FACTORS AFFECTING THE WORK LIFE BALANCE

Work Life Balance is a state of wellbeing that a person can reach or can
set as a goal in order to allow them to manage effectively, multiple
responsibilities at work, at home and in their community. Work life balance
is different for everyone and it supports physical, emotional, family and
community health and dose so without any stream or negative Impact.

There are several factors which are affecting the Work life balance.

The first factor is the demographic change including the increase in the
number of women in the workplace, dual career families, single parent
families and an aging population have generated on increasingly diverse
workforce and a greater need of employees to balance work and home
life. (Brough & Kelling, 2002; Frone, Russell & Cooper, 1992; Frone &
Yardley, 1996; Hobson, Delunas, & Kesic, 2001).

Conflict between work and home life has been linked to job dissatisfaction
and turnover and increasingly organizations are using work life balance
initiatives to recruit and retain key personnel.

Employees may view work life balance initiatives as enabling them to

balance their commitments with their Non-work commitment, while
employees are likely to view these initiatives as key strategies that enable
organizations to recruit and retain employees (Allen, 2001; Anderson,
Coffey & Byerly, 2002;Haar, 2004; Haar & Spell, 2001; Hill, Hawkins, Ferris
& Weitzman, 2001).

WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives include flexible work arrangements (e.g.

working from home, compressed work weeks and flexible working hours),
leave arrangements (e.g. maternity leave, paternity leave, and leave to
care for a sick dependent), dependent care assistance (e.g. on-site
daycare, subsidized daycare, eldercare, and referral to child care), and
general services (e.g. employee assistant programs, seminars and
programs related to family needs) (Frone, 2003).

WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives give employees flexibility and help ensure
that dependents are cared for whilst employees are at work. Both work-to-
family conflict and family to-work conflict can be reduced when employees
use WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives (Allen,2001; Anderson et al, 2002;
Haar & Spell, 2001; Thompson et al, 1999),but not all employees make
use of the initiatives that are available to them even when those
initiatives would be helpful. The present research aimed to identify
demographic and workplace factors that influence the extent to which
employees use available WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives and whether the
use of these initiatives impact on work-life balance and other outcomes.

Demographic factors affecting the use of WORK LIFE

BALANCE initiatives.
While consistent age differences in the overall number of WORK LIFE
BALANCE initiatives used have not been found, consistent patterns in the
extent to which different initiatives are used at different ages have been
identified. Career stage models suggest that younger employees are likely
to have fewer external demands on their time as they have not
established their families to the same extent as mid-life employees and
may not have the challenge of caring for aging dependents. Older
employees have been found to make more use of dependent care support
such as childcare, paid maternity and paternity leave and eldercare than
younger employees (Allen; 2000)

Older employees will use more WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives relating to
dependent care than younger employees. Younger employees have
entered the workforce at a time when employability is valued more than
job security and may place a greater value on non-work commitments or
developing their careers through ongoing education (Finegold, Mohrman &
Spreitzer, 2002).Younger employees have been found to make more use
of initiatives such as fl exitime, compressed work weeks, telecommuting,
and working from home than older employees (Allen, 2000; Thompson et
al, 1999).

Younger employees will make more use of work flexibility initiatives than
older employees. Women tend to use more WORK LIFE BALANCE
initiatives than men (Allen, 2001; Thompson et al, 1999). Compared to
employed fathers, employed mothers were more likely to use childcare,
flexible working hours, job sharing and the opportunity to work at home
(Department of Labour, 1999; Frone & Yardley, 1996).

Female employees will use more WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives than
male employees. Employees with dependents have been found to have a
greater need for WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives and to make more use of
these initiatives than those without dependents (Brough & Kelling, 2002;
Thompson, Beauvais & Lyness,1999). Frone and Yardley (1996) found the
age of the youngest child was significantly related to the importance of
initiatives such as flextime, compressed workweeks, childcare and
working from home but not to reduced hours or job sharing, while the
number of dependents was significantly related to the importance of
childcare.

Organizational factors affecting the use of WORK LIFE

BALANCE initiatives.
For employees to use of WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives they must first be
aware that those initiatives are offered by the organization. Awareness of
initiative availability is likely to be associated with initiative use.

Employees who are aware of the availability of more WORK LIFE BALANCE
initiatives will use more WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives. The availability of
WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives does not always mean that these
initiatives will be used. There may be unspoken rules, peer pressure or
perceived negative consequences from the organization that inhibit
employees from using available initiatives (Kirby & Krone, 2002).
Thompson et al, (1999) investigated the effect of workplace culture on
work-family initiative use and found that managerial support, perceived
career damage and organizational time demands predicted the use of
work family initiatives. There is a need for further research into the
organizational factors that influence employees use of available WORK
LIFE BALANCE initiatives.

Thompson et al, (1999) found that managerial support was the strongest
predictor of WORK LIFE BALANCE initiative use. Management can
influence hours worked through the timing of meetings, deadlines, the
scheduling of training and holidays, monitoring work, and role modeling
long hours at work (Perlow, 1998). In contrast, family-supportive
managers may provide staff with the flexibility to meet external
commitments or may model good work-life balance.

Managerial behavior can therefore influence the use of available initiatives

or provide the flexibility to balance work and non-work commitments
without using these initiatives (Anderson et al, 2002).

Impact of the use of WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives on outcomes

The availability of work life balance Initiatives can minimize conflict

between employees work and home domains, which can in turn reduce
employee intention to turnover and enhance commitment to the
organization (Allen,2001; Thompson et al, 1999).

Employees using more WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives will report lower
levels of work-to-family and family-to-work conflict than employees who
use fewer WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives.
Employees using more WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives will report higher
levels of commitment to the organization than employees who use fewer
WORK LIFE BALANCE initiatives. Employees using more WORK LIFE
BALANCE initiatives will report lower levels of intention to leave the
organization than employees who use fewer WORK LIFE BALANCE
initiatives.

Job Satisfaction and Work Life Balance

Spector (1997) emphasized that Job Satisfaction is the degree with which
people like their jobs where some people enjoy work and find it to be a
central part of life and others hate to work and do so only because they
must. In other terms, Job satisfaction simply means that how people feel
about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs. It is the extent to
which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs. As it is
generally assessed, job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable. In the past,
job satisfaction was approached by some researchers from the
perspective of need fulfillment means whether the job met the
employees physical and psychological needs or not (e.g., Porter, 1962:
Wolf, 1970).

However, this approach has been de-emphasized because today most of

the researchers tend to focus attention on cognitive processes rather on
underlying needs. The attitudinal perspective has become the
predominant one in the study of Job Satisfaction (Spector, 1997).

The term of Job satisfaction is referred by different researcher in a

different way. Borah (2012) referred it to a pleasurable or positive
emotional feeling of an employee whereas Gupta and Sethi referred that
Job satisfaction may be termed as a reaction of an individual towards job
(Gupta A., and Sethi J.A., 2012, p.58). According to Green, Even though
the definitions vary, a commonality among them seems to be that job
satisfaction is a job-related emotional reaction.

A job-related emotional reaction can be a sign of an employees

emotional wellness, can be affected by other employees behavioral
influences, and can be an indicator of overall organizational operations;
therefore, it is important to clarify the various levels of job satisfaction and
the factors that it comprises (Green; Spector, 1997).

Employers have also attempted to focus on employees job satisfaction

considering that it has a relationship between the survival of an
organization and the continual intellectual drain resulting from employee
departure (Garber, 2003;Middlebrook, 1999; Murphy, 2003). Select skills
that employees bring to their positions within the organization, as well as
the knowledge employees acquire over time, are all lost when employees
quit. In fact, sometimes key employees and company leaders leave a
revolving door of knowledge and skills (Reed, 2001). Harkins (1998a)
estimated that turnover can cost as much as three to five times the
annual salary of the employees involved, and he stressed the importance
for leaders of addressing this cost for companies. Employee withdrawal
leads business leaders to examine ways to cut costs in tighter labor
markets because turnover is a significant profit killer in organizations
(Hacker, 2003; Joinson, 2000).

As mentioned, some job satisfaction factors that may lead to turnover

have been identified. A brief review of these positive and negative job
satisfaction factors are important for many organizations to understand
the problems and costs incurred by employee departure.

However, Borah further quoted that employees positive attitude towards

their job is very much essential to increase productivity of an organization
whereas balancing the demands of work and family life are associated
with employees physical and mental health as well as occupational
variables such as job satisfaction, performance, absenteeism, and
turnover intentions (Aquinas, 2007). Human nature is very complex and
required to be managed well by understanding their personal and as well
as work environment issues.

Most of the studies reflect work-life balance measure on individual

appraisals regarding the level of satisfaction or success with the balance
between work and family life (Voydanoff, 2005). However, Konrad and
Mangel (2000) emphasized that job satisfaction can be increased by
implementing work-life balance policies by reducing conflict between work
and family. In other term, satisfaction creates confidence, loyalty and
ultimately improves the quality output from the employees (Tietjen and
Myers, 1998). There is a need to have work environment in such a way
that employees can reach their full potential and enjoy their Job
Satisfaction.

Turnover and Work Life Balance

Recruiting and retaining highly skilled staff is a challenge facing all types
and sizes of organizations in the 21 st century. It requires taking a strategic
approach to the attraction, selection, development and retention of
employees, in order to meet staff, business and societal needs (Dunne,
2007).

As revealed by researcher Murphy (2003) Preserving an organization's

intellectual capital due to loss of key employees is a global problem.
However, there is lower level of turnover intention when organizational
socialization is prominent and an adequate range of opportunities that
satisfy career aspirations exist within the organization (Bigliardi et al.,
2005). However, control of turnover and absenteeism is observation of
employees behavior and performance to detect any changes representing
job dissatisfaction (Levin and Kleiner, 1992).

Studies indicate that employee turnover increases if there is mismatch

between management and employees (Dawley, Andrews & Bucklew,
2010). Employees cant enjoy their job if they are working with tactless
and inflexible manager (Muhammad Sajjad et. al, 2013). Workplace
flexibility helps to improve overall employee flexibility and empowerment
to have work-life balance which reduces turnover. (Emerald article, Human
Resource Management International Digest, Vol.16 Iss: 6, 2008).

Researchers found that against the odds, a public sector organization can
attract and retain a high quality workforce in a highly competitive market
(Curson J.Y., and Skidmore T., 2010).

However, as far as professional women and their quitting from the jobs
are concerned Balasubramanian L. further quotes that another important
reason for professionals, especially women quitting their job is relocation
after marriage, or the call of being a mother. Whereas, as revealed by
Comfort et al., (2003), a satisfied workforce may be valuable because
employees are then less likely to be absent and consequently affect the
bottom line whereas Clutter buck D.(2003) had his view point that
overwork causes stress- related absenteeism, poor retention levels, low
creativity, appalling customer service and unethical employees behavior.
Clutter buck D. also quoted that [the] companies offering positive policies
on Work-Life Balance also benefit from shorter absences by people on
maternity leave.

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