Work-Life Balance as a Strategy to Attract and Retain Employees - Essay Example

Work-Life Balance Introduction In the current world, finding a decent job is not an easy task. However, when an individual finds an appropriate job, some related issues are likely to follow. For example, many people who are employed have families (Kaiser, 2011). Some individuals may find it hard to balance between their job and family. This may escalate to stress and or depression. This may occur especially when an individual find it hard to balance between the two. For an individual to attain full satisfaction between work life and family there is a need to enhance the use of schedules (New Zealand social indicators, 2013). Planning using schedules helps an individual to manage time appropriately. As such, the individual will not have issues with satisfying both family and work. Carrier development consists of major life stages, such as exploration, growth, maintenance, establishment and disengagement. An individual should identify personal goals through analysing personality traits, career interest as well as individual skills and talents (Wiley, 2010). These factors play a major role in determining the career accomplishment and success. Apparently, many individuals have a quest of developing the career. As a result, they will have to dedicate more time on their job. This leads to a queer situation, where an individual neglects the family (Van, 2011). As a fact, this is owing to a number of reasons. First, many jobs require workers to work overtime. This is to the benefit of both the employee and employer. While working overtime, the employee will have better pay. Similarly, while working overtime, the productivity of the employer will increase significantly. As such, many people neglect their families since they have to make more money. This paper attempts to outline how organisations use work life balance as a strategy to retain and attract employees. According to statistics, 55% of people over the age of 65 years are satisfied with their work life balance. Apparently, 50% of people between the ages of 50 to 65 denoted that they are satisfied with the work-life balance. People between the ages of 25 to 49 years stated that they are satisfied with their job, while 45% of people at the age of 18 to 24 were satisfied. On the other hand, only 13% of people at the age between 18 to 24 are extremely satisfied with work life balance. This is followed by 15% who are extremely satisfied with their job, between 25 to 49 years. While only 12% of the people at the ages of 50 to 64 are exceedingly satisfied with their job, 29% of people over the age of 65 years are exceedingly satisfied with their work life balance (New Zealand social indicators, 2013). This statistics show the need to enhance work life balance, as it is on the lower side. Border Theory Border theory holds that work and family should be balanced such that there is satisfaction for an employee who engages in certain job. It upholds that there should be satisfaction as well as good functioning at home and at work when one balances the two aspects. Individuals struggle to manage a balance between life and work, as they are cross-borders (Flechl, 2010). The theory addresses issues that are essential in integration between work and family such as segmentation, management and border creation. It states that family and work constitute different spheres and therefore people should find the balance between the two aspects (New Zealand social indicators, 2013). There are various effects of failure to balance between work and family as issues like depression and stress are likely to affect the individual. Stress in work place or other areas occur because of mental, emotional and physical exhaustion and strain. Factors causing stress range from tension, anxiety, isolation, negative workload and inability to achieve ones demands. In workplace, socialisation becomes a problem since psychological disorders affect the individual suffers from social issues (Van, 2011). There is a high level of dismal performance from stress-affected persons leading them to feel either neglected or unappreciated. Consequently, they end up in disassociation characters amid to emotional and psychological effects (Kaiser, 2011).  Burnout involves a certain kind of stress resulting from emotional and demanding changes in relationships between individuals. It entails a characteristic depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion in levels of accomplishments (International Labour Organisation, 2003). The condition is often attached with negative attitudes towards people whom the affected individual associates with. Some of the observable features from persons suffering from this condition include, negative attitudes in job, negative self-perception and loss of feelings and concerns for fellow clients (Hobson, 2014).  Spill over theory denotes the excess of one side, affecting one side between work and family life. The theory states that there should be a balance between work and family life (Krishnan, Muncherji and Dhar, 2009). In this theory, it is noted that when there is rigidity between work and life interactions, the possibility of negative attributes, which are related to behaviour, energy and time. Therefore, for an individual to avoid negative spill over, there is a need to enhance the flexibility of work-family relations. It is noted that 80% of the people in the world believe that a flexible schedule at the workplace will enhance positive work life balance (Reilly, Sirgy and Gorman, 2012). When the schedules are flexible, the individual will allocate time and energy, depending on the needs of each factor. For example, when a family member is sick, the individual should be able to attend to the family member. This will show a sense of responsibility from the individual, as the individual will work on the issue appropriately. On the downside, when an individual’s job is rigid, the individual will have little or no time to deal with the issue. This could lead to adverse repercussions, as the family will feel neglected. Similarly, the family should enhance flexibility, so that an individual will have optimal performance. For example, when an individual has to work over the weekends, the family should be in a position to allow such an arrangement (Reilly, Sirgy and Gorman, 2012). This will limit any repercussions at the work place. However, this should not be a frequent occurrence, since it will cause an imbalance between work and family life. Positive spillover occurs when an individual overlaps work duties to attend to the family. This is where the working schedules are flexible to an individual, which leads to free time to serve the family (Gupta, 2007). With such arrangements, an individual will achieve positive spillover, which leads to family balance, while achieving optimally at the work place. Since burnout and stress occurs because of excessive work strain, dismal work performance follows the negative impacted nature of employee job motivation (Krishnan, Muncherji and Dhar, 2009). Critical perspectives related to burnouts and high work practices indicate that job related issues facilitated demand for mediating factors to performance. Continuous effort to maximise employee performance potential to cope with these demands leads to exhaustive work outcomes. Management practices are affected owing to interference of communication practices between employees and management of the organisation. Further, poor management, downsizing of a company and poor communication occurs in relation to interference of relationships between employees and supervisors of the organisation (Drago, 2007).  Social cognitive theory describes how individuals control their self-cognitive systems by actions, feelings and thoughts. Self-efficacy beliefs may play a major part in determining human behaviour and how individuals cope with different issues especially performance at work place. Individuals who manage to have good work life balance demonstrate better performance at work than those who have poor balance of work and family. The important aspect of self-efficacy and social cognitive theory is how to balance different challenges and effort applied at work place (Flechl, 2010). Individuals can balance these aspects as I have learnt in work place applications. This concept helps in stress and fatigue management. To avoid the challenges like stress, burn out and depression, one needs to balance his life well. Individuals should be able to define their roles in families and in work so that they are able to undertake their responsibilities well. When one is able to balance well between work and family, issues like stress and depression are unlikely to affect him (Lowe, 2010). Work-Life Balance Initiatives Organisations have adopted a strategy to ensure there is balanced programs of work and time for family where individuals become responsible for their partners and children as well as being effective in their workplaces. There are factors like environment and stability in the work place serve as motivators for individuals at work and they are likely to achieve more when they get these factors. If proper environmental conditions are provided to an individual, then one is likely to thrive in a certain career path (Merrill and Merrill, 2004). If one is passionate enough to accomplish his/her career desires, leadership and managerial concepts have to be incorporated. These concepts start from personal level to the societal and organisational role. A personal perspective requires that somebody should be organised in time management and self-discipline areas. Further one has to incorporate leadership aspect of motivation in order to inspire other members in different levels of career development (Burke, Martin and Cooper, 2011).  According to self-concept or super development theory, career development involves stages like growth, maintenance, establishment, exploration and disengagement. The theory describes different stages in life and how people develop different career objectives through these stages. Although career development is essential in an individual’s life, it is only effective when one is able to balance it with social life or family. There are certain management actions that organisations structure to ensure that employees get proper working conditions so that they can retain them as well as attracting them. These actions include management training, flexible working schedules and practices, survey on work life balance programs and policies on work life balance. Organisations involve policies that will steer work life balance in such areas like flexible working schedules where employees can get time to spend with their families (Krishnan, Muncherji and Dhar, 2009). In such scenarios, employees feel motivated and are likely to stay in the company more than those who do do not get time for family or social life. This policy acts as a strategy to attract employees in the organisation as well as a tool to retain the existing employees. Positive thinking on work life balance enables the organisation to treat staff and employees as adults by allowing them to involve their work practices with family responsibilities (Wiley, 2010). Career interest, goals, talents and favourable environment for career development constitute major factors that influence positive career development and family life thus promoting the relationship between the organisation and the employee. When key factors and elements are integrated in career development, it leads to satisfaction and this ensures productivity in the work place and other areas of life such as family and social life (Cronin, 2011).  To find a better solution in enhancing work life balance, employees and employers feel the need to have flexible working schedules (New Zealand social indicators, 2013). Apparently, the employees do not have control over the initiation of working schedules. In many organisations, the managers insist that employees should cultivate a working relationship with each other, and the managers. With such an initiative, the employees will direct their grievances to the concerned parties. As such, managers will initiate a program, where working schedules will be flexible (Wiley, 2010). For example, in some economies that are productive around the clock, workers have flexible schedules. Since the working schedules are all inclusive, they can be altered to allow other workers attend to their family issues. With such an approach, the productivity of employees is likely to improve. Some of the organisations that have implemented such an initiative include Google. This culture allows employees get flexible working schedules to help them cope with life issues and balance family life as well. This involves working schedule that is not demanding and having breaks in between the working programs to ensure that employees get a chance to refresh (Aswathappa and Dash, 2008). Similarly, Boeing has initiated the program, where workers have flexible working schedules. Other organisations include Wal-Mart and McDonalds. The need to find balance between activities like job and social life compels people to engage in activities that are different in nature. Owing to their limited or constrained time that some jobs have, people struggle in social life and owing to job requirements they may not engage in many social activities that consume time since employees may lack enough time to participate owing to tight work schedules. However, an accountant or bank investor who has been undergoing stressing and severe issues at work or at home may find family life challenging to cope with. In such cases, employers have come up with relatively lower job requirements in order to retain more employees (Paludi, 2013). Drawbacks Although many organisations feel the need to enhance work life balance initiatives, some drawbacks are realised (Krishnan, Muncherji and Dhar, 2009). To begin with, some of the workers are committed to developing their career, as they have focus on their career. This may be due other family issues. As such, the initiatives do not seem to work (Chick, 2004). The problem emanates from the individuals, since they have personal problems with their family. Intervention from other people at the work place does not seem to solve such an issue. Secondly, some people do not have principles when it comes to dealing with their priorities (Kaiser, 2011). For example, some people are addicted to alcohol. Therefore, when they are given an opportunity to attend tom their family, they use the allocated time to satisfy their desires. This escalates the problem as both the family and work-life are affected. Thirdly, some individuals are adamant to change. This shows individuals who do not need to influence change in their life, as they are contented with their way of life. For example, some individuals feel they need to work extensively to get a promotion. Such individuals have innate neglect of their families. As such, the initiatives of work life balance do not seem to work. Lastly, for these initiatives to work effectively there is a need to train the workers on managing time and resources (Wiley, 2010). However, the employers feel that they do not have the sufficient resources for such training. As such, they neglect the initiative of training the workers in effective time and resource management. This is a drawback to the initiative of enhancing work life balance. Conclusion In conclusion, the work life balance is essential for organisations and employees since both benefits from the program. For employees to advance and develop their careers, they need to balance between the work and the social life or family life. organisation use these as a strategy to retain and attract employees as they cost or replacing existing employees is high and need to be cut. Employees also appreciate this program and work towards fulfilling their goals in life. References Aswathappa, K. & Dash, S. (2008) International human resource management: text and cases, New Delhi, Tata McGraw-Hill Pub. Burke, R.J., Martin, G. & Cooper, C. L. (2011) Corporate reputation: managing opportunities and threats, Farnham, Surrey, Gower. Chick, E.D. (2004) Fundamentals of work-life balance: career development, Alexandria, VA, ASTD Press. Cronin, B.E. (2011) Strategies to attract and retain a capable transportation workforce, Washington, D.C., Transportation Research Board. Drago, R.W. (2007) Striking a balance: work, family, life, Boston, Mass, Dollars & Sense. Flechl, V. 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