Work-Life Balance - Literature review Example

• Abstract

This paper deals with the effectiveness of work-life balance and the role of flexible working arrangements to enhance further application of the former. The main arguments of this paper is divided into three sections, firstly, the paradigm shift of the concept of flexibility as employers are using the concept to get more work done from fewer workers. Secondly, does working for extensive hours have any effect on the performance of the employees and managers? Thirdly, can employers facilitate work-life balance during economic downturn? The literature review in this regard revealed the truism of the argument as most organisations were found to use flexible working arrangements as cost cutting strategy. However, it has serious effect on the performance of the employees as working for extensive hours, being allured to the overtime benefits, makes them stressful and unproductive. The next section of the paper illustrates the employer’s significance in devising strategies to enhance work-life balance, so that the performance of the organisation can be improved along with gain in structural efficiency.

Introduction

The concept of work-life balance, defines an equilibrium which employees try to maintain by dividing their time between their work and other leisurely activities (Kalliath and Brough, 2008). Flexible work arrangements provides greater freedom to employees so that they can manage work and at the same time, execute the responsibilities of family life and other duties as a member of society. (Hörning, et al., 2015).

This argumentative essay focuses on the human resource management and based on the case study titled “Flexibility and work-life balance: who benefits?” answers to three questions, whether the argument of Juliet Bourke that the use of flexibility has moved away from its original paradigms is true or not. Secondly, whether working for extensive hours has any negative impact on the performance of the employees and managers. Thirdly, how do employers can facilitate work-life balance during economic downturns?

• Discussion on Work-Life Balance and Flexible Work Arrangements

Role of flexibility and work-life balance: Work-life balance is a daily effort where an individual makes time for friends, family, society, personal development and care after fulfilling his or her responsibilities at the workplace (Reiter, 2007). On the other hand, flexibility of work arrangements facilitates work-life balance and employees across different organisational levels support the concept of flexibility in scheduling their work, so that they can enjoy leisure and family time. For example, an individual taking care of his or her aged parents can use the option of working off site (Timms, et al., 2015) .

In the case study, “Flexibility and work-life balance: who benefits?” Juliet Bourke, a partner at Aequus Partners expressed concern about the paradigm shift of the concept of flexibility toward the negative direction, since flexibility is currently defined as a way of getting more out of less people. As flexibility allows employees to choose starting and end time of their shift and can also take compensatory leaves for working extra on certain days, for example, an employee may work on Sundays so that at the end of the month he or she can apply for a vacation. These practices have encouraged employers to make the employees work for longer hours as a medium of cost cutting.

The increasing competition in the market requires organisations to ask its employees to extend their working hours to yield successful results for the company. Survey among the Australian working class reveals their dissatisfaction because of the disruption in work-life balance. It was further highlighted that, more than 20% of people were working for 48hours or more while around 60% of the working population are not able to take regular holidays. They would prefer to work fewer hours rather than sacrifice their free time (Kramar, et al., 2014). In the event of cost reduction, employers expect that their employees to work for longer hours to complete the work for the company. For example, managers are expected to attain to all conference calls across all time zones, reducing travelling cost and ensuring assistance round the clock. This has serious consequence on the work-life balance as managers are working at night to attain the conference calls and again during the day he or she has to be present in the office. This is one of the examples of using the benefit of flexibility to get more from fewer workers as pointed by Juliet Bourke (Kramar, et al., 2014).

Employees often find themselves in the position of not being able to switch off the mobile phones even at night when they are sleeping or when they are scheduled for vacation. This causes disruptions to the Work-life balance, resulting in a high level of stress for the employees, leading to loss of focus and deterioration in the quality of work. Sometimes, the employees are not aware that working long hours has become a regular phenomenon and are caught in the grip of over work.

Implications of excessive working hours on the performance of employees and managers: The argument is whether working for extensive working hour has any negative impact on the performance of the managers and employees. The answer to the argument will be yes because it disrupts work-life balance. There will be sufferance in terms of ill health, high stress levels, reduction in productivity without balance between work and the life outside office. Every person defines work-life balance in their own way, such as, to one employee a particular job may be demanding but interesting while to other employee it can be a relentless treadmill. This harms the organisation in terms of poor quality of work and delay in completing a particular task, as the employees need to work longer hours because their concentration is torn between work and need for relaxation

Working excessive hours affects the health of the workers, which in turn affects the quality of the work (Chiang, et al., 2010). Employers in order to reduce cost often ask the employees and consequently managers to work for longer periods without recruiting new employees. This practice is common not only in developing countries but also in the developed nations. For example, the International Labour Office estimated that the employees in United States of America are engaged in working for longer hours, as compared to their counterparts in other First World nations (International Labour Office. (2011). Working for extended hours, may look profitable from the perspective of cost saving approach, but it has negative implication in terms of productivity and performance (Koskela, 2014).

The Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) provides a complete illustration of overtime wages which is to be one-and-a-half time the normal wage including bonus and leave encashment. This arrangement is valid for the workforce working for more than 40hours a week. There are countries which have incorporated other benefits to their overtime laws; even different corporate houses have different schemes outside FLSA for their workers engaged in overtime. These alluring benefit plans offered by business organisations encourage the employees to work excessively, but these benefits are only applicable for a short period of time (Gartner, et al., 2013).

Parkinson’s Law is helpful in explaining the reasons for which workers tend to work overtime. According to the law, work expands to fill the time available for completion (Hall, 2012). This can provide evidence to the fact that, people tend to work when they are at their best in terms of productivity, exercising complete concentration and avoiding wastage of time. In order to develop one’s career, employees tend to work overtime and also during stringent deadlines of assignment, extended working hours expand the available time to execute the task at hand.

The practice of working for extended hours; though, has short term benefits to the employee and managers; but in the long run, it only deteriorates the situation for them. Employees working excessively become stereotype and get so much absorbed in their work that they are not able to apply creativity in their thought process, resulting in overlooking minute details of the work assigned (Hyland, et al., 2015). The exhaustion caused by overtime make the workers to lose their focus and susceptible to mistakes directly affecting their performance (Lazar, et al., 2010). Similarly, when managers are required to extend their working hours to respond to the management problems, they either have very little or no time to assess the performance of the employees in the respective departments. This affects the performance of the entire department. When the employees are required to work at night sacrificing their sleep and relaxation, it tires them and reduces their ability to complete the work within the deadline (Lauzun, et al., 2010).

Excessive workloads can generate higher stress levels; which could further lead to serious health disorders like, cardiovascular diseases (Cochrane, 2010). Another important implication of working excessively; is that the employees as well as managers, have very little time for activities outside the purview of office work, such as there is reduction in the family time, children are deprived of the love and care of their parents who remain busy doing overtime at office illustrating imbalance between work and life outside work (Pedersen and Lewis, 2012).

In the case study of “Flexibility and work-life balance: who benefits?”, Ross Gittins argues that this is the result of ‘one way flexibility’ as it only benefits the owners, fulfilling their need of gaining workers at the time of workloads and helps in achieving higher profit by neglecting their wellbeing. The author has also mentioned about the incident in 2012 when banks included Saturdays and Sundays within ordinary working hours with the argument of promoting of flexibility and modern work practices so that they can consider the issues of productivity and employment cost at greater depth. Nick Greenhalgh opined that, the practice of working extensively beyond the normal working hours will involve long term injurious effect on the employees and managers. Some of the damaging effects which the workers might suffer as mentioned by the author are disillusionment, unproductiveness, resentful attitude. All these, can not only harm the discretionary effort of the workers, but also reduce the commitment of the employees to their work (Kramar, et al., 2014).

In this regard, the opinion of Barbara Holmes can be cited, who is associated with the Management Work Life Balance International claims. According to her, excessive working on part of the workforce is not a sustainable practice. Working for longer hours have ill effect on the health of the employees and owners of the business should be more compassionate in considering safety and wellbeing of their workers. Overtime can be an short term solution of cost reduction but it cannot be a permanent feature. Employees will not be able to render efficiency in their work by coping with overtime only for short duration.

Ways in which employers could facilitate work-life balance during an economic downturn: The argument is how employers can facilitate work-life balance during economic downturns.

The introduction of flexibility is driven by the motive of achieving twin benefits, for the employers and employees. In one of the surveys on work-life balance; there is evidence confirming the belief of employees that, flexible working arrangements can improve work morale and provide the assurance that their employer is concerned about their well-being (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), 2012). Flexible working hours has been found to be one the most popular mode of flexible working arrangements, but there are other practices that are encouraged by employers like, part-time employment, job sharing and leave devoid of pay. The introduction of the concept of flexibility was driven by the motive of helping the employees having responsibilities towards their children, as they were able to allocate their time economically. This not only benefits the employees in terms of job satisfaction, but also benefits the employers in the form of more productive workers with lower attrition rate ensuring higher revenue (Virick, et al., 2007). Female workers were strong supporters of flexible working arrangements which helped them in their family roles, but its popularity has been growing among the male workers as well because of the change in family pattern (Charlesworth and Macdonald, 2014).

Employers have also understood the benefit of incorporating the concept of flexibility as a cost saving mechanism, because it helps in employee retention and allows the execution of business without mandating physical presence. For example; in 2010, Federal offices were closed for four days owing to severe snow storms in Washington D.C. The workers in the Executive Office of President (EOP) were able to work off site as they had required technical support which allowed them to log on and carry out their responsibilities. Telecommunication facilities saved them more than $30 million per day (Future of Work Institute, 2012).

In the words of Ellen Galinsky, the president and co-founder of the non-profit research organisation, Families and Work Institute (FWI), the employers are trying to deal with persistent economic instability by accomplishing more from fewer workers. Employers control flexible working hour arrangements during recession and employees agree because it allow them to take care of their family and social needs in exchange of working for longer hours (Business News Daily, 2012).

It has been commonly observed that during the periods of economic growth, companies focus on issues related to work-life balance with the launch of various beneficial practices in this regard like, providing choices to work from home once every week apart from their week offs (Caldwell, 2011). On the other hand, during recessions, employers turn towards layoffs and reorganisation of various departments of the companies to shred some of the cost burden (Costa, et al., 2006). This constant fear of losing their job, negatively affects the performance of the workers and results degradation of quality standards making them more vulnerable as they might become the targets of recessionary policies of the organisation (Wilcox, 2012). In the face of economic down turns employers need to facilitate work-life balance more so that there is no additional burden on the existing employees who are coping with excess workload (Hayman, 2009).

To facilitate work-life balance in the time of recession telecommuting can be an important medium where employees can work off site like, from their homes with the use of internet, email service, tablets, telephones and cell phones (Kossek, et al., 2006). For example, the employee can communicate with their managers while staying at home and carry on with their work through video conference. The popularity of telecommuting has increased during recessions and many companies are encouraging this practice as it saves the additional costs like, rental cost, office maintenance, travelling expenditure, etc. It also provides the employees opportunities to attend his or her responsibilities without commuting to the office (Butler, et al., 2007).

Organisations can offer free broadband internet connection at employees’ residences. In case the employees do not have the equipments like, laptops or desktops and Smartphones. The company may provide such equipments. Normally the cost of providing such technical support is less than the overhead cost that the company needs to undertake if the employees work from office (Beauregard, et al., 2009). It is advantageous to both employers as well as for employees, as the former can save costs while the later can save his or her time which they can spend with their families or invest in other social and cultural activities (Smith and Gardner, 2007). The employees need to understand the extent to which they will be available for their office work, as sometimes they are being called to work at odd times of the day preventing their enjoyment of family life (Hilbrecht, et al., 2008).

Application of flexibility in work like acceptance of reduced working hours voluntarily, compressed workweek can help in reducing the insecurities of the employees at the time of recession helping to maintain work-life balance in a better way (Cuyper and Witte, 2006). Companies will benefit from in terms of reduction in the salaries of employees and avoiding downsizing which can further help to retain the skilled employees. The employees will be able to take up a second job to support their financial needs in the event of economic down turns. For example, flexibility helps working mothers to retain their jobs supporting their partners’ income and also spend time with their families (McNall, et al., 2009). British Telecom, a reputed communication provider in UK, opted to reduce absenteeism by providing flexible working arrangements to their employees and were also successful in gaining 20% higher productivity (Naithani, 2010).

According to the case study, “Flexibility and work-life balance: who benefits?”, Hewitt Associates conducted a survey which revealed that as much as 79 percent of the companies were trying to avoid large scale dismissals and formulated strategies to provide flexible working arrangements such as, reduction in the length of working weeks, offering part-time work, etc. ( Kramar, et al., 2014). KPMG and Virgin Australia faced a decrease in demand for their services during recessions. The employees of KPMG, opted to reduce their working hours (working 4 days a week) according to the flexibility schemes of the organisation. On the other hand, Virgin Australia opted for policies like, hiring freeze and natural attrition for a number of job roles within the company to survive the recessionary period without reorganising . Moreover, there was deployment of around 100 workers while another 100 employees were provided flexible options such as part- time jobs, job-sharing, etc. (Kramar, et al., 2014).

The owners of businesses need to carefully judge their strategies before implementing policies involving flexible working arrangements, as it should be treated as an option for the employees rather than a compulsion and not like an instrument of cost cutting for the organisations (Bird, 2006).

• Conclusion

The equilibrium between work and life is very important for an employees’ performance in the organisation. Excessive working can make the employees disillusioned, unproductive and resentful. One of the ways of maintaining work-life balance is the introduction of flexible working arrangements; but over the years researchers like Juliet Bourke have observed that, the concept of flexibility has been used as a medium of cost cutting and not to enhance work-life balance. This makes the employees and managers to work for longer periods of time by providing lucrative overtime benefits, ignoring the fact that these practices result in poor performance with degrading quality standards .

In the event of economic down turns, employers needs to incorporate strategies like, use of telecommuting and flexible working arrangements to enhance work-life balance, which in return saves the trouble of down-sizing and ensures cost efficiencies for the employers.