Direct Relationship between Employee Strain and Work-Home Culture - Coursework Example

MANAGEMENT, WORK AND SOCIETY Education management Name Course Tutor Date MANAGEMENT, WORK AND SOCIETY Over the last two decades, the connection between paid work and home life has received an increasing amount of attention in the society. It has also been documented that this affects of such clashing of roles which include poor performance and increase absenteeism in the workplace. This has also led to life dissatisfaction causing stress. In response to such, many organizations have created a culture whereby they advise employees on how to balance office work and personal responsibilities. Work-home culture is a state of mind depending on employees’ beliefs, personal assumption and values. This definition relates to the concept held by the employees of an organization. Though it is vital to concentrate with the job, it is also more essential to take time with your family members. It is not important to perform well in the work place when the family is suffering because of poor performance. This will lead to straining due to lack of parental care[Cat]. According to Marzano,work-home culture has reduced the amount of stress concerning the office work. It can also improve family well-being though the means of influencing the overall of a person has not yet been discovered. Researched carried out by Burke shows that female managers support the work-home culture. This is essential in increasing positive emotional well-being of an individual. There is no clear explanation concerning the relationship between well-being of an employee and work-home culture. Most psychologists have supported work-home culture without commenting on the individual performance in the work place. Organization across the world has suffered excessive loss caused by poor performance and absenteeism[Aak12]. Companies are spending billions on the same issues just because the employees cannot manage to handle the pressure of work and the responsibilities from home. This can cause serious family quarrels and can even lead to divorce. It is, therefore, important for the organization to have greater knowledge on how to handle employees of such kinds so that they reduce this phenomenon and its related expenses. On close examination, the actual effect of work-home culture is the employee strain symptomology. This paper will examine the three possible outcomes of work-home culture. One of these three possible routes is that it can cause employee strain. Secondly is the interference from home. Finally, work-home culture can harmonize the interference with the straining of an employee. According to various literatures, men are the victims of life stress and work home interference. This phenomenon is not common with women. Beatt found a link which shows that women are the most affected by work-home interference. This is because a woman has to deliver to deliver quality services for longer hours in the office and at the same time she must attend her family. Direct relationship between employee strain and work-home culture Researchers have confirmed the fact that there is a direct relationship between the individual strain and the perception of the employee concerning their culture. The managers in an organization should arrange organizational support theory to help the employees cope with the stress. They should also come up with specialized software and the latest technology to help in carrying out various tasks to reduce the amount of work in the office. Managers and supervisors need to be emphatic when handling the junior employees. They should understand that workers have their personal responsibilities, and they need their own time. Even though, this might clash with the goals of the organization, they must also consider that stressed employees can deliver less. In order to shed more light on these issues, managers should create family leave so that employees can get time to spend with their children. Female managers are best in this because they balance work-home support to ensure that everyone in the company gets time to spend with children[Kot12]. Supervisors who are family supportive improve work satisfaction because the employees feel valued. This is a motivating element which needs to be embraced in organizations so as to lower stress levels in the workplace. On the basis of the above findings, it is evidence that home problems may affect the performance in the work place. On the other hand, employees who tend to work for long hours because of work pressure and prioritize office responsibilities than personal life then to suffer from psychological strain. Those who prefer to complete work as per the job schedule will overload themselves and again getting tired and stressed. Those who fail to accomplish their responsibilities are not better off because they will suffer from non-compliance with the required standards. They will still experience low self-esteem, and they will feel they are incompetent. All these amount to be psychological stress. Employees who have the habit of taking off from work so that they can handle their own personal issues might affect their own career[Kra12]. Managers should be supportive of work-home life so that they can ease stress through their kindness. They should sympathize and understand those employees who are late for work by not penalizing them. Furthermore, they need to make local arrangement so that they can allow some of the employees to work flexible hours. Work-home culture strain employees through inter-role conflict. Sometime it is hard for the employee to meet the demands of the office and the same time meeting the demands of family. Researchers have established the fact that most employees' performances get interfered by home responsibilities. Personality is a modern day concept of behavior. People can be identified through their behavioral deeds and mechanisms. In psychology, human personality is regarded as a measure of any intended behavior modification at hand. In many cases, people are identified through their behaviors. If these behavior patterns tolerate and get sustained by an individual, they result in personality. Health-related behaviors affect the individual who exposes themselves to too much work without giving them time for their family causes employees’ strain. For instance, personalities can also be developed and modified through the relation between health problems and behavior growth and development. Doubted, human personality development and modification, is subject to many extrinsic effects. As such, this research paper stresses whether the personality factors of conscientiousness and optimism affect people’s health. Moreover, the issue under investigation elicits to know the relationship that existbetween the combination of employee strain and negative career consequences verses, organizational time, demands[Ste11]. According to Frone, Work-family interface can be handled effectively through a positive attitude. On the other hand, the co-workers and the immediate supervisors should also develop a supportive attitude. When stress reduces, the employee will feel satisfied with the work and can also get encourage to work harder. Existing research depicts that work-home interference can sometime leads to psychological exhaustion. The main theme of this paper is that work-home culture sometime impact strain leading to low self-esteem. Considerate managers must talk with line managers so that the line can be sympathetic to employees and form a system whereby the employees can work at home. This will reduce the workload and less time in the part of an employee [Tim12]. Employees who are struggling to balance home demands and work demands might fall under the diminishing career progression. Furthermore, he can shy away because of resentment from his colleagues which can affect his attitude. Spending long hours in the office does not help. This is because the person might not find time for the family making him miss some opportunities of dealing with home demands. This demand can accumulate and spill over resulting to strain due to home interference. Employees who are taking two or three days off because of work-home interference might not solve anything, but it can increase the level of stress. This is because they impact their career negatives and also affect the relation with his colleagues. Employees who have developed supportive environment can lower levels of stress in that company. The study is of immense importance to psychologists and their bid to navigate proper and healthy working conditions. Managerial support, being one of the fields under study, is quite influential to the general development and steadfastness of employee performance. Therefore, it iskeen to get to learn and understand the relationship between employee strain and managerial support. While, at workplaces and other places of behavior generation and modification, the results obtained will help in understanding different personalities and their take on conflicting roles. This will help in lowering the level of strain in the life of employees. Optimism refers to an individual's innate capacity, and desire for success is attendance of an adjective derived. The heart never let go and always fight to the end regarded as optimistic temperaments. For instance, when one is on a course of attaining a desired objective, with the procedural and bureaucratic pathways becoming tedious, he or she is expected to pose optimism as a remedy. Hoping for the best, desired, good, and intended surrounds the entire aspect of an optimist. In the real sense, positive individuals are guaranteed a healthy living irrespective of work load from home and work place. As such, acts of being negative can affect the general performance or overall development of personality and health status within an individual. Sex difference in the relationship between work– home culture and employee strain Adoption of gender role theory the social pressured will push people to behave in a manner which is consistent with prearranged gender roles. In most cultures, women are responsible for household work. They claim that it is an obligation for a woman should at all the time remains the children to deliver her obligation. However, there is research finding indicating that participation of men in domestic work is increasing, but still it will remain that fact a woman is more oblique for household responsibilities. It is evidence that women can multitask. They can work effectively both in the workplace and the home. Women work for long hours in the workplace and at home. Women may find themselves so much exhausted because of this.This can lead to strain symptoms such as depression. It is, therefore, important for the managerial support to come in and support women by providing various means of assisting them. Furthermore, managerial support can also assist women through positive relationship to reduced psychological strain caused by work-home interference. Researchers have discovered that employed women are suffering psychological strain as compared to employed men. This is because women have cultural responsibilities to provide for the children. Men are also responsible for their family in terms of finances and to spend more hours with the family. Because of such, managers offer strong penalties for men who are late for work than women because they understand that women spend time with their families. Studies carried out in various organizationsshow that men suffer most when they practice work-home culture. This culture is evident that it damage men’s career prospect as compared to women. The habit of taking leave so as to deal with personal problems has mostly interfered with the career of men. This, when combined with work-home interference causes high level of strain in men as compared with women. Summary of sex difference in work-home culture The relationship between employee strain verses managerial support favors female employees as compared with men. Men enjoys relationship which occurred with the combination of employee strain and negative career consequences verses, organizational time, demands Women are the most affected employees in terms of strain and stress. The remedy for this has always been work-home culture and the managerial support offered by managers. This system of lowering the level of strain has never been effective for men. In what way do these issues and themes inform you about the topic? These issues and themes of work-home culture has led to serious problems to single parents where there oblige to provide for their family. These single parents have a lot of responsibilities for the family. Some of them are taking care of elderly people while others are staying with their elderly who need extra care because they are vulnerable. On the other hand, they are supposed to report to their respective workplaces whereby they are required to deliver as per the job demands. All these issues result psychological strain, and they are left with no option since they have to provide for their family [Mic12]. Management also requires one to be effective in planning and utilizing the available resources to the maximum so as to achieve the best in what you aspire to do. To foster unity in this profession, there are so many things that can be done to both male and female employees, so as to raise successful employees though they are facing work-home interference. There are several theories of management that help to further the continuous professional development of employees’ career. There is one that encourages the field practitioners to think critically and be able to solve problems easily, and make wise decisions that will help to enhance the management skills hence improving the services of the organization. These are the things that most of the people fail to do and, therefore,cost them due to lack of skill to handle issues professionally. Studying different issues or cases that occur within your organization helps a vast deal in handling other issues without confrontation. “Case studies and learning exercises promote critical thinking and interactive discussion”. These case studies cover a wide variety of settings that can be encountered in any employees who is facing home time demands. The effective way of improving an organization is through training the staff members. Managers can also delegate duties to employees with the capacity to perform. Furthermore, the managers need to identify employees with managerial skills to help them deal with other sectors. This will ensure that there is no workload in the office thus reducing stress [Ste11]. Another way to employees’ performance in the organization is sponsoring the best performers to go and further their studies so as to be competent in the health field. Motivating your workers is also one way will encourage them to love their work despite the heavy work at home. Most of the organizations fail to achieve their targets because they do not motivate their workers who are facing work-home interference. Managerial support can be in the form of an in house party that will enable workers to interact with their top management. Such function helps the junior staff to interact with their bosses. In training works best for enhancing management skills. Appraising the best performing individual employee instead of the whole department is also another way of promoting peace, unity and encourages those who have not had the privilege of being appreciated for the good work so that he/she can also be recognized for the good work that can be recognized and seen within the organization. Appraisals help the organization to realize the work output done by every person working within the institution. This is a better way of ensuring team work. Managerial support is not a hard task as one needs to be creative in order to win the soul and trust of customers and investors. To be effective, one needs to have the leadership and managerial skills. This is required so that you can be able to utilize the available resources within the organization. Train the employees with the required knowledge and skills so that they offer quality services. Assessing the risk caused by psychological strain This would constitute a critical step as far as managing and resolving the prevalence of headaches concerned. There are various factors that affect the likelihood of harm because of exposure to work load and family conflict. These include the frequency of the occurrence of hazardous situations, the problem of handling conflicting roles. These factors shall assist in the development of appropriate measures to be taken and the urgency of the implementation of these measures. Employees facing the problem of conflicting roles can expose themselves to psychological problems. This will affect their performance and can also demoralize the employee in nurturing their talent. Others can even decide to divorce thinking that the spouse is the problem. I have seen many marriages fall apart because of the basic issues which can be corrected. The best solution to such problem facing couples who are working is analyzing the cause of the problem. It is wrong to blame your partner before examining the problem, the cause and the possible solution. Top managers who might face the problem of misunderstanding can extend that anger to the workplace. This is wrong because the manager can give orders and decision which are not fair to the junior workers. To solve this issue, the management of an organization needs to organize a workshop for the employees. They will need to ensure that the professionals conduct the seminars. This is essential because the conflicting roles are solved. Psychologists are professionals which can give the ways of handling stress. Furthermore, they will advise on family issues, which can arise, because of a small misunderstanding. Work-home culture is a vital element that can help an employee to manage the psychological strain which is caused by work-demand and personal responsibilities. There are stressed people because they are not in a position to meet the deadline offered for curtained projects. They are always busy in the office because of workload, and at the same time, they do not get time to spend with their family. Such stress can lead to poor health and even cause diseases leading to loss of job. On the other hand, single parents are worse because they are facing immense problems as compare to those of couples. Most of these people are lacking company, and at the same time children are not getting the normal parental love which essential for a child. Managerial support is the only treatment for employees with such problems. The top managers and even the line managers should identify people with such problems so that they can assist them lessen the terms of work. They should permit such employees to report working at their own convenient time. In summary, the organization needs to assess employees with challenges such as a single parent person. In addition, managers need to organize for the annual leave and provide an allowance to ensure that the employees get enough finances for the same. This will help to reduce the conflicts which can arise in the family. Furthermore, it will motivate an employee because of the attitude that the job is rewarding. When an employee is in a position to meet personal responsibilities, he will reduce the level of strain. He will only be thinking about the demands of the job knowing that his family is okay. Finally, if both spouses are working, they enjoy the double allowances offered for the leave and this will be highly motivating for the two partners[Fre12]. Conclusions and recommendations The main aim of the above study was to analyze what employees have been going through in their daily life; both in workplaces and the home. The effects vary depending on the sexes of the employees. The system used in an organization might favor men and at the same time straining female employees. From the above analyses, it is evident that the sex difference exists in the cultures used by managers. Basing on the discussion above, I can conclude that the support offered by the organization for work-home issues has acrucial role in the well-being of employees. Culture affects employed women indirectly. Depending on the culture, the system used has adverse effects on the employee either positively or negatively. Furthermore, the positive effects normally affect both male and female employees though the effects on women are indirect while those for men are direct. When analyzed critically, one will agree with me that employees, who have been privileged to use work-home culture, are benefiting on it indirectly than directly related strain. The issue of organizational time demands affect women mostly because of home interference. On the other hand, this affects men though partially. The issue of encouraging employees to dedicate their time for organizational time demands have caused psychological strain. These employees have an obligation to their family but due to time they cannot deliver quality services to the customers. References Cat: , (Catteora, 2012), Aak12: , (Drucker, 2012), Kot12: , (Kotler, 2012), Kra12: , (Kramer, 2012), Ste11: , (Stewart I. (Stewart Ian) Donaldson, 2011), Tim12: , (Tim Strangleman, 2012), Mic12: , (West, 2012), Fre12: , (Herzberg, 2012), Read More