Work-Life Balance Issues - Coursework Example

Q: CRITICALLY ASSESS THE EXTENT TO WHICH HRM IS ABLE TO RECONCILE EMPLOYER'S NEED FOR FLEXIBILITY AND EMPLOYEE'S NEED FOR WORK/LIFE BALANCE. Introduction: Over the past two decades, there has been a considerable increase in work. Globalization, competitive working environment and increase in technology are the main cause behind this situation. There have been complains from employees the line between work and personal life has been distorted, creating stress and conflict in their personal life. Work/life balance can be defined as “the acceptable intensity of participation in different roles of life while maintaining balance.” It can also be defined as: “The equilibrium between the amount of time and effort somebody devotes to work and that given to other aspects of life. Work-life balance is the subject of widespread public debate on how to allow employees more control over their working arrangements in order to better accommodate other aspects of their lives, while still benefiting their organizations.” (Bnet business dictionary) Now a days “work/family balance” term took the place of “work/life balance”. This included families, different relationships, and social communities. The creation of globalization means that employees have to work around the clock, and they are not happy about it. As performance culture is taking place of long-term loyalty, employer’s expectations are increasing but on the other hand, they are providing less security in return. Now the awareness of how much the work life balance is important to the organization, makes them to promote this theory. Research by Kenexa Research Institute in 2007 shows that those employees who were more favorable toward their organization’s efforts to support work-life balance also indicated a much lower intent to leave the organization, take greater pride in their organization, a willingness to recommend it as a place to work and higher overall job satisfaction. A study shows that companies highly committed employees had a 112% return to shareholders over three years, compared to 90% for companies with average commitment, and 76% for companies with low commitment. (Watson Wyatt Worldwide 2000) Aspects of WLB:- A recent study explored and measured three aspects of work/life balance (Kerry Hewitson, p 3) 1. Time balance: time given to work and personal life. 2. Involvement balance, the level of mental involvement and dedication in work and personal life. 3. Satisfaction balance, the level of contentment with work personal life. Maintaining work/life balance is not only help the employees but also have a major impact on the productivity of the organization. Organizations that ask for extra hours from its employees have the higher rates of absenteeism. It can also affect the revenue of the organization, because the employees are unhappy, they do not work hard and leave the job. HRM Practices and Policies:- Competition and globalization in the market means that the organizations have to work hard to retain talented staff and to attract new comers. Flexible working environment will highlight that the organization will meet the changing opportunities in the market. Freedom to manage responsibilities of work and home will result in high quality staff retention and better performance. Work/life balance emerges as strategic issue for HRM.. Flexibility is needed by, both employer and employee. It can help the organization to cope with the stress in the organization. HRM practices can result in commitment and flexibility. HRM can response in different way, like flexibility in the workplace, diversity, benefits etc. Kerry Hewitson in the case of work/life balance includes ranges of policies and practices of different organizational work/life balance initiatives: “Compressed work week, Flexi time, Job sharing, Home telecommuting, Work-at-home programs, Part-time work, Shorter work days for parents, Bereavement leave, Paid maternity leave, Paid leave to care for sick family members, Paternity leave” (Bardoel 2003). These involvements are usually designed to assist the flexibility, supporting employees with childcare responsibilities and lessen the negative impact of meddling between work and non-work commitments and responsibilities. Flexibility in the workplace can be applied through compressed workweeks, which provide them the facility to work 40 hours in five days. The employee must be given the control over the time, he must set his schedule when he wants to begin or end his workday. Some organizations provide their employees the benefit of paid holiday under certain circumstances, which motives and increase the commitment of employees. Flexibility in workplace also includes mobility of work in the organization, which provides the benefit to the employee to work from any other location through telecommunication. Like in some business places, the employers are lenient about the work schedule of the employees, but the have to submit their work within the deadline. Diversity in the workforce requires employers to be more responsive to the needs and variation of people present in the organization. Employer must deal with the needs, wants, value, and ethics of different workers. The HRM must not practice any action that can discriminate against any group or individual. If any organization fails to be flexible, they may see that the retention level is decreasing. They must provide them with different programs that show the organization care for its employees. These programs can be training, development program, lectures/seminars, fitness program etc. involvement of employees in strategic making will help the organization to achieve highly motivated workforce. Employee involvement will help them to understand the whole process of what they have to do and how. This will lead to increase in the productivity and commitment of employees and happy employee lead to satisfied customer. Figure 1: Benefits to employers and employees in providing and supporting employee work/life balance. Companies in focus:- GlaxoSmithKline a leading pharmaceutical company says that they take flexible working so seriously. It says, “Our Flexible Working Policy, which applies to all our staff, covers a variety of working patterns, including home working, part-time working, annualized hours and term-time working. Of course, these kinds of flexible working options are particularly attractive to parents and caregivers. However, reduced or redistributed hours or home working arrangements can also support people's religious observances, civic duties and further education commitments, along with a whole host of other interests and responsibilities outside the workplace.”(gsk.com) A research by Nick Bloom, Tobias Kretschmer and John Van Reenen answer the question: “Well-managed firms do not work ‘harder’ but ‘smarter’– employees in well-run firms typically have a better work-life balance”. Their study includes firms in France, Germany, the UK and United States about management practices and work/life balance. Study shows that management practices linked with good ‘people management’ – such as promoting abilities, rewarding and retaining well performing staff and providing training opportunities – are expected to work in combination with good work-life balance practices – family-friendly policies, flexible working, shorter hours, more holidays etc. It argues that better work-life balance will improve productivity but employers are mistakenly failing to treat their workers as assets and to implement better work-life balance practices (CentrePiece 2006; p 20) A study suggests, “Improving work-life balance is socially desirable – workers apparently like it and firm productivity does not suffer. Good work-life balance seems to be something that well-run firms in competitive markets do naturally. They need to treat their employees well to keep them – if not; their competitors will hire them away.” ( CentrePiece Summer 2006; p 21) Gap between policy and practice:- Kerry Hewitson in case of work/life balance put light on the reality that sometimes there is gap between policy and practice. The concept of work/life balance not always result in the reduction of work/life conflict. In some organizations, ‘organizational work/life cultures’ affects the opportunities to use the flexible work/life balance options. These studies have identified five different feature of work/life culture, which can help organizations to develop employees’ work/life balance. (McDonald, Bradley & Brown, 2005) Managerial support suggests that the managers must corporate with the employees for the accomplishment of work/life balance because they are in the position to encourage or discourage employee to take care of their work and personal life stable. (Perlow, 1995; Thompson, Thomas & Maier, 1992). On the other hand, managers in some ‘family-friendly’ organizations may send signs that the flexibility in policies is creating difficulties for them, their colleagues and to the whole organization. (Rapoport & Bailyn, 1996). Managerial support emerges to be a critical variable in employees’ decisions to use available benefits and programs. (Bardoel, 1993; Thompson, Beauvais & Lyness, 1999). In other studies, employees whose supervisors supported their efforts to balance work and family were less likely to experience work/family conflict. (Thomas & Ganster, 1995) Career consequences answer the question of less consumption of work/life policies. Career disadvantages that comes with the part-time job is that the employees were given less training, less career development options and other benefits were also fewer. (Schwartz, 1989) Another study found that the organization that provide their employees less reward, fewer salary increase, less recognition and no opportunities, result in low commitment by those who are using work/life balance policies (Allen and Russell, 1999). These types of findings suggest that success of work/life policies rely on the feasibility of the options on all level of workforce. (Kossek, Barber & Winters, 1999) Time expectations refers to the question that how they want to use their time and on which level he/she is managing his/her schedule. (Bailyn 1993, 1997) Study show that the supportive work/life cultures in result of organizational time expectations help to decrease the conflicts in work and family life, boost up productivity, develop job satisfaction. (Frone, Yardley & Markel, 1997) Interview with engineers in Fortune 100 Company in the US conclude that: “If one is to succeed, one has to be at work, one has to be there for long hours, and one has to continuously commit to work as a top priority. To be perceived as making a significant contribution, productivity alone is not enough. One has to maintain a continual presence at work.” ( Perlow, 1995, p. 233; Kerry Hewitson, p 17). The organizations must evaluate an employee on bases of performance rather than the time spent at the workplace. (Kerry Hewitson, p 17). To achieve societal change, the organizations have to provide flexibility at work and promote a work-life balance regardless of gender. Women can play a vital role in the organization. Their participation will lead to the strengthening of organization. The policies of the organization must be unbiased of gender or any prejudice. Co-worker support contribution may help to achieve the work/life balance. (Kirby & Krone, 2002) Therefore, the response of co-workers to policy users needs to be considered by managers and organizations; worried with the way that local work environment must supports work/life balance (Kerry Hewitson, p 17). . Conclusion:- As a whole, we cannot consider policies and practices as different dimensions. Both are essential to achieve work/life balance. Companies should link their strategic management with the HRM practices. Flexibility both from employer and from employee are needed to achieve work/life balance. Organization must take care that practices and policies are for both the business and the workforce. There must be a written plan of how to achieve work/life balance. Managers can play a vital role to implement it. But work/life balance policies will not work if employee are provided with less salary, less benefits, no recognition will lead to failure of practice. References:- www.bnet.com (Bnet business dictionary) Kerry Hewitson: The Case for Work/Life Balance: Closing the Gap between Policy and Practice Bardoel, E., Tharenau, P., & Moss, S. (1998), Organizational predictors of work–family practices, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 36, 31-49. Glaxo smith kline pharmaceutical company, survey 2003 www.gsk.com Work-Life Balance, Management Practices and Productivity’ by Nick Bloom, Tobias Kretschmer and John Van Reenen (http://cep.lse.ac.uk/management/worklifebalance_research.pdf). Perlow, L.A. (1995), Putting the work back into work/family, Group and Organization Management, 20(2), 227-39. Pamela L. Perrewé, The Changing Family and HRM, Rapoport, R., and Bailyn, L. (1996), Relinking life and work: Toward a better future, The Ford Foundation, New York. Bardoel, E. (1993), The provision of formal and informal work–family practices: The relative importance of institutional and resource dependent explanations versus managerial explanations, Women in Management Review, 18(1/2), 7-19. Thomas, L., & Ganster, D. C. (1995), Impact of family-supportive work variables on work–family conflict and strain: A control perspective, Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 6-15. Schwartz, F. N. (1989), Management women and the new facts of life, Harvard Business Review, 89(1), 65-76. Allen, T. D., and Russell, J. E. (1999), Parental leave of absence: Some not so family friendly implications, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(1), 166-91. Kossek, E. E., Barber, A. E., and Winters, D. (1999), Using flexible schedules in the managerial world: The power of peers, Human Resource Management, 38(1), 33-46. Bailyn, L. (1993), Breaking the mold: Women, men and time in the new corporate world, Free Press, New York. Bailyn, L. (1997), The impact of corporate culture on work–family integration, in Parasuraman, S., and Greenhaus, J. H. (eds), Integrating work and family: Challenges and choices for a changing world, Quorum Books, Westport, CT, pp. 209-19. Frone, M. R., Yardley, J. K., and Markel, K. S. (1997), Developing and testing an integrative model of the work–family interface, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 145-67 Perlow, L.A. (1995), Putting the work back into work/family, Group and Organization Management, 20(2), 227-39. Kirby, E. L., and Krone, K. J. (2002), The policy exists but you can’t really use it, Communication and the structuration of work–family policies, Journal of Applied Communication Research, 30(1), 50-72. Australian Bureau of Statistics (1997), Labour force status and other characteristics of families, Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service (No. 6224.0). Lynn A. Lombardo, What is work/life? Forschungsinstitut ; zur Zukunft der Arbeit, Institute for the Study of Labor, Work-Life Balance Practices and the Gender Gap in Job Satisfaction in the UK Read More