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Abstract:

Abstract:

During the second half of 20th century, with work demands increasingly encroaching on

family and personal time at a faster pace, employers acknowledged the need of work-lifebalance programmers to facilitate employees maintain a healthy balance between the

conflicting demands of their work and personal life. The HR department of the organization

should assist the employee to maintain a work-life balance. The HR manager must carefully

identify the issue and find a solution with the co-operation of the employer. Organization

must include providing work-life balance as an HR policy.

Overview

An Overview Work life and personal life are the two sides of the same coin. The changing

demands of the work environment have impacted between work and life. Based on variouswork life balance surveys more than 65% of the respondents belongs to various

professions said that they are not able to find a balance between their official lives and

personal lives. Globalization has increased competition, shrinking the world. Many Indian

employees work for foreign time zones with ever increasing working hours. It is important

that there is both a business outcome and a personal outcome in any work life balance plan.

Without life, no work is possible. Also without work, life loses its essence. The real

challenge is all about striking a strong balance between work life and the other things

which are important at different stages of life. The best work life balance is different for

each of us because we all have different priorities and different lives. Successfullyachieving work life balance will ultimately create a more satisfied workforce that

contributes to productivity and success in the workplace.

The two keywords which form the core of work life philosophy are success and happiness.

Our lives are dynamic and therefore, our needs are also constantly changing. Over last

decade, work pressure has intensified. Trust and loyalty have lost their meaning. Instead,

the new workplace offers tremendous monetary benefits but no job security. Spending

much time in office is a way of life, which gives rise to increased stress level with fatal

consequences. Residence of employees is treated as a place where they drop in briefly to

sleep and for rest.

DEFINITION OF WORK LIFE BALANCE

Work/life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a satisfactory level of involvement or

fitbetween the multiple roles in a persons life. Although definitions and explanations

vary,work/life balance is generally associated with equilibrium, or maintaining an overall

sense of harmony in life. The study of work/life balance involves the examination of

peoples ability to manage simultaneously the multi-faceted demands of life.

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The core of work life balance could also be summed as achievement with

enjoyment. If an individual goes on working his or her best at work place but not really

enjoying the same then happiness and satisfaction can never be achieved. Achievement

can be viewed as motive of life while enjoyment is the fuel that drives that motive.

While we strike a work life balance, we are not merely balancing our profession

and family, we are also balancing our mental and status quo and thereby balancing our

emotional intelligence, which is the worldly ability to manage us and to handle others.

Organizations can help facilitate work-life balance for their employees through work-life

programs and training.

Achievement and enjoyment at work is a critical part of work-life balance.

Furthermore, achievement and enjoyment in the other three quadrants of one's life (e.g.

family, friends and self) is critical as well. Work cultures have often demanded a

transformation from inflexibility to flexibility. The underlying principle perhaps is the

increasing realization that certain issues pertaining to the imbalance in working life and

personal life of an individual are being overlooked.

There is a life at work and at home and also a life having space for leisure. With

globalization becoming the norm of the day, these issues seem to have taken a back seat

for quite a while. Work life 'imbalance' has over a period of time attracted concern

because of increasing problems related to employee health, monotony at work place,

declining levels of productivity and efficiency at the employee level. The imbalance also

has a negative impact in the personal life of working people-some of which have even

become social hazards- increasing number of divorces, infertility due high stress levels,

advent of nuclear families etc.

Professionals today seem to be more interested in jobs that give them increased

flexibility at work. Working people have different needs at different stages of their

working life. As a result, people strive for balance in their working hours and their

personal commitments. Work life balance has now become a sensitive issue because it

offers obvious benefits to organizations and its employees.

Successfully addressing this issue can lead to a healthy synergy in the working

environment of an organization and its employees. Organizations can look forward to a

phenomenal increase in efficiency and as an ideal place to work in - a place that endows

greater volition (flexi-timings etc.) and freedom; and a place that is fun to work in.

Employees with a working environment that is conducive.

Employee retention may also be seen as an important driver to this. Organizations now

focus on grooming their employees who are now not considered merely a work force butregarded as the 'Human Capital' of the organization. Employees with a working environment

that is conducive. Employee retention may also be seen as an important driver to this.

Organizations now focus on grooming their employees who are now not considered merely awork force but regarded as the 'Human Capital' of the organization.

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Introduction and growth of work-life balance research

History of work/life programs can be traced back to 1930s, when introduction of reduced

working hours with four shifts of six-hours instead of the usual three daily eight hours

shifts in W.K. Kellog Company resulted into enhanced employee morale and productivity(Lockwood 2003). In the 1960s, research on working mothers and dual earner families

came into light as womens participation grew significantly in the workforce (Lewis et al.

2007). Rappaport and Rappaport in 1960s researched on how in the agrarian societies

work and family were closer to each other and how industrial revolution in the 18th and

the 19th century created a divide between work and personal life and further how

electricity and machines made mass production possible which essentially meant setting

up of factories away from home . Their research studied segmentation of work and family

life due to movement of work away from home/family to the factories and cities

(Rappaport and Bailyn 1996). Rappaport and Rappaport covered a limited scope of work

and life balance. Their research was primarily concerned with work and its impact on

family and did not relate work and its impact on other aspects of life. Still, theirs was asignificant beginning and more research followed soon.

Prior to 1970s, work and family were primarily treated as separate segments (Blunsdon

et al. 2006). Interdependence of work and family was highlighted by Kanter (1977) whohighlighted aspects of work affecting family life and aspects of family life affecting work.

During the same time Pleck (1977) analyzed work-family role system as a collection of

male work role, female work role, male family role and female family role. Pleck (1977)

further stated that women experience spill-over from family role into work role and men

experience spill-over from work role into family role. The spill-over theory was furtherstrengthened by Staines (1980) who suggested that spill-over from one segment of life into

another can have both positive and negative consequences. Staines (1980) supplementedthe discussion on work-life aspects through compensation theory, according to which a

person attempts to compensate deficit in one aspect of life through additional investment

in other aspect of life. As cited by Pickering (2006), Greenhaus & Beutell (1985) gave a new

direction of work-family research by presenting the work-family conflict theory according

to which an individual has to perform different roles and family and work compete in

demanding time, attention and commitment to perform these roles. Role behaviours in

family and work thus conflict with each other, and create work-family conflict. According to

Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), as cited by Skinner and Pocock (2008), primary causes of

conflicts due to paucity of time are time related stress and paucity of time for life outside

workplace.

Initial work-life policies and programmes in the 1980s were primarily focused on women

with children

(Lockwood 2003). 1990s witnessed the shift from working mother specific narrow focus to

a broader focus on married and unmarried men and women with or without children.

Focus on work-family and family-friendly policies broadened to a larger work-life

balance discourse (Lewis et al. 2007). The theory of boundary work (Nippert-Eng 1996a;

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1996b as cited by Warhurst et al. 2008 and Nippert-Eng 1996a; 1996b as cited by Blunsdon

et al. 2006) presented a broader meaning of work-life balance through classification of

workers as segmentors andintegrators. Work-life is integrated when there is no

distinction and mental boundary between work and home and segmentation occurs when

there is a clear-cut mental boundary separating work and home. In between segmentation

and integration lies a range. An individual can be at either ends of segmentation orintegration or can be at any point of the range, actively engaged in mentally defining the

boundaries.

Need and Benefits of Work Life Balance

To understand the need of work life balance, one first needs to understand about

work life imbalance, as with the understanding of the origin, causes and effects of this

imbalance, the balancing act becomes easier. The corporate world of today is exceedingly

demanding. The work culture varies from organization to organization.

Today the deadlines are getting tighter and an individual's job is not only to match

that deadline but also to give quality output. Due to this work pressure it becomes

exceedingly difficult to maintain a family life. It becomes very difficult to have the

engagement of mind with the engagement of body. In every individual's life there are four

stakeholders- own personality, job, family and society.

It is very important to give equal importance to all the stakeholders. A person who

is a workaholic and does not enjoy his family life cannot be termed a successful person.

When a life encounters such imbalance then the peace and harmony of life vanishes and

there is an adverse effect of it on the work life too. To avoid such situation one should

always try to avoid this imbalance in life. The transition from work life imbalance to work

life balance has obvious benefits to an organization andits employee.

At the organizational level, balanced nature of work enables increase in

productivity and efficiency of employees. Employees become more creative and they

derive more satisfaction from work. Better teamwork and communication offer a

conducive working environment. This leads to enjoyment at work and increased passion

for it. Stress levels are well in commitment levels from the employee increase thereby

helping a commitment levels from the employee increase thereby helping an organization

to inherently develop a strong value system.

Work life balance on an individual level can bring phenomenal changes in his life

and can also heavily impact a society. A balanced work life is of advantage to an

employee's health. Stress levels decline drastically to healthy levels. Individuals derivemore value from their work and from life that leads to greater satisfaction and is also

seen as a mode of self-actualization.

The employee can better understand the nature of his work life balance as work

life balance can vary among individuals. It is at this point of time that an employee starts

resting immense trust in the organization and his commitment levels to the organization

increase. On the social front, the individual gains when relationships improve. The

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individual can now willingly devote more time and energy to his social commitments,

which is also vital for a happy life. Work life balance at the individual level enjoys its

success in addressing to societal issues. It helps in healing a society off its problems such

as increasing infertility among working people, increasing number of divorces and its

adverse effect on children.

Work-life Balance Theory: A macro level model

To arrive to a summary of work-life balance discourse we can refer to Guest (2002), who

presented a compilation of five individual theories to illustrate the association between

work and life outside workplace. These are segmentation; spill-over; compensation;

instrumental and conflict model. For the macro level model Presented in this paper (Figure

3), theories of work-life balance have not been looked at separate entities, but rather as

merging entities to present a broader meaning. A closer look at the popular theories of

work-life balance which have been discussed above, will exhibit a continuously expanding

domain. If the above theories are sequentially arranged and logically structured together,

we can then derive the following macro level model of work-life balance (Figure 3).

Every individuals life has multiple segments such as family, finances, social, self, spiritual,health and hobbies. In each of these life segments, an individual needs to devote certain

period of time, energy and effort while major part of daily time, energy and effort is

consumed in the work segment. Males and females play Professional roles at work place

and the difference in roles at workplace is primarily not gender dependent but is rather

decided by the qualification, experience and designation of the employee. In contrast, male

and female roles have traditionally and socially been gender defined in life segments.

Though male participation in household work, especially in dual worker couples is

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increasing, yet a significant part of the household work (including childcare) is expected to

be the domain of the female. This gender biased role differentiation at the family level

creates different work-life balance pressures for males and females. Roles in other

segments of life such as finances, social, self, spiritual, health and hobbies may primarily

not be gender defined which has been presented in the two major segments of life and

work in the proposed model.

Though life and work are two different segments, yet they are not fully segmented and at

times they tend to get integrated. For women, it is not very easy to fully segment their work

and childcare responsibilities as they are socially and traditionally expected to engage in

both. Same might be the case with a single father who has no childcare facility and is

equally engaged in work and family responsibilities. In a single earner family, the male

head earner of the family, who has work responsibilities, also needs to take care of short-

term and long-term savings and investments of the family on the basis of his/her short-

term and long-term earnings. Not only are the work and family life segmented at times and

integrated at times, they are also a source of compensation for each other, depending on a

situation. Dissatisfaction in one aspect may influence a person to engage in an effort for

higher satisfaction from other segment of life. This creates interdependence of work and

life. Further, interdependence of work and life segments is influenced by the spill over

(positive or negative) from one segment to the other. For example an employee (male or

female) who is working long hours and is under physical and mental stress due to high

intensity work will have his/her personal life segment of health affected by the work

segment. It is a classic example of negative spill over from work to life. On the other hand a

promotion or increment of an employee may positively influence his self and social

segment.

Looking at a macro level, high segmentation between work and family should bring inbetter work-life balance. For example an employee who can divide his time, energy and

effort availability efficiently and effectively 150 between the two segments will face lower

work-life conflicts. But in todays over competitive world, which continuously demandsmore time for work and career, high level of segmentation of work and family is not easy.

In some cases individuals will be able to keep life segmented from work (life not

encroaching on work time, energy and effort) or keep work segmented from life (work not

encroaching on life time, energy and effort). High integration on the other hand brings out

opposite results and might create high levels of work-life conflicts and imbalance. With

increasing demands of time for work, integration of high levels between work and life is

becoming a necessity.

While an individual is balancing between the continuum of segmenting and integrating

between work and life, he/she will also attempt to compensate loss in one segment from

results in another. An individual who has higher degree of work-life segmentation will have

lesser opportunities to compensate for loss in one segment from gains in other segment.

Where as a person who has high integration of work and life will have higher opportunities

for compensation. While the processes of segmentation, integration and compensation are

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continuing (at different degrees) work and life will create their own individual outputs,

which will be of positive and negative nature. These negative and positive outputs will tend

to spill over from segment to another, especially when the work and life have higher degree

of integration. According to the compiled model, segmentation, integration, compensation

and spillover of different degrees create positive and negative influences in the work-life of

an individual. Work-life balance thus is that stage where total sum of the influences ispositive or where the total sum is not negative.

DETERMINANTS OF WORK LIFE BALANCE

There has little standardization of what criteria would measure QWL and how it

should be measured. Most investigators tailor make an instrument for the particularpopulation they are studying.

The following dimensions have been considered more important to assess the level

of QWL in the research study.

Job as a source of satisfaction

Rewards

Challenge and Variety

Work Group

Status and Recognition

Opportunity for Growth

Freedom to take Decisions

Company Status

Clarity of Managements Views

Elements of Work Life

1. One has working life quality when he burns his work, because it is an extension ofwhat he wants to do with his life.

Work life balance starts with taking responsibility for ones own life and then it spreadsin ever-widening circles. One can live comfortably on the surface of life, which means that

he is happy and contented and doing fine. He lives up to the norms of society: good

education, good job, reasonable pay, nice home, family and children.

One can also live well in the depth of life ,i.e., deep within his soul. then he knows

what he wants in life and act accordingly. He lives out his dreams. You devote heart and

soul to whatever you are doing. The good life is good both on the surface and deep down.

2. Develop and become master in your own field.

To become a master is not a question of outdoing others. One has to conquer

himself, his inertia, his fear and incompetence. A lot of work seems to be completely

uninteresting and without challenge. Ones superior does not provide the challenges. He

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has to discover them for himself in life and at his work. Finding the challenges and

developing his commitment in crucial to obtain mastery.

3. Experience fellowship with colloquies and management and are proud of your

workplace.

The fellowship which forms an important part of working life quality, includeseverybody at work, employees, directors and management. Fellowship is found when

people pool their efforts to accomplish something they would not be able to do on their

own. It is natural that a certain division of labour will take place as different people have

different interests and skills. It therefore follows that if the division of labour is to succeed

the members of the group have to co-operate.

Fellowship also implies a personal responsibility from each member of the group.

The more you blame management for everything, the less you allow yourself the possibility

to act and control your own working life.

4. Create real values for customers and the surrounding world is producing

products and services of high quality.

All companies strive to create real value for the surrounding world (customers,

clients, users and society as a whole). Creating real value is not a matter of just money. It

starts with the individual person. Creating real value means becoming more valuable to

yourself and your surroundings. How do we become more valuable as human beings?

We can start by asking how valuable we are to ourselves, our partner, our children,

friends and ourselves? We are valuable if we are able to create a good life for our nearest

and dearest for ourselves and people in general.

We are valuable when we take responsibility for our lives and try to make it good,

good life for ourselves as well as for others.

If you owned part of the company you work for, it would be easier to think that you

have to be valuable at work. But even if joint ownership does not exist, employees can have

a great influence on the work, the way the task is solved, the quality of the product, the

sales to the customers etc. You can be responsible for influencing the company in such away that your work will result in the greatest possible value.

Therefore, working-life quality deals with these four elements. Personal quality of

life in ones work, developing mastery, experiencing real fellowship with colleagues andmanagers and contributing to the creation of real value for customers and the surrounding

world through your job.

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Causes Affecting Work life balance

Criteria for Measuring QWL

Human Resource Management experts prescribe the following criteria to measure

the degree of QWL :

1. Adequate and fair compensationThe remuneration payable to the employee

must be adequate and fair. It must provide the employee a reasonable standard

of living and should also be comparable to the pay of employees doing similarjobs. The capacity of the organisation to pay, the demand and supply of labour,

the cost of living and such other factors must be taken into account in

determining the fair pay.

2. Safe and healthy working conditionsThe level of efficiency of the employees

is much determined by the physical working conditions in the workplace.

Natural lighting and ventilation, pollution free atmosphere, reasonable hours

of work, facilities for canteen, rest room, toilet etc. are the major aspects of

physical environment.

3. Opportunity to utilise and develop human capacities - The work assigned to

every employee must enable him to work to his potentials. Steps must be takento remove the monotony element of certain jobs. Employees must also have the

opportunity to update their job knowledge and skill by undergoing refresher

training.

4. Better career prospects - Employees do not generally favour stagnation in

their career path. They look for every opportunity to move to superior positions.

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It is, therefore, the duty of every employer to provide suitable career

opportunities for his employees to secure their loyalty towards the organisation.

5. Social integration in the workforce The work environment must be such

that the employee is able to develop a feeling of self-esteem, openness, trust and

confidence. He should be able to mingle freely with his colleagues and superiors.

In other words, the work environment should be highly informal.

6. Proper balance between work and personal life - Under QWL the employee

should be able to pay equal attention to his work and domestic responsibilities.

His Family life should not be strained because of overtime work, frequent

business travel, transfer etc.

Ten Essential Management Actions for Creating Work Life Balance

1. Positive Work life Balance thinkingtreating staff as adults who are balancing their

work commitments with their family/personal responsibilities, and being positive aboutmaking changes to create a more flexible workplace in all aspects of employee relations.

The importance of modelling best practice work life balance from the top cannot beunderestimated.

2. Work Life Balance policyhave a clear policy statement which announces that theWA Health is committed to providing a flexible responsive workplace, which enables all

employees to balance work and family/personal responsibilities, which is incorporated

into core values statements and corporate plans, and supported by policy guidelines

outlining what that means for everyone in the workplace.

3. Work Life Balance employer - WA Health be promoted as an employer who respects

and cares about its employees, who recognises that they will have family and personalresponsibilities, and who provides flexiblebilities. Factors shown to impact the most upon

staff trying to balance work and life include required hours of work, a lack of flexibility in

being able to alter their working hours, time off or leave arrangements, a lack of access to

suitable childcare arrangements, and undue stresses and tensions in the workplace which

make working life more difficult and/or even unpleasant.

4.Awareness of entitlements- increase awareness of employees entitlements to accessflexible working arrangements, and what assistance and services are available to them

directly or by referral.

5. Work Life Balance surveyconduct a survey to identify staff needs in balancing workand family/ personal life responsibilities, current awareness of flexible work options, and

suitability of current working arrangements. Incorporate results into the human resource

management plan and staff work planning arrangements.

6. Implement flexible work practicesthis will provide greater flexibility to allemployees, including supervisors, managers and other senior staff, and will ensure flexible

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working hours schedules, rosters and leave arrangements to accommodate their family and

personal responsibilities, without detriment or penalty.

7. Willingness to pilot or trial initiativesall managers and supervisors to demonstrate

commitment to creating a flexible workplace that supports work life balance by

considering employees needs and requests, and be willing to pilot or trial new initiatives

and implement more flexible working arrangements.

8. Management accountabilitymanagers to be responsible and accountable forimplementing work life balance arrangements, reducing staff turnover rates and increasing

retention rates in their work area. Managers to be made accountable for decisions to refuse

employees requests for more flexible working arrangements. Retention & attractionsstrategies 3

9. Management Trainingtraining and development programs for managers should

include human resource management skills, the benefits of creating work life balance, and

how to manage a more flexible workforce.

10. Pre-exit interviewspre-exit interviews that include questions such as whetherdifficulties in balancing work and family/personal responsibilities were a contributing

factor to the employee leaving, to be conducted prior to the employee leaving. This data to

be collated analysed and reported to senior management. Where possible, alternative

working arrangements should be offered to assist employees remain with a better work

life balance.