Work-Life Balance - Essay Example

Work-Life Balance Flexibility in the workplace is an issue that has attracted many scholarly reviews due to its implication on employer-employee relationship. Traditionally workplace flexibility has been a concern for many women who have just come out of maternity leave given that many male employees did not want to take up the available provisions. This made flexibility take a narrow scope as it was related with women who had to be in workplace while at the same time taking care of their family responsibilities. However, after the economic downturn, many organizations have adopted a flexibility mechanism that covers a diversified group of employees. These changes have resulted in the need to improve the economic fortunes of organizations while ensuring employees are also available to take care of their family responsibilities. This essay explores why achievement of workplace diversity is important in organizational management, changes in flexibility polices, challenges faced during implementation and how best to facilitate its adoption in order to balance employer and employee needs. The 2008/9 Global Economic Downturn (GED) had far reaching consequences on how workplace flexibility was viewed by both the employee and the employer. The onset of GED saw organization record an increased level of flexible work practices that was taking place under part-time work, reduced working hours for full time employees, and purchased leave practice in addition to video-conferencing instead of travelling. Organizations had to embrace this concept as a course of action that would help manage the downturn in terms of the amount of work done and revenue generated by employees (Bourke and Russell, 2010). Before this time, workplace flexibility had been associated in most cases with female employees who wanted to balance their responsibilities as mothers while keeping their work. Therefore, the original intention for employers to introduce flexibility policies was based on the traditional view that women are the primary care givers in their families and are supposed to put responsibilities pertaining to their families ahead of their professional ambitions. Even so, Lee, McCann and Messenger (2007) notes women involvement in remunerated work has increased in many parts of the world in the past two decades. This practice acknowledged that women experience the greatest hardships when juggling their caring tasks with the day-to-day responsibilities and demands that come with having a full time job. As a result care giving was perceived as the most important factor that affects workplace flexibility of women as they try to balance between their two responsibilities. Flexibility practices were therefore seen as an employers initiative to accommodate an employee’s responsibility at home but not as an employer initiated workplace policy that would result in a improving workplace productivity for the employee while also satisfying the employee’s needs to take care of family responsibilities. Further fewer number of men than women could take up this provision while practices like telecommuting, purchased leave, and managing long hours were underutilized even when the organization had provisions for them. This implies that flexibility was not perceived as a business strategy that has multiple value points that would benefit the organization and a broad group of employees, including those on full-time working contract (Anderson, 2013). Another area that has recorded significant change in recent years is the increased number of mature age employees seeking flexible work arrangements. Traditionally, it is expected that after their retirement people would now shift attention to being with family and increased leisure activities. However, this is not true as many more retirees still look for an arrangement that will ensure they continue to take part in an economic activity either under self employment or seeking an employment opportunity. Those who seek employment or remain with previous employers prefer to be employed under flexibility arrangement so that they can still find time rest, take part in leisure and be with family while still taking part in an income generating activity. Additionally, employers have also recognized the need to utilize the skill held by those who are over fifty years old. This group of people have immense skills that have been accumulated over the course of their employment and therefore letting them go would be a loss to the company especially given that the higher numbers of over fifty employees has continued to be high (Bourke and Russell, 2010). The GED came with a lot of uncertainties on how the workplace was going to react to the changes that were sure to be experienced during and after it had taken place. Loss of employment was also a major concern for both employers and employees as they thought of the best way to protect their revenues until the downturn was over. Given the reduced levels of clientele, a balance had to be struck to ensure the company maintained skilled labour while cutting costs of operation to a manageable level. Such an initiative is evident from the practice employed by KPMG where some employees took advantage of the company’s employee flexibility and employee assistance scheme to decrease their work hours. This measure ensures that the company continues to engage its employees, in order to maintain workplace diversity in addition to having an adaptive and high-performing workforce (Bourke and Russell, 2010). Workplace flexibility has risen to be an option to large scale redundancies that comes as a result of reduced levels of business during an economic downturn. Instead of retrenching large numbers of their employees, companies such as KPMG have been able to put in place mitigating measures such as working part time in addition to making use of purchased and extended leave that retains the diverse skills that all the groups of employees possess. Organizations found it almost impossible to meet their financial obligations which resulted in the need to cut operational costs. Reducing the number of employees would have been the first step towards cutting costs; however, data from previous economic recessions had shown that retrenching only leads to high rates of unemployment in the economy further aggravating the economic situation (Glicken and Robinson, 2013). The need for business organizations to encourage their employees to take up flexible work arrangement was also informed by the realization by employers that they will still need these employees after the down turn. It made economic sense to have employees work under flexible arrangement as opposed to retrenchment since the organization will cut costs of employing new workers later. To retrench workers meant the organizations would recruit, orientate and train the new workers when economy gets better in the coming days. To have employees under flexibility arrangement was therefore the best course of action that would cut cost in the future. It is this perspective that informed Virgin Blue’s decision to introduce flexibility in their organization bearing in mind that they had recorded a deficit in the number of pilots just a few months past (Glicken & Robinson, 2013). These efforts by employees represent a creative alternative to having to deal with workplace redundancies during economic down turns. The workplace flexibility measure however is not a policy with blanket effect for all the industries in an economy as performance varies when introduced in manufacturing, retailers, financial, health, education and administration sectors of the economy. Among the possible explanation for the difference in the outcome recorded by organizations practicing flexibility arrangements concerns the relative costs and benefits of these practices. For instance, manager operating in financial services industry may find it easier to introduce flexibility measures for their employees by for example allowing them to work occasionally from home. On the other hand, managers in the food service industry would most likely find it hard to introduce measure that can allow employees to work from home. However this does not mean that flexibility practices cannot be introduced in such industries as there are many aspects of flexibility to pick from making it imperative for each organization to identify the most suitable (Glicken & Robinson, 2013). These differences in the outcomes experienced by organizations in various industries underpin some of the hardships that can be associated with flexibility practices. Based on economic theory, organizations with the greatest gains to implementing flexibility measures should be amongst the foremost in introducing the various forms of flexibility. Managers who have accepted that flexibility is essential for retaining talent and productivity within the organization have to stay committed to its implementation. However, implementing flexibility measures becomes difficult given both the managers’ the employees’ fear of which has resulted in a gap between policies and reality (DuBrin, 2011). The difficulties that flexibility policies face include lack of proper guidelines to direct managers in implementation process in addition to employees fearing that requesting part-time schedules or telecommuting chances when performing their functions may have adverse effects on their career prospects. There are initiatives such as the National Employment Standards by the government to promote acceptance and implementation of flexibility among employers and employees in Australia. This initiative compels managers to have in place flexible arrangements in their organizations while employees have been given the right to request for suitable working conditions that will ensure they perform their roles effectively. This puts the pressure to implement flexibility on managers who must be able to find a working solution that will benefit both the organization and the employee (Hegewisch, 2009). Although many employers have accepted flexibility practices due to the use of current technology like telecommunicating that allows workers to work from home, there are other workplace aspects that make it hard for both employees and employers to take advantage of available flexibility offers. Among such areas is in the management of careers and promotion with managers finding it difficult to judge an employee’s performance when they are unable to see them working. On the other hand, employees might also decline flexibility offers for fear that working when the manager is not around will make them invisible and therefore overlooked when a chance to move up the career ladder comes (Minnotte, 2009). Therefore, the problem in implementing workplace flexibility becomes one to do with the existence of a policy-practice gap within different organizations. The existence of this gap can be attributed to organizational policies that contrast with the prevalent workplace realities. Such perspectives on employees and their workplace responsibilities fail to acknowledge that they have time limitations or care giving obligations. Further, some employees who request for flexibility provisions are sometimes are demoted from being seen an ideal worker to one with special needs and therefore requiring special accommodation. This attitude to flexibility is not sustainable nor is it desirable in the current situation where it is not only those with special needs that such as disability that require such provision, but a diversified group of employees (Dipboye & Colella, 2004). Acceptable environment in the workplace will be that where men and women are in the workplace but they are also active in care giving and community responsibilities outside workplace. This new workplace model should be based on the concept of both employee and employer accountability with the aim of transforming the way workers performs their duties and while enhancing the way they live. The consequence of such an approach will ultimately be having an organization with work arrangement designed to adapt to the rhythms and flow of both the economy and life changes of employees (Crespi, 2013). However, these challenges can be overcome when a drafted formal agreement exists and covers the necessary areas by making clear the rules guiding how an employee’s career will progress under flexible working arrangements in addition to the expected level of performance. Further, during drafting such agreements the input of all concerned must be taken into consideration so that views of managers, human resources department, employees and in some cases, union representatives in the industry. Important aspects of such contracts might be who can take part in part time, telework or home employment, criteria for initiating and terminating and terminating the flexibility arrangement, how to assess employee-performance in addition to the necessary occupational health and safety measures for a home office ( CCH Australia, 2010). According to Shoemaker, Brown and Barbour (2011), accountability is the most important aspect of workplace flexibility. This model acknowledges such areas as workers have care giving responsibilities; there is a need for employees to make adjustments on the time spend on paid and unpaid work as they progress through different stages of their lives and that all employees have a responsibility towards achievement of desired organizational outcomes (Shoemaker, Brown & Barbour, 2011). Researchers acknowledge the fact that economic realities have made it necessary for workers to increase the number of working hours so as to meet their financial obligations. However, as the number of hours spent at work has increased, so has the need for employees to have time for themselves and their families. Consequently, these employees might need to balance time spent between paid and unpaid work as they progress in life. For instance, employees may need to stop or reduce mount of hours doing paid work in order to undertake additional training or education, get better after being sick, take part in volunteering, offer support to a spouse’s career prospect in addition to give care to a child or an elderly, disabled, the sick (Mishel, Bivens, Gould & Shierholz, 2012). An important factor in being accountable in the flexibility work practice is personal responsibility on the part of the employee who has to repay back the employers for redesigning how work is completed. Employees must not abuse the advantages to take care of personal responsibilities they have acquired through flexible working conditions by giving excuses for work not well done or being late. They must offer services in a timely fashion while ensuring the quality of their output is as high as it can get. Employees must demonstrate that they are ready to work within the new framework given that acceptance of flexibility must be generated from within (Shoemaker, Brown & Barbour, 2011). For managers, offering leadership is an important part in making the initiative a success. For instance, in cases where employers give priority to spending their time in the office as opposed to taking part in outside organizational responsibilities on regular basis while also expecting their subordinates to do the same, many employees will shy away from requesting flexibility provisions for family or personal reasons. Consequently, managers serve as trend setters in matters to do with flexibility in the workplace as employees judge acceptance of such policies through a manager’s actions and behaviour (Shoemaker, Brown & Barbour, 2011). From the foregoing discussion, the perception held by both employers and employees on work-life policies has undergone considerable shift in recent years as a reaction to the lack of enough labour force in the years before the GED in addition to increased awareness of concept and use of flexibility practices by both employers and employees. Employers and employees have to put in place effective mechanisms that balance the needs of workers with those of employer for this initiative to work considering the fact that this cooperation will benefit both of them in terms of productivity and keeping necessary talent within the organization. References Anderson, V. 2013. Research methods in human resource management. London: CIPD Publishing. Bourke, J. and Russell, Dr G. 2010. A new “flexibility” normal? The case for work redesign, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). CCH Australia Limited. 2010. Australian Master Human Resources Guide 2010. CCH Australia Limited. Crespi, R. 2013. Balancing Work and Family Care: European Experiences. FrancoAngeli. Dipboye, R. L., & Colella, A. (Eds.). 2004. Discrimination at work: The psychological and organizational bases. New York: Psychology Press. DuBrin, A. J. 2011. Essentials of management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Glicken, M. D., & Robinson, B. 2013 Treating Worker Dissatisfaction During Economic Change. Massachusetts: Academic Press. Hegewisch, A. 2009. Flexible working policies: a comparative review. Equality and Human Rights Commission. Lee, S., McCann, D. & Messenger, J. 2007. Working Time around the World. London: Routledge. Minnotte, K. L. 2009. The Changing Realities of Work and Family. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 1(3), 173-175. Mishel, L., Bivens, J., Gould, E., & Shierholz, H. 2012. The state of working America. Cornell University Press. Shoemaker, J., Brown, A., & Barbour, R. 2011. A Revolutionary Change: Making the Workplace More Flexible. 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