Balancing Family and Work-Life - Essay Example

Balancing Family and Work life In today’s workforce, balancing family and work life is one of the major concern for most employees (Hall and Richter, 1988). Work-life balance refers to the degree to which people feel satisfied with their job and family duties on an equal basis (Kaiser, 2011). Many parents are working or are looking for jobs with around 75 percent working full time (Schneider, Barbara and Waite, 2005). Various studies reveal that balancing work life with the family life is one of the major career concerns for many people, both men and women. However, women are the most affected and they are more concerned about how to achieve this. Many professionals rank good healthcare as the most important benefit they are entitled to in any work, but as for women, they prefer flexible scheduling which would enable them to work from home and also to have good maternity leave policies. This way, they will be able to balance home life with the work life. More so, both genders admit to deal with more stress at work than at home, but women experience more stress than men in both cases. Furthermore, research findings show that men are less likely to establish a high importance on family life in determining success as opposed to women. The competing demands at home and at work have increased for both genders and studies show that almost a half of working parents find it difficult and challenging to balance these demands. Therefore, in order to find the right balance between profession and parenthood, people need to focus on a plan and approach the situation in a more organized manner. This paper presents a very thoughtful discussion on balancing family and work life and how this affects the working environment. Truly, having control of numerous and complex work and family roles is very stressful to many individuals as stressed is cause by role strain and spill over. For instance, role strain happens when the responsibilities of a certain role interferes with performance of other roles such as dealing with working for long hours and parenting. On the other hand, spill over occurs when conditions in a particular area of individuals’ lives affect them in another are like inflexible work hours can have a negative effect on family life. This kind of spill over refers to work to family conflict whereby, work negatively influences the family life of an individual (Van Veldhoven and Beijer, 2012). More so, family concerns like inequities in the division of housework and childcare, an unsupportive partner among others may impact negatively on an individual’s work. The inability to balance work life with the family life affects women as compared to men with many people developing a culture of impossible work-life balance especially for women (Zimmerman, 2002). Studies show that men and women have different levels of work-family conflict resulting from unequal distribution of family duties (Zhao, Settles and Sheng, 2011). Today, quite a good number of women have joined the workforce and are also taking care of their children full time but very few men do take care of the children as they are perceived as default caretakers. Most mothers manage these because they are more likely than men to rearrange their work schedules to account for their children. Many women have joined the workforce including mothers and being a full-time working mother may trigger the feelings of guilt and stress due to disintegrated focus on both work and the family. Due to increased rate of working mothers, traditional role for fathers has changed and they are expected to divide family and job responsibilities equally (Zhao, Settles and Sheng, 2011). Notably, working mothers spend double the time fathers spend on raising children. One common family life that most children share is that their parents are both working. Working parents are forced to divide their responsibility for the family and manage their professional careers (Schneider, Barbara and Waite, 2005). Some scholars believe that balancing family and work life incorporates time balance, involvement as well as satisfaction balance (Kaiser, 2011). Accordingly, full-time students also find it difficult and challenging to balance studies and work. In the contemporary world, many students engage in part time casual jobs which they do and attend classes at the same time. Studies show that such students may end up performing poorly academically and being an incompetent employee and may therefore loose both the job and fail to complete their studies successfully. The question whether full time students should do part time jobs and attend classes at the same time is one of the current controversial issues. Truly, managing these two activities is very hectic for students and may have negative consequences in their lives. For instance, working students have a very tight schedule that they strain to follow and this may lead to lack of sleep or limited time to rest, and poor social networks because they will have no time establishing and maintain relationships with their peers. In short, it is not an easy task for full time students to manage their casual job and perform well academically. Being a competent employee and attain good grades at the same time is almost next to impossible and there is high chances of losing both. Just like others, working parents, working students need to plan appropriate and be flexible and well organized in order to deal with academics-work challenges and balance them effectively. Balancing career demands and personal life is a challenge that any working person faces. To balance work and family requires individuals to dedicate themselves to both areas equally and avoid neglecting one side over the other. However, creating such balance needs organization and proper planning. When assessing work-life balance, there is need to consider both directions, that is, work to family or family to work (Jones, Burke and Westman, 2013). Everyone dreams of having a happy family and a successful career but this depends on an individual’s ability to effectively balance work and family life. Arguably, there are many ways through which individuals can use in order to have control of their lives and successfully balance work and family life. To begin with, working persons need to have clarified values to be able to manage work and meet family demands. Many people are actually aware of their values but there are some values that we hold and are unaware and this may promote feelings of stress. Therefore, individuals need to ease or avoid such stress by becoming more aware of their values. More so, this will help them to deal with conflicting values and ease role strain. In addition, it is important to set up realistic goals and life expectations as this will as well help individuals to ease role strain and effectively balance workload. Furthermore, by setting up priorities and managing time effectively, working persons will be able to successfully manage work and attend to household activities, have personal time to do what they desire, and find time for family activities and friendships among others. Again, they need to create time for themselves since being a competent professional; a good partner or parent requires individuals to be good t themselves. They need to relieve tension and minimize stress and this will benefit both their work and their family. In addition, individuals should learn to leave all work related activities in the office in order to have a personal time. More so, planning and communication is necessary and they help people balance work and family. For instance, one may decide to hold family meetings, keep weekly schedules, and be willing and flexible to make any necessary change. Organizing household tasks and duties back in the office is very important when it comes to effective balance of work and family life. Moreover, individuals need to create limits and boundaries because these are necessary for balancing work and family life. If the boundaries are clear, individuals can easily cross the boundaries at any given time any specific purposes (Hall and Richter, 1988). Creating a list of family goals and establishing deadline is also necessary and this may collide with individual’s effort to prioritize their objectives at work. By putting down these goals and scheduling them is a sign of commitment and this can assist in achieving work-family balance. Additionally, individuals need to set and enjoy quality time with their families and create relationships and strong bonds with their partners and children as this will promote their success as a good professional and a competent partner or parent. All these when considered, both the family and profession would succeed and flourish accordingly. Some parents may succeed in combining their jobs with their family life, but research findings reveal that is very difficult to combine work and family life especially for those in high occupational status jobs (Fine-Davis, 2005). Agreeably, work related problems such as balancing work and family life or balancing academics with casual jobs are some of the challenges that affect the work environment. There are various ways, which can be put in place in order to solve such problems. Having relatively equal distribution of working hours between men and women, provision of cheap day-care, and provision of paid maternity and parental leave are some of the factors that should be considered when reconciling work and family life (Fine-Davis, 2005). First and foremost, full time working women should have a guarantee of paid maternity leave to enable them have enough time to take care of their new born. Paid maternity leave is necessary to provide these mothers with enough money for upkeep, and also having this leave will enable them to balance family with work life. More so, organizations should offer paid vacation or paid sick leave whenever necessary to enable their employees to enjoy their vacation and satisfy their personal needs and that of their family. Again, this will motivate the workers and may work hard towards achieving the balance between work and personal life. Secondly, different organizations should create average working hours and eliminate long working hours in order to provide more time for leisure activities and personal care. Everyone needs quality time with family and friends and this is just the best way to offer them such valuable time. Studies show that time is very important when it comes to balancing work and family life and so the more hours an individual spends working, the more challenging they experience combining the two (Fine-Davis, 2005). Having the opportunity to work for average or minimal hours helps individuals to plan well and organize their duties and responsibilities appropriately and this will help working individuals to balance work and personal life successfully. Lastly, organizations need to protect their workers’ right to ask for a different work schedule in order to give them enough time to plan and balance between their personal life and work life. This is usefully to employees especially working students, as they will have choices when scheduling their work and classes. In conclusion, balancing family and work life is not an easy task especially for working women. Work and family is part of our lives and so managing the two is necessary. Having work-life balance refers to manner in which people feel equally satisfied with their job and responsibility in their family. Ideally, the competing demands at home and at work have increased for both genders and studies show that almost a half of working parents find it difficult and challenging to balance these demands. More so, full time students who engage in part time jobs have trouble in managing work and their studies. Organizations need to provide their members particularly women generous maternity and paid parental leave; reduce working hours, and uphold employees’ right to ask for a different work schedule. This way, individuals will find it easy trying to balance their personal life with work life effectively. Balancing family and work life is one of the major issues affecting the work environment and so in order to find the right balance between profession and parenthood; people need to focus on a plan and approach the situation in a more organized manner. References Fine-Davis, M. (2005). Fathers and mothers: Dilemmas of the work-life balance. Berlin: Springer. Hall, D. T., & Richter, J. (1988). Balancing Work Life and Home Life: What Can Organizations Do to Help? Academy Of Management Executive (08963789), 2(3), 213-223. doi:10.5465/AME.1988.4277258 Jones, F., Burke, R, and Westman, M. (2013). Work-Life Balance: A Psychological Perspective. New York: Psychology Press. Kaiser, S. (2011). Creating balance?: International perspectives on the work-life integration of professionals. Heidelberg: Springer. Schneider, B., and Linda, W. (2005). Being Together, Working Apart: Dual-Career Families and the Work-Life Balance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Veldhoven, M., & Beijer, S. E. (2012). Workload, Work-to-Family Conflict, and Health: Gender Differences and the Influence of Private Life Context. Journal of Social Issues, 68(4), 665-683. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2012.01770.x Zhao, J., Settles, B. H., & Sheng, X. (2011). Family-to-Work Conflict: Gender, Equity and Workplace Policies. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 42(5), 723-738. Zimmerman, S. (2002). Balancing Family and Work: Special Considerations in Feminist Therapy. New York: Psychology Press. Read More