Making the Link Between Work-life Balance and Performance - Essay Example

The current competitive environment has made employees more devoted to their work and they end up having issues with their personal life (Friedman 2008). Various relationships have experienced breakups due to increased devotion towards work by either one or both members of the couples. Due to problems in personal life, organizations end up paying higher costs (Beard 2011). Researchers have proven that increase in work-life imbalance has resulted in a high employee turnover rate, an increase in several days when employees are absent from work, health issues, dissatisfaction with jobs and life, and increased pressure on managers (Imam 8644). All of these problems are directly linked to a decrease in the productivity of an organization. When the rate of employee turnover increases, work is halted until empty positions are filled (Beard 2011). When employees do not attend work, the amount of production that they would have been able to conduct is compromised. Dissatisfaction with working conditions results in de-motivating the workers to work efficiently and effectively, which decreases the quality and the quantity of goods produced. Organizations not only face loss of productivity due to work-life imbalance, they even end up paying higher costs incurred for employees’ psychological health, which is disturbed by this imbalance.

Various ways have been continuously pointed out to solve the problem of work-life imbalance; managers need to assess these ways and create programs constituting these methods to increase productivity and increase work-life balance. Managers can offer flexible work timings to employees, for example, managers have to allot a specific number of hours for an employee to work and the employee can decide what bracket of hours he chooses to work (Kanter 2010). Managers can assign a work day of 5 hours to an employee and the employee can choose whether to work from 9 am to 2 pm or 2 pm to 7 pm etc. Managers can even provide the option of a flexible working environment to employees (Christensen 2010). For example, employees should be allowed to work from home or any particular setting if they can. Managers can even arrange flexible work designs for employees, for example, one employee’s work can be divided among two employees (Hewlett 2006). Managers can even use the option of flexible benefits to help employees maintain work-life balance, for example, one standard package of benefits should not be created; employees should be allowed to tailor a package of benefits according to their preferences (Hewlett 2005). All these options can be availed by managers and employees so employees can strike a balance between their work and personal life and the firm’s productivity will not be hampered.