Work-Life Balance Concept - Coursework Example

WORK-LIFE BALANCE Name Institution Professor Course Date Introduction Work-life balance entails good functioning and satisfaction at work with a minimum of role conflict. Flexibility and work-life balance have been a major concern for those interested in working life quality and its link to the wider quality of life. Flexibility and work-life balance are about improving organisational resilience and ability by assisting employees to attain a sustainable balance between life, family and work. Work-life balance supports the efforts of workers to split their energy and time amid work and other crucial life aspects. Employers who establish procedures, policies, expectations, assist work-life balance and flexibility and actions that allow workers to pursue a more balanced live between work and other life commitments. This essay discusses whether the entire paradigm of flexible working arrangement has changed into something a little negative where employers benefit by getting more out of few employees. The essay assesses implications of excessive working hours for employees and managers performance besides underlining the ways in which firms can ensure work-life balance during economic downturn. The essay contends that, most organisations embrace the Taylorism approach where they chain employees to their desks and turn the wick up under them to get more out of them, but this approach hold detriment effects on employees’ health and performance. Flexible work programs refer to the work arrangements where workers are provided with greater scheduling autonomy on how they fulfil their work obligations. There are different types of flexible working arrangements that include part-time working, overtime, job sharing, shift working and flexitime. Flexitime allows workers to select within the set limit when to start and finish work. In flexitime, employees are needed to work during core times and accomplish agreed hours (Cumming 2004, p.75). Flexitime is applicable to the office-based staff below the managerial level in both the private and public sector. Part-time employees often work in the service sectors such as restaurants, hotels, health and social work and warehouses. The employment of part-time employees may prompt higher training, recruitment and administrative costs. Overtime is common among manual employees. Employers are reacting positively to employee request to perform their roles flexibly. Job sharing is a type of part-time working where two or more employees share the role for a full-time work (Romer 2010, p.25). These employees share the benefits and pay in proportion to the hours each person works. Compressed workweek entails the relocation of time worked into longer and fewer blocks in the course of the week. This does not automatically entail a decline in the number of hours worked. Work-life balance describes the connection between work and personal commitments of employees. Successful firms understand that they can retain workers with work-life balance benefits programs (Cumming 2004, p.75).According to Nienhuser (2005, p.299), the last decade has seen the flexible work arrangements constitute a crucial component in the debate on the future of employment and work relations. Flexible work arrangements are viewed as unstable for employees, leading to unstable employment, reduced wages, erosion of the welfare state and bad working conditions. While flexible work arrangements and work-life balance benefits employees, employers benefit more in terms of lowering absenteeism, turnover and augmenting productivity in the workplace. Helping people attain a work-life balance is more beneficial to employers than to employees. Although flexibility and work-life balance also benefits employees in the sense that it lowers stress levels, autonomy to make choices concerning work-life, augmented focus, job satisfaction and motivation, employers are the major beneficiaries of flexible working arrangement. Buxton, Chapman and Temple (2005, p.388) confirms that most organisations embrace the Taylorism approach where they chain employees to their desks and turn the wick up under them to get more out of them. Ironically, even while establishing practices and policies that support Taylorism, most firms admit that excessive working hours lowers the motivation and performance of employees. With respect to conservation of resources theory, work-life enrichment may occur when resources acquired in one domain can enhance or facilitate a person’s experience in another domain According to Romer (2010, p.25), flexibility and work-life balance lowers employees turnover, recruitment and training costs. More so, flexibility and work-life balance increases return on investments in training as employees stay longer in their workplace, lower absenteeism, enhance job satisfaction and morale, greater employee commitment and loyalty and enhanced productivity. For most organisations, flexibility and work-life balance benefits employers in terms of cost savings, increased productivity and better retention and recruiting. According to Romer (2010, p.25), family-friendly benefits have been on the decline in the past few years but employers require to bring them back if they want to compete for the talented labour force. Given that health care and other benefits are costly, employers consider flexibility and work-life balance as a simpler means of promoting job satisfaction. Although employees desire the flexibility to accommodate the competing interests and roles in their lives, flexibility assists employers to lower costs. Managers, clerical, administrative and professional staff are capable of choosing their beginning and finishing times. The call to lower costs has inspired some employers to lower staff. Besides, the need to lower cost also helps employers to assess how roles in their firms are undertaken and the manner in which work is conducted. Flexibility has helped employers to advance their economic outcomes (Kramar et al.2014, p.316). This results in workers working for longer hours to attain the requirements of the firm results. In Australia, scores of employees are not satisfied with balance amid work and life. Apparently, more than twenty percent of persons work for 48 hours, and about sixty percent of them do not get regular holidays. When firms are working towards cost reductions, they want people to work longer hours to accomplish the required results (Kramar et al.2014, p.315). The flexibility of the executives is more beneficial to a firm in terms of cost reductions. Apparently, multinational companies allow their top leaders to engage in conference calls an aspect that lowers travel and accommodation costs. However, the top leaders in a firm do conference calls and work during the day an aspect that overwhelms them. In this regard, the term flexibility does not provide an improved work-life balance but instead get fewer people to attain more results. When leaders engage in conference calls, they take on multiple roles and at the same time reap increased benefits for their employers. Juliet Bourke assertion that the use of flexibility has moved away from its original paradigm is practical. This is because modern organisations are seeking more with fewer resources. With respect to the conservation of resources theory, employers are inspired to conserve or seek for resources that are crucial for attaining the demands of different roles. However, interference or conflict may surface if resources are threatened or lost (Reilly, Sirgy & Gorman 2012, and p.182). In the event of economic depression and its negative impacts on organisations, scores of these firms try to get means to streamline their operations and lower their costs. Companies formulate policies to prevent redundancies within their firms. In this regard, a renewed interests in the flexibility of employees surfaces. Apparently, the idea of work-life balance implies different things for diverse people. For instance, some organisations may lower the number of their staff and shift workload onto others in the name of flexibility. In such occurrences, some employees would consider such a change as a prospect to enhance their skills and show their ability to career progression. Some employers use inevitable employee reductions as a prospect to redesign job roles and seek for novel ways of doing the job and allowing workers to work flexibly and enhance their work-life balance. Employers look for lowered workweeks, part-time hours and augmented flexible work structures that allow them to retain a talented workforce (Kramar et al.2014, p.315). As a result, the original motivation for the application of flexible work arrangement to offer improved work-life balance has been recast. Some organisations such as banks have redefined work ordinary hours to include weekends in the name of promoting efficient and flexible work practices. This flexibility is one-sided because employers gain more particularly when they want to increase their profits. However, numerical and temporal flexibility cannot be one-sided to benefit only the employer in an exploitative way (Winfield, Bishop & Porter 2007, p.543). Employers are finding it necessary to introduce flexible working practices to benefits employees practicing working parents and those who wish to pursue a complete private life outside work. With respect to the role theory, people juggle multiple roles for their own benefits. According to Schermerhorm (2011, p, 251), flexibility in the workplace is increasing, and it benefits employees in the sense that they can work at the time that is more comfortable to them. Besides, employees can work in their comfort zone. For instance, in the United Kingdom, approximately one percent of work is done at home. Schermerhorm (2011, p, 251) asserts that the developing importance of work-life balance is mirrored in family-friendly benefits that help workers to enhance non-work and work responsibilities. With the increase of women in the labour force, childcare is one of the non-work responsibilities. Work-life balance comes with benefits such as flexible benefits programs and employee assistance programs. Flexible benefits programs allow employees to select a personalised set of benefits within a given dollar amount while employee assistance programs help employees to address troublesome personal programs. With respect to the compensation theory, employees try to compensate the lack of satisfaction in one area through attempting to find more satisfaction in another area. According to Sutherland, Cooper and Bond (2010, p.83),successful organisations already know that providing flexible working arrangements makes a good business sense in the sense that it assist in attracting and retaining the best staff. Flexible working allows all business organisations to adapt their working blueprints to suit their needs. Some of the United Kingdom’s and Australia’s most successful and innovative small and medium-sized companies are demonstrating that flexibility in the workplace can benefit employees and not just those with caring roles. In addition, flexibility and work-life balance are potential key for older employees who can decide to stay in the labour force past conventional retirement age. Such employees may seek optional work arrangement other than full-time schedule (Malone & Issa 2013, p.88). This strategy is also beneficial to employers because through feasible, flexible work arrangement for older employees, employers hold onto their intellectual capital. However, employers only push for more work-life balance when the workforce becomes limited. In this perspective, Juliet Bourke claim that flexibility is about how employers get more out of fewer people is feasible. As regards implications of excessive working hours on performance, excessive working hours lowers employees’ morale, job satisfaction and productivity. Human resources are the backbone of any successful business organisation. Firms improve their human resources to ensure effectiveness and efficiency. Excessive working hours has become a common issue in the business world because most forms want to achieve more with fewer employees. This leads to overloading employees with workloads that negatively affect their health as well as the success of their firms. Apparently, excessive working hours hold negative impacts on worker’s performance, their family, the community and employer. According to Sutherland, Cooper & Bond (2010, p.83), greater workload mean increased working hours as employees stay at work to fulfil the demand of the job. Managers also stay at work to ensure that the work demands are met. Their stay holds negative impacts on their health as well as their personal life. The United Kingdom has obtained a reputation for holding the longest average working week in Europe. While 20.1% percent of United Kingdom employees are working more than forty-five hours per week, this proportion is lower than that of Australia and the USA. The connection between long working days and premature death made the British Medical Journal to suggest that overwork can kill. More so, there is an established relationship between excessive working hours and coronary heart disease (Sutherland, Cooper & Bond 2010, p.83). These findings are based on observations that forty-six percent of patients suffering from coronary heart disease had been working 60 hours every week (Sutherland, Cooper & Bond 2010, p.83). A review of twenty-one studies into the implications of excessive working hours on health indicated that there was a major connection between the overall health, inclining psychological and physiological health symptoms and work hours (Sutherland, Cooper & Bond 2010, p.83). In addition, ‘presenteeism’ where managers and employees stay longer at work creates an impression of devoted workers. However, this can mean costs to the firm. Although a certain amount of physical actions at work can protect employees from coronary heart disease, excessive physical demands prompt poor health, injuries and exhaustion. The performance of workers is a crucial concern for all business organisations. High-performance systems are a distinct factor of leading firms. In scores of firms, inadequate strategies at managerial level negatively influence performance and prevent employees from producing at their complete potential. Many variables such as physical abilities, experience, workload and working hours influence employees’ performance. Drawing from the case study, flexibility of work arrangements are a crucial part of enhancing work-life balance (Kramar et al..2014, p.315). Employees desire flexibility as it helps them to accommodate the competing interests and roles in their lives. Flexibility promotes employee engagement strategy and is crucial for establishing adaptive, diverse and productive workforce. However, the call to lower cost encourages employers to lower cost thereby making the retained employees to work for longer hours. Over twenty percent of people work for longer hours while a considerable number of them do not take frequent holidays. According to Buxton, Chapman and Temple (2005, p.387), many employees feel under pressure to work longer hours or face the danger of being singled out for redundancy. The need to lower costs affects employees who have to work longer hours to attain the objectives of their firms. The call to lower costs does not only affect employees but executives as well. The demographic of the world has shifted most notably with employees spending more at work. Working extraordinary hours hold long-term detrimental effects on employees. According to Kramar et al (2014, p. 316), employees become resentful, unproductive and disillusioned. The implications of long working hours on employees hold negative effects on the productivity and discretionary effort as an upshot of decline in engagement. Excessive working hours negatively affect employees and managers’ performance. The managers and employees become stressed, and their wellbeing and health jeopardised. Particularly, in a downturn, employees work longer hours and handle the increased workload that takes a toll on their health. Shah et al.(2011 p.257) assert that workload and excessive working hours are a source of mental stress for employees. According to Aggrawal (2009, p.443), stress is a physical and emotional reaction that everyone experiences as he/she encounters changes in life. Stress hold positive impacts when it assists people address constructively their daily issues and challenges. However, stress holds negative impacts when it become constant and can lead to depression. According to Mathur and Audichya (2013, p.335), stress decreases the performance of employees and managers. With excessive pressure, employees cannot accomplish job demands. Stress changes into exhaustion and a notion of satisfaction is replaced with stress feelings, morale sheds away and the employees start to lose interest in their work thereby instigating a negative trend in the performance chart. The health effects linked to excessive work hours lowers employees’ morale and instigates job dissatisfaction that in turn affect the overall performance of employees. Buxton, Chapman and Temple (2005, p.388) confirm that longer working hours lower morale and overall performance of employees and managers. In this regard, employers should consider the well-being, safety and health of staff. As regards ways of facilitating work-life balance during economic downturn, firms use flexible work arrangement. Based on the case study, during the economic downturn, organisations seek to prevent redundancies and provide greater flexibility in their working arrangements (Kramar et al..2014,p.315).Some employers seek to retain employees by lowering the length of their working week, augment accessibility of flexible working arrangement and introduce part-time work. Companies such as Virgin Australia adopted a hiring freeze and natural abrasion for numerous roles during the economic downturn. In addition, the company established flexible working arrangements for 100 of the scraped roles. The working arrangement included job-sharing, leave without pay and part-time work. The flexibility employed by Virgin Australia during the economic downturn assisted in lowering costs for the company while at the same time offering employees with increased time for their personal activities. In this regard, flexible work arrangements can facilitate work-life balance during economic crisis. According to Gregory, Milner and Windebank (2013, p. 528), work-life balance has become increasingly important in public policy since the 1990s for numerous reasons linked to women’s participation in the labour market and the capacity to reconcile paid employment and family life. The longer-term economic trend seems to be motivating enhanced work-life balance. However, economic downturn lowers work-life balance. Gregory, Milner and Windebank (2013, p. 531) asserts that the proportion of workers strongly agreeing that they attain the right work-life balance fell from sixty-one percent in 2012 to 56 percent in 2013. British data implies that economic crisis exacerbates polarization of jobs with employees failing to get the work-life balance (Abbott & De Cieri 2008, p.304). To ensure work-life balance, firms should rely on working time flexibility. However, there should be supportive legislation to ensure the effectiveness of work-time flexibility arrangements. This is because temporal and working time flexibility that seems to facilitate work-life balance can be accompanied by a greater intensification of work. Conclusion Work-life balance entails the efficient management of multiple roles at home, work and other areas of life. It is an issue that is crucial to employee and employers. The work-life balance consists of a group practices, cultural facets and practical help some of which are protected by legislation and some of which surpasses legislation. Flexibility and work-life balance help to guarantee that the workplace benefits from a diverse workforce without excluding those with responsibilities outside work. Flexibility and work-life balance in Australia and elsewhere has become broadly acceptable and a contested topic. In the modern work environment, flexibility is not an option but a necessity. Employees want to work flexibly to attain a work-life balance while employers implement flexible work arrangement to lower costs. Based on the case study, different people view flexibility and work-life balance differently. The flexibility of work arrangements is a crucial portion of enhancing work-life balance. While employees desire the flexibility to accommodate the competing interests and role, in their lives, employers are the major beneficiaries of flexibility in the workplace. Employers chain employees to their desks and turn the wick up under them to get more out of them. However, this approach holds detriment effects on health and performance. Reference List Abbott, J & De Cieri, H 2008, ‘ Influences on the provision of work-life benefits: Management and employee perspectives’, Journal of Management & Organisation, vol.14, no.3, pp.303-322. Aggrawal, A 2014. International conference on management of globalised business: Emerging perspectives. USA: Lulu.com. 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