The Theory of Work Life Balance and Human Resource Management

Abstract

 What is work life balance in a organization?

The author in this essay presents the theory of work life balance and human resource management in the organizations. The essay is based on the case study of flexibility and work life balance. Human resource management is the management of employees in an organization to accomplish the goals of the company and also to increase the employee satisfaction. Work life balance is creating a balance between work and personal life. It includes working in office along with spending time with family. It is a choice between career and personal life.  Flexibility means being flexible in organization regarding the working hours. It also means choosing a career of personal choice. At present many organizations and managers have started using the theory of work life balance and flexibility for their personal benefit and have shifted from original paradigm. Excessive working hours at office leads to increase in stress and it has great impact on the health of people. The number of hours or the time that they can spend with their employees reduces. During the economic downturn employers can facilitate work life balance through proper communication and compensation to the employees that are being laid off. Creating a balance between work and personal life is essential in order to increase productivity and happiness of employees.

The primary aim of the essay is to analyze the theories on human resource management and work life balance and examine its effectiveness on global environment. The essay discusses the theories on flexibility and work life balance. It analyzes the effect of working extra hour on its employees and organization and how it can be harmful. Human resource management is the study of the management of employees and stakeholders in the organization working together to achieve one common goal and target. The essay is based on the case study title ‘flexibility and work life balance: who benefits’. The purpose of the essay is to answer the questions based on the case study. It analyzes the how employers could facilitate work life balance during economic downturns. It also discusses the implication of excessive working hours on the performance of employee and managers. The author will use various theories to support its argument and analyzes the case study to present its argument. Work life balance prioritizing the balance between work and lifestyle.  The essay discusses how organizations achieve work life balance keeping the interest of both employers and employees (Smeaton et al.,  2015).

Body

Human resource management is the management of employees and human resources in an organization. It includes management of people, recruitment, training, and development, performance, providing orientation and developing skills of its employees. It is designed o maximize the performance of employees in the organization. The responsibility of the human resource team in an organization is to maintain employees, recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, training and development and workforce planning. The main purpose of the human resource manager in an organization is to examine and analyze that whether all the employees in an organization is satisfied or not. It focuses on maximizing the productivity of employees in an organization. The main purpose is to manage human capital in an organization. The responsibility of human resource management is also to ensure the human safety of employees in an organization. The task if human resource management is to hire the employees that posses some value that is essential to the organization to accomplish its goal (Bratton & Gold, 2015). 

Work life balance is creating a balance between work and human lifestyle. It means creating a balance of employees so that they can earn adequate income without hampering the responsibilities of employees towards its family.  Work life balance is lifestyle choice. The theory of work life balance is to prioritize between career, ambition work and lifestyle, health, leisure, family and other relationships development. Managers of various organizations often indulge its employees to work for extra hour even without paying them for the job. The research shows that working extra hour accounts for a total of seventy one billion dollar unpaid work each year. When the employees in an organization have to give an extra working hour in an organization they have to compromise the hour that they could have given to their family and leisure activities. It is the relationship between work and commitment to other relationships in life. Balance of work life and personal life is essential for employees. It is an essential tool for stress management and is also essential to increase the productivity of the organization as well as its employees. Work life balance includes leave arrangement is an organization so that employees can five some time to family and other personal relationships. In order to increase productivity it is essential for then people to take breaks and go on a vacation.  Creating a right balance between work and life will increase efficiency by giving new positivity to life (Gangwisch, 2014).

The main key feature of work life balance program includes giving flexibility to its employees to choose the career of their own choice.   It is essential for the human resource manager to understand the fact that different people in organizations have different needs to manage and maintain its work life balance. Work life policy programs in Australia includes flexible hours, part time work, job sharing, working from home, employee assistance program, relocation service and granting casual laves so that employees can invest time for personal needs and family time as well. The organizations should also include granting sick leaves so that people who are sick can take rest and get well to work for next day with greater enthusiasm. The main benefits of work life balance programs in organizations are that it helps the employees boost its morale so that people give hundred percent to their work and are satisfied with their work. It also helps in improving the customer service and customer satisfaction along with employee satisfaction (Healey, 2008). Maintain a good work life balance improves the productivity, efficiency, profitability, and accountability of the organization. If the working hours are flexible in an industry or organization then many efficient workers would like to work that will automatically help the firm increase its efficiency and productivity. The major challenges with the work life balance program are that it becomes difficult for the organizations to adapt the change. The conflict between the working groups arises in an organization. The valuable time of the managers in an organization is wasted since they have to research and re write the human resource policies according to the demand of its employees (Jones et al., 2013).

Flexible work arrangement is the situation or schedule that is different from the traditional schedule in the work place. It is different from the normal working pattern in an organization. Flexible work arrangement includes flexible shift timings at office, flexible work locations and flexible work arrangements. It also includes change in the patterns of work such as split shifts or job sharing. The organizations or companies cannot reject the request of flexible work arrangement from some of its employees unless it can present any visible business grounds for its rejection. Only employees who have worked in an organization for a year or greater can request for a flexible work arrangement. Flexible work arrangement includes flexi time that includes flexibility in working hours or shift timing, part time work and job sharing where the employees in an organization divide the task. The main benefits of flexible working hours in an organization is that it has more control over time, and also allows the employees to spend more time with their family (Vandello et al., 2013). Flexibility work arrangement also benefits the employers as it can make more efficient use of facilities such as desks and computers. The main issues with flexibility are trust and supervision, communication, and fairness. The human resource manager should ensure that the policies on hours of work are clear and they should also keep track of hours worked in by the employees. Flexible work arrangement also includes work locations and working from home by using telecommunication and other resources. It is essential to consider whether flexible work arrangement is beneficial or not (Allen et al., 2013).  

Many organizations have realized the importance and benefits of flexible work arrangement. According to some recent research seventy nine percent of the organizations are indulging in providing greater work flexibility. Many organizations are introducing part time work and flexible working hours to boost the employee morale and efficiency of the firm. Flexibility is essential in organizations as it is critical part of employee engagement strategy and is required to develop diverse high work performance in workplace. Flexibility is also essential for employers as it reduces the cost. It also provides employees to spend more time with their family. The adoption of flexibility and work life balance program benefits the employees and employers and also requires the employees to work for longer hours sometimes. This is due to the requirements that the organizations set that make it compulsory for the organizations to work for longer hours. If flexibility work arrangements are misused by both the employers and employees then it can have negative outcome on organization. Most of the people in Australia are dissatisfied with the balance between work life and non work life. The research shows that many people have to work for extra hour without even being paid for it. They cannot give the valuable time to their family. Most of the people work for forty eight hours and sixty percent of the people do not take regular holidays (Masuda et al., 2012).

The flexibility of work arrangement has altogether moved to a new pattern according to Juliet Bourke. Flexibility instead of spreading positivity at workplace is involved in spreading negativity moving away from original paradigm. Flexibility at work arrangement now means how the employers in an organization can now get more out of fewer people. The main aim of the employers in an organization is to cost minimization and profit maximization. When fewer people come to office the cost of providing them laptop and other resource reduces. So they engage employees in getting them worked for longer hours. The employers are now focusing on reducing the work week and work arrangement in order to retain the workers. Flexibility is not always beneficial every time as the employers puts the extra workload on the other people in order to compensate the flexibility applied by the other. In this case the workload on some people increases that leads to unbalance in work and lifestyle (Darcy et al., 2013).

During the time of economic downturn the working hours of many employees is reduced so that they can balance work and life through flexible work arrangement. The salaries and wages are then paid according to the time that they deliver. But in organizations where the work culture is strong organizations realize that it would not be beneficial for the firms to reduce the working hour. Instead they lay off the workers who are not productive in nature during the economic downturn. Now since the firms lay off the workers it is difficult to find the employees with good talent. Employers often put work pressure in those employees who are committed towards work so this reduces the work life balance leading to less time availability. The policy of getting more work done form employees is not productive as the people often have to work under string stress condition. Hence in the view of saving money the firm often faces loss due to low productivity from employees. Flexibility also sometimes increases the cost for employees. In the view to save time and travel cost few employees engage in working from home. This often leads to increase in cost as most of the time they have to teleconference that leads to lots of wastage on money and cost. To reap the maximum benefit from the policy of more out of less the organizations have to be efficient.  For this the organizations have to be structurally efficient and the job roles need to redesign.  Due to flexibility and more out of less policy the talented employees are not properly absorbed. Flexibility has moved from its original paradigm to an extent that is necessary and inevitable. Proper management of the organization could lead to proper efficient work force having work life balance (Hill et al., 2012).

Excessive working hours in an organization has negative impact and implication on both managers and employees. It has negative implication on productivity on employees and managers. Excessive working hours can be in form of stretched long working hours, overtime or extended hours per day. Long working hours not only hamper the employees and managers but also the people associated with them that includes family members, and community. It hampers the employee performance and social abnormalities as well. Long working hours result in increase in stress, sleeplessness, fatigue, and health issues that has effect on the performance of the employees and organizations. Increased working hours also posses the problems for managers as it leads to increase in production cost and production of cheap quality of goods and services. Increase in work hours can lead to increase in health problems such as lower back injury, high blood pressure, mental issues, stress, fatigue and higher suicide rates. Increased working hours also increases the risks of safety( Fursman & Zodgekar, 2009).. Most importantly increase in working hours leads to decrease in productivity. Studies show that if people work more than sixty hours in a week the productivity decreases by twenty five percent. Increased working hours leads to increase in stress that in turn leads to increase in customer dissatisfaction. The main result is seen in the fall in the quality of goods and services (Fagan et al., 2012).

A study in United States showed that as the overtime of work increases by ten percent the productivity decreases by 2.4 percent. There are many reasons for lower productivity because of the increase in the working hours ("Flexible working arrangements – Flexibility in the workplace - Fair Work Ombudsman", 2016). One of the reasons is fatigue. When employees are too tired and stressed physically and mentally they don’t perform the tasks to their best ability. This results in the fall in productivity. When the work hour increases then the work rate slows down and unproductive time increases. Long working hours also leads to increase in absenteeism that directly hampers the productivity of the organization. It is not only the employers and employees that get affected but also the community because people get irritated working for longer hours so this has impact on the behavior that they show to society.Acoording to Saltmarsh & Randell-Moon 2014).If the people are not provided with proper incentives for working extra it leads to demoralization of employees. In this case the administrative officers and higher authority in the organization should listen to the grievances of its employees and try to make them understand their roles and responsibilities. Manager should encourage the workers by appraising the performance and work of employees. Extra incentives should be given to the people who are using their valuable time in offices by investing the valuable time. Time management techniques needs to be established in organizations in order to mitigate the ill effects of overtime on health and productivity. Managers should encourage vertical and horizontal communication in organizations. The employees should be well motivated in order to want him to work for extra hour. Working overtime has many ill effects especially on the productivity and efficiency of the organization. Performance of employees and managers will increase due to overtime only when the  workers are motivated and appraised for their performance by giving them extra monetary value and incentive (Christensen & Schneider, 2015).

Acoording to (Stavrou & Ierodiakonou, 2015).During economic recession many organizations tend to lay off workers. It is essential for the organization to manage the remaining work force after lay off. The managers should keep in mind that the work and life balance of its employees is preserved or not. Work life balance during economic downturns can also be taken care of by the managers by providing monetary compensation to the ones who are being terminated for no valid reason. Managers can also use the insurance policies and retirement plans to benefit the employees and maintain their work life balance. The remaining employees in the business operations are the ones who would bring the organizations into competitive force. So these employees should be compensated by the managers so that they give hundred percent in their work to resolve the competitiveness of firm. It is essential for the managers to understand the grievances of employees and take proper financial steps so that the period of recession is mitigated. It is essential to make the employees understand the positive impact of flexible working hours on personal life as well as organization. The employees who are being laid off should be made to understand the reason why they are being laid off and they too are essential part of the organization. It is essential for the organization to convey the employees that as soon as the organization will have enough resource they will be employed in the organization and will also be given extra incentive in order to keep them motivated. Proper allocation of resources in an organization is essential during economic downturn.  Time management is essential to balance career with lifestyle. Flexibility work arrangement should be adopted in organizations so that the employees are satisfied and they can give time to their family as well along with work.  It is essential for the employees to see everyone in organization equally. Discrimination of any kind is harmful.  Proper work decision is essential for effective utilization of time and resources. Work life balance during the time of economic recession or downturn can be achieved by proper forming proper policies and strategies. The main responsibility is that of the human resource manager (Perlow & Kelly,  2014).  

Conclusion:  

Work life balance and flexibility at work arrangement both has pros and cons. If it is managed properly then its result will benefit both the organization and employees. With the change in tradition the work load is also increasing. There are many ill effects of working overtime and main hamper is on productivity of employees and organization. In order to increase profitability and productivity it is essential for the workers to maintain the family as well as career. This can be maintained by properly managing time. The main role of human resource manager is to manage the employees and keep them motivated so that together they can work to achieve the goal of the firm. Both the employers and employees should work together to achieve one common goal set by the organization.

References:

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