WORK LIFE BALANCE
Author: Rohan Gosavi
MMS – Roll No. 76
Kohinoor Business School
Literature Review
The future of work
HILL, D.; IPPOLITI, P.(2022) says that no employer nor worker was prepared for what overtook the world in 2020, and its impact on organizations and individuals has varied widely. HR practitioners have worked hard to facilitate the change in leadership and worker mindset, values, and behaviour while undergoing technological and transformational acceleration in the workplace. It was a significant change for millions of people to work from home for the first time. The pandemic shifted traditional paradigms dramatically to a relationship between employer and worker in months that was simultaneously real and virtual. The changing attitudes of organizational leaders and workers about the meaning of work – and how and where work gets done – have also changed. There has rarely been an opportunity like this for HR to make a distinctive and positive difference in human capital. These shifts create significant opportunities – a “call to action” – for HR professionals to guide and lead their organizations through the inevitable changes that organizations and workers face today and into the future.
Flexible Work arrangements
SHANKER, A.(2022) explains that the paper examined the relationship between flexible work arrangements and work-life balance. It showed that flexible work arrangements improve physiological and mental wellbeing of the employees. This helps employees to strike an optimum work-life balance which leads to greater output, commitment and loyalty towards the organization. It may therefore be inferred that prevalence of flexible work arrangement creates a positive impact on work and non-work lives of the employees. Looking to the benefits that accrue from a healthy work-life balance, the policy of flexible work arrangement is a win-win situation for the employees as well as for the organization.
Work Life Balance during Covid-19
BATTUR, A. et al. (2022) states that Work-life is each of the two or three measure about controlling on when, where and the manner in which they work. WFH has shown to be favourable for the specialists particularly when this study happened to during the world pandemic circumstance of COVID-19. However, on the contrary side of it, workers who are drawing in from home truly do confront huge difficulties like with regards to the review led keeping an everyday timetable is that the fundamental issue. The after effects of this study depict that just yet 35% of respondents feel that they’re incapable to adjust their work life while performing from home. This exploration has shown that the disappointment happens inside the minds of representatives because of keeping an ordinary timetable, working for over endorsed hours and tedious family errands.
Firm Innovativeness
SHOUMAN, L. et al. (2022) states that a growing number of employees are seeking flexible work arrangements as they aspire to find the right balance between their work and personal life. Therefore, companies are trying to accept this request for flexibility as it may lead to a number of performance benefits as well as better candidates. Systematic reviews on the topic of WLB show that women are more likely to face negative career consequences due to flexible working since they are the ones responsible for domestic work and thus, will not be able or willing to adhere to the ideal worker culture, where work obligations are above everything else. Thus, the findings of the study were in alignment with past research, demonstrating that females, as both employees and individuals, are more affected by WLB strategies than men are. Furthermore, organizations that implement gender diverse leadership and work-life balance strategies enjoy a variety of advantages such as enhanced performance, organizational branding, and perceptions regarding organizational desirability by internal and external stakeholders.
A key positive Workplace attitude
SHARMA, E. et al. (2021) says that WLB policies are not fad or fashion but the way of exhibiting the perceived organizational support to the employees, which develops an obligatory feel towards the organization and developing the right employee attitude towards the organization, is like half the battle won. It further helps to enhance the productivity and thereby ensure the success of the organization. WLB policies of the organization is a wise and positive decision to combat the major issues like job dissatisfaction, absenteeism and retention paving a path to a positive attitude towards the organization in the form of commitment and citizenship behaviour strengthening the bond with the organization.
Hindustan Unilever Limited : Providing right Work Life Balance
GOUTE, A. K. et al. (2021) says that HUL believed that the future workplace would be all about flexible schedules, collaboration, and open workspaces. It thought that physical interaction, creativity, collaboration, and face-to-face discussions played a crucial role in business growth. So, even though it offered the work-from- home option during the Covid-19 pandemic, it had no intention of extending it beyond. For a long time, there had been a debate raging around work-life balance in offices in India. The new ‘Labor Codes’ would be applicable to all establishments and factories. In the context of the new labor codes, Nitin Paranjpe, chief operating officer of HUL, opined that the four-day work week had the potential to become the new normal as people started to give more importance to work-life balance.
Work Life balance among Indian Dual working parents.
BANSAL, N et al. (2017) says that their study hereby plays a crucial role in order to understand the phenomena of work-life balance with respect to dual working parents. The study contributes to develop an indigenous theory in the unique Indian context. The study provides learning to the managers and HR practitioners that they should give attention to work-life problems of the employees and provides them opportunities to integrate their work and non-work life. Organizations should design policies and practices for human resources to increase their work-life balance, which will enhance organizational overall performance. This is the limitation of the study is that it is conducted on a small sample of 21 dual working parents in Mumbai, India. The validity of the study is limited to the interpretation of the responses and the ability to identify factors related to work-life issues.
Work Life Balance for Men
EVANS, A. M et al. (2013) says that they examined men who were in counselling for work-life balance concerns. An essential element of this process is to first conceptualize that work-life balance issues are relevant and highly important to men. These issues are often characterized by countering demands, expectations, and personal values. Complicating this for many men are societal and personal expectations about career, relationships, and their roles within their families. For men, as for many women, work-life balance is an individualized dynamic. It is critical for counsellors to help male clients conceptualize and establish a sense of balance that is meaningful to them. The Integrity Model (Lander & Nahon, 2008) provided a framework for counsellors to help male clients work toward this goal. These stages were used to help male clients explore what work-life balance means to them, what contributes to this imbalance, and what a meaningful balance includes. Furthermore, the responsibility stage helped the client develop the skills to address the stress, challenges, and concerns of work-life balance. Finally, the model attempted to integrate these aspects to help the male client work toward obtaining a level of balance that is meaningful to him.
Women’s Work-Life Balance : Grounded Theory Approach
BAHRAMI, P. et al. (2023) states that due to the many benefits, it can have, the necessity of gender diversity in the workplace has been emphasized in the literature. However, there is limited knowledge about the empowerment and development of women in organizations, which has prevented women from equal development opportunities. Especially when women have multiple, and sometimes contradictory, responsibilities in the work environment and the family environment, creating a balance between work and life roles is very necessary. Therefore, the present study tried to investigate the role of mentoring in balancing women’s work-life as a tool for empowering women. This study disclosed that the active participation of women in mentoring can have positive consequences for both women and organizations.
Work Life Balance of Employees in IT Sector
PANDITA, S et al. (2017) emphasizes that Employee engagement and work-life balance are dependent and therefore it impinges on employee’s personal life, which might hold back an employee from becoming a fully engaged employee. Employee engagement, nowadays, has been found to be a dominant and desirable factor for achieving productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction. The present study reveals that management takes care of only a selected percentage of employees, although positive environment is encouraged. But to make a majority of the employees feel internally motivated and workplace more welcoming, organizations need to take care of organizational culture and climate effectively. Family plays a very pivotal role in influencing employee motivation; therefore, organizations should ensure that employee engagement policies do not affect the work-life balance of an employee. This could be achieved by enhancing employee policies related to compulsory leaves, outing for families and small employee family get together, so that the employee and his family feel internally attached to the organization.
Conclusion
Work Life Balance is a phenomena that not only abides to a certain country, gender, age group, societies. It prevails in worlds every corners of corporate world. Maintaining a proper Work Life Balance helps the individual with fewer health problems, more engagement with work, fewer burnouts, more mindfulness and many more. In the above summaries the emphasize is more given on both the genders and it shows that both the genders are affected equally irrespective of the country or the sector in which they are working. The more attention is given by the organisation towards employees work life balance the greater are the results driven. A report from International Report Organisation (ILO)(2023) upon Work life balance explains about the hours of work from several different perspectives, highlighting that, globally, over one-third of all workers are regularly working more than 48 hours per week, while a fifth of the global workforce is at the opposite end of the spectrum working short (part-time) hours less than 35 per week. It also analyses actual hours of work compared with workers’ preferred number of hours, finding that, in particular, working longer hours than desired has negative effects on workers’ reported work-life balance. Finally, the report provides an overview of working time-related crisis response measures deployed by governments and enterprises during COVID-19 pandemic, such as work sharing or short-time work and home-based telework, which helped to keep organizations functioning and workers employed. So the topic of Work Life Balance should be addressed seriously by the organisations to meet their employees needs of healthy working environment.
Reference
BAHRAMI, P. et al. (2023) Modeling the Impact of Mentoring on Women’s Work-Life Balance: A Grounded Theory Approach. Administrative Sciences (2076-3387), [s. l.], v. 13, n. 1, p. 6, 2023. DOI 10.3390/admsci13010006. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=ab53a033-01f2-33cb-add7-6379f23150c7. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
BANSAL, N.; AGARWAL, U. A. (2017) Exploring Work-Life Balance among Indian Dual Working Parents: A Qualitative Study. Journal of Management Research (09725814), [s. l.], v. 17, n. 2, p. 99–111, 2017. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=b3b4da3e-918e-3b53-9e09-635dfb83e82b. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
BATTUR, A.; KANDAGAL, P. B.(2022) Work-Life Balance While Working from Home during COVID-19 Lockdown: Changing Preferences and the Future of Work. ANWESH: International Journal of Management & Information Technology, [s. l.], v. 7, n. 2, p. 21–28, 2022. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=4234e135-a6be-30a6-8962-07d412a4f2ae. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
EVANS, A. M.; CARNEY, J. S.; WILKINSON, M. (2013) Work-Life Balance for Men: Counseling Implications. Journal of Counseling & Development, [s. l.], v. 91, n. 4, p. 436–441, 2013. DOI 10.1002/j.1556-6676.2013.00115.x. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=9dccc6bd-44fd-3a86-9043-41013fd8ca6a. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
GOUTE, A. K.; BABU, K. V.; PRASAD, N. V. (2021) Hindustan Unilever Limited: Providing the Right Work-Life Balance. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, [s. l.], v. 20, n. 4, p. 474–481, 2021. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=bfdd6375-913c-3d17-acc1-fc2754f56a71. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
HILL, D.; IPPOLITI, P.(2022) The Future of Work: Navigating the Paradigm Shifts from Work-Life Balance to Life-Work Integration. Workforce Solutions Review, [s. l.], v. 13, n. 1, p. 18–21, 2022. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=3680c639-8047-3ae5-8931-5770e0feb912. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
PANDITA, S.; SINGHAL, R. (2017) The Influence of Employee Engagement on the Work-Life Balance of Employees in the IT Sector. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, [s. l.], v. 16, n. 1, p. 38–57, 2017. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=9998b1dc-495f-304b-98b3-744645b1632f. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
SHANKER, A.(2022) Flexible Work Arrangements and its Impact on Work-Life Balance. Optimization: Journal of Research in Management, [s. l.], v. 14, n. 2, p. 23–26, 2022. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=012b9396-0a68-3103-b7ce-af69dd08c7e9. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
SHARMA, E.; JHA, M. (2021) Work-life Balance: A Key to Positive Workplace Attitudes. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, [s. l.], v. 57, n. 1, p. 99–110, 2021. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=380de596-7c7a-3e3e-a4d3-298b4f4d6758. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.
SHOUMAN, L.; VIDAL-SUÑÉ, A.; ALARCÓN ALARCÓN, A. (2022) Impact of Work-Life Balance on Firm Innovativeness: The Different Strategies Used by Male and Female Bosses. Administrative Sciences (2076-3387), [s. l.], v. 12, n. 3, p. 115, 2022. DOI 10.3390/admsci12030115. Disponível em: https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=1b4fff64-1111-331e-b365-7d8908e2d9a5. Acesso em: 7 maio. 2023.