changes that will affect them directly or indirectly; and, resources, make sure the changes can be afforded, such as finances, people, equipment, and other required resources that are need to sustain the changes (pp. 566-567).

WORK-LIFE BALANCE ADVANTAGES:

The first step to helping people understand flexible work is to outline the benefits. Increasing flexibility is all about improving the way the organization works: enabling staff to work more effectively, enabling staff to live more balanced lives, and reducing wasteful unnecessary travel and resource consumption
• Flextime gives staff greater freedom to manage their working hours to fit out-of-work commitments.
• If your business provides a service, flextime enables you to extend your opening hours.
• It can help your staff with travel arrangements.
• It can help to reduce staff absence and punctuality problems.
• You can adjust the working times to meet peaks and troughs of demand.
• Flexible roistering can help to reduce staff absence.
• It can reduce time taken off for sickness.
• The scheme offers increased flexibility to meet workload peaks and troughs.
• Staff may become more motivated as they have greater choice over the times of work.

DISADVANTAGES OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE:

Among the few factors that come back as disadvantage for the work life balance is the overhead cost and maintenance. Having a work life balance, it means your office will be open for longer hours or even twenty fours every day. Energy (electricity) for computers, lighting and heating might be consumed when you have a few employees working as much as when you have every body in the office. Face to face communication between supervisors and subordinates will be minimal due to the fact that some employees will get to work when their supervisors have already left for the day. Considering the advancement of technology and communication, this may not be much of a problem; most people stay reachable twenty-four hours a day through Internet, cell phones, and pages among others. For employees that require minimal or absolute no supervision then flexible work hours might work for them, and those that require constant supervision will have a poor production report.
What create problems is the lack of communication, mostly the improper or inadequate relay of information, and the inability of workers and supervisors alike to communicate effectively, due to lack of every day interaction. Most of the communication problems are due to information that was missed during a conversation or not paid attention to, and thus not passed on. This lack of communication usually results in lost or damaged product and wasted labor.

CONCLUSION

Work life balance seems to give most employees a flexible schedule to deal with life and work in a stress free environment. Flexible work arrangements are alternate arrangements or schedules from the traditional working day and week. Employees may choose a different work schedule to meet personal or family needs. Alternatively, employers may initiate various schedules to meet their customer needs. Flexible work hours breed trust on the part of both employee and employer, and a sense of gratitude on the part of the employee.

REFERENCES:

Robbins, Steven P. (2005) Organization Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Hodge, B.J., Anthony, William P., Gales, Lawrence M. (2003) Organization Theory: A Strategic Approach. NJ: Prentice Hall.
Clawson, James G. (2003) Level Three Leadership: Getting Bellow the Surface. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Welch, Jack., Welch, Suzy. (2005) Winning. New York, NY HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Halpin Nick. (2007, April 3) Work-life balance an Overview retrieved Nov 1, 2007, from http://www.worklifebalancecentre.org
Silverstain, Michael J., Fiske, Neil (April 2003) Luxury for the Masses. Harvard Business Review. April 2003, 48 – 57
Hirschhorn, Larry. (July 2002) Campaign for Change. Harvard Business Review. July 2002, 98 – 104
Kreitner, Robert (2001) Management. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
Hodge, B.J., Anthony, W. P., & Gales, L.M. (2005). OM8004. Managing and

Organizing People: Organization Theory: A Strategic Approach, 6th ed.

Ch. 19. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Burns, B. (2000). Managing change: A strategic approach to organizational

dynamics, 3rd ed. Harlow: FT/Prentice-Hall.

Woodman, R. (1998) Organizational change and development: New arenas for

inquiry and action. Journal of Manageme3nt, 15: 205-228.





Job Satisfaction: A Key To Engagement and Retention. By: Meisinger, Susan.

HRMagazine, Oct2007, Vol. 52 Issue 10, p8-8, 1p; (AN 26826124)

Ebsco host database