...Dissertation Draft “Work/Life Balance” PREPARED BY: Mbogo .W.A (Moi) © 2011 Abstract This study is used to determine the cultural readiness of employers and employees for work/life initiatives. There are strategies that have been used to evaluate the importance of work life balance and culture through considering the perceived managerial support that affects the employee’s decision to devote time for family and the job. It has been observed that organizational time puts a lot of emphasis through time demands and expectations that may distort or interfere with family responsibilities. In this study, the main focus is to identify how work life balance and family benefits are merged and translated to the benefits that workers get that are translated to greater commitments, reduced work/family conflicts, and reduced intention to leave. The study results will be used to confirm the issue of work life initiatives, such as the work/family culture that is related to work attitudes as well as perceived managerial supports that are linked with less intention to move away from work places. Furthermore, this research will study the work/life balance and its implications on both for men and women, focusing on the differences in marital status and managerial positions to understand the relationship between gender, managerial level and work/life balance. The paper aims at exploring the idea of work/life balance that incorporates the benefits that both employers and employees...
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...Executive Summary This assignment was made to explain and find the truth about the concept of work life balance which is meaningful for the worker. As many researcher and people arguing about this concept, The author comes to the decision which is disagree that work life balance is important for the worker. As a concept, the work life balance can be said has a great effect for the worker, but in real life work life balance was difficult to maintain. Not all worker can contribute their time only for working without having their socializing, and leisure. What more important nowadays is their health/ life. Life was more important than the work. Their life will always bigger than their work, trying to balance them is a failure method no matter how passionate we are about it or how successful we become. In fact, the more passionate we are about it, the bigger the life has to get. If we work too much, our personal life will be suffer. Work and life aren’t measure on the same scale because one is a subset of the other. Table of Content 1. Executive Summary............................................................................ 7 2. Introduction ........................................................................................ 9 3. Definition ............................................................................................ 9 4. Conclusion ............................................................................................
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...2003 Research Quarterly ❶y❸❹ Work/Life Balance Challenges and Solutions Nancy R. Lockwood HR Content Expert y SOCIETY FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SHRM Research ❶y❸❹ 2003 SHRM®Research Quarterly Abstract In organizations and on the home front, the challenge of work/life balance is rising to the top of many employers’ and employees’ consciousness. In today’s fast-paced society, human resource professionals seek options to positively impact the bottom line of their companies, improve employee morale, retain employees with valuable company knowledge, and keep pace with workplace trends. This article provides human resource professionals with an historical perspective, data and possible solutions—for organizations and employees alike—to work/life balance. Three factors—global competition, personal lives/family values, and an aging workforce— present challenges that exacerbate work/life balance. This article offers the perspective that human resource professionals can assist their companies to capitalize on these factors by using work/life initiatives to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Work/Life Balance: Challenges and Solutions I n a society filled with conflicting responsibilities and commitments, work/life balance has become a predominant issue in the workplace. Three major factors contribute to the interest in, and the importance of, serious consideration of work/life balance: 1) global competition; 2) renewed interest in personal...
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...examines why work-life balance is essential for every employee. Some of the reasons why organizations should maintain a work-life balance for all the employees include stress reduction. It increases the ability of the employees to deliver while at the work place. It creates harmony between the private life of an employee and their work-life. It raises employee commitment in the organization, therefore, increasing productivity. It enhances flexibility among employees in the work place. A proper work-life balance also helps an organization attract and retain employee competitive employees in the organization. The paper also examines the different strategies that can be used by organizations to ensure better work-life balance for the employees. They include offering employees adequate vacation. Organizations can offer flextime for the employees as it enables them, enjoy their vacations. Proper staffing also ensures employees are not over worked. Introduction Work-life balance refers to a concept that entails prioritizing between career and lifestyle where lifestyle includes family, leisure or pleasure. The work-shy refer to the employees who are never inclined to work. It refers to a concept in Human Resource Management (HRM) that enables employees to manage their energy and time between work and other aspects of life. It involves efforts by an employee to create time for personal activities and the workplace. It is not true to state that work-life balance is...
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...- QUALITY OF WORK LIFE-AN OVERVIEW MEANING OF QWL Quality of work Life is a Person’s life. It covers a person’s feelings about every dimension of work including economic rewards and benefits, security, working condition, Organizational and interpersonal relations and its intrinsic meaning in person’s life. Therefore we can simply say Q.W.L. is a concern not only to improve life at work, but also life outside work. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS OFQUALITY OF WORK LIFE First definition 1969-1972 Quality of Work Life = Variable Second definition 1969-1975 Quality of Work Life = Approach Third definition 1972-1975 Quality of Work Life = Methods Fourth definition 1975-1980 Quality of Work Life = Movements Fifth definition 1979-1982 Quality of Work Life = Everything Sixth definition Quality of Work Life = Everything ORIGION OF THE CONCEPT * After Industrial Revolution, the importance of human factor reduced because of the vast mechanization. Various problems like job dissatisfaction, boredom, bsenteeism, lack of commitment etc came up. * Most management theories give emphasis on production, manipulating the skills of employees. * Tavy stock Institute of Human Relations me research on “workers problems in Industrial world” and they produced a study approach called Socio-technical system in which they gave great importance to “ job design” to satisfy human needs adequately and the need for Q.W.L. in an organization was emphasized. Quality of Work Life plays a vital...
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...Seven Categories of Work-Life Effectiveness Successfully Evolving Your Organization’s Work-Life Portfolio • Caring for Dependents • Health and Wellness • Workplace Flexibility • inancial Support F for Economic Security • Paid and Unpaid Time Off • Community Involvement • liciting Management E Buy-In and Transforming Organizational Culture C1 Defining Work-Life Effectiveness Work-life refers to specific organizational practices, policies and programs that are guided by a philosophy of active support for the efforts of employees to achieve success within and outside the workplace. These employersponsored initiatives comprise a strategic framework referred to as the worklife portfolio, a key element of the organization’s total rewards strategy to attract, motivate and retain employees. Career Build Your Portfolio Step One: Assess your present work-life situation It is easy to construct the outline of your organization’s existing work-life portfolio by performing a simple inventory of the policies, practices and programs currently offered within each category of the work-life portfolio. A useful resource for this activity is the Work-Life Audit, available on the Alliance for Work-Life Progress website. www.awlp.org/pub/selfaudit.pdf he term “work-life” refers to the T intersection of self (the worker), career (work), family and community. Self Life Family Community Creating and Sustaining a Successful Portfolio Building...
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...Sociologica http://asj.sagepub.com/ Work-Life 'Balance' in Europe Rosemary Crompton and Clare Lyonette Acta Sociologica 2006 49: 379 DOI: 10.1177/0001699306071680 The online version of this article can be found at: http://asj.sagepub.com/content/49/4/379 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Nordic Sociological Association Additional services and information for Acta Sociologica can be found at: Email Alerts: http://asj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://asj.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://asj.sagepub.com/content/49/4/379.refs.html >> Version of Record - Nov 13, 2006 What is This? Downloaded from asj.sagepub.com at University of Huddersfield on October 7, 2012 ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2006 Work–Life ‘Balance’ in Europe Rosemary Crompton and Clare Lyonette Department of Sociology, City University, London, UK abstract: Although work–life ‘balance’ is an EU policy priority, within Europe there are considerable variations in the nature and extent of supports that national governments have offered to dual-earner families. In general, the Nordic welfare states offer the highest level of supports, although other countries, such as France, have historically offered extensive childcare supports to working mothers. We examine national variations in reported levels of work–life conflict, drawing upon questions fielded...
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...Balance Between Work and Life “Balance is beautiful.” - Miyoko Ohno, Japanese bridge designer Article by Leo Babauta I have a close friend named Norm who is a great photographer and a great person in general … recently he was telling me that all he does is work. That might sound familiar to some of you — I’ve certainly been there at different points in my life, although these days I have to say that I’ve found a pretty good balance between all the important things in my life, including work, family, and other things I’m interested in. Norm asked me to write a post about work-life balance, because although I think Norm is pretty happy with his life, he’s interested in expanding his life beyond work. I think it’s an interesting question that most of us have to address at some point or other. Work *Is* Life, To Some Extent The first thing to point out is that work isn’t separate from life — it’s a part of it. For some people, it’s not a fun part of life, but for others, it’s a passion. Either way, it’s a part of our lives, good or bad. Of course, when people talk about a work-life balance, they mean that we should find a balance between work and our personal lives, which is definitely true. But it’s important to realize that if work is really something you love, you don’t need to cut it short in order to spend more time at home in front of the television. So the key is to remember that what we’re looking for is a balance between the things we love — not just work and the rest...
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...feeling as they go about their work, why it matters, and how managers can use this information to improve job performance by Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer Inner Work Life Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance I 72 Harvard Business Review | May 2007 | hbr.org Leigh Wells knowledge work from its people, then you undoubtedly appreciate the importance of sheer brainpower. You probably recruit high-intellect people and ensure they have access to good information. You probably also respect the power of incentives and use formal compensation systems to channel that intellectual energy down one path or another. But you might be overlooking another crucial driver of a knowledge worker’s performance – that person’s inner work life. People experience a F YOUR ORGANIZATION DEMANDS hbr.org | May 2007 | Harvard Business Review 73 Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance constant stream of emotions, perceptions, and motivations as they react to and make sense of the events of the workday. As people arrive at their workplaces they don’t check their hearts and minds at the door. Unfortunately, because inner work life is seldom openly expressed in modern organizations, it’s all too easy for managers to pretend that private thoughts and feelings don’t matter. As psychologists, we became fascinated a decade ago with day-to-day work life. But our research into inner work life goes well beyond intellectual...
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...My most relevant learning experience of the work life balance workshop There has not much time elapsed since we started to get the first impressions about business life and the way to be successful in it but it’s already quite apparent that there is no option than hard work if you want to make it to the top. It is required that students act very responsible with their time and manage to fit it all in. As one consequence of this, people often tend to neglect spending time with family and friends because they’re strongly focused on their success in business later on. When the pressure leading from exams, presentations or studying itself gets too high it might be dangerous not to recognize some warning signals of the own mind and body. To avoid this but to be successful either way there are some strategies which we were introduced to during the different presentations of the Work-Life-Balance workshop. The presentation I liked most was the one of Jasmin Nordiek with the topic „Cope with stress“ because it was great to get an insight into somebody’s personal experience and the development of her way of thinking. She started her career with the same goal as many others: gaining a leading position in a big enterprise. She climbed up the career ladder successfully and finally her mission was accomplished. She was where most of the students at this university hope to be someday - in a leading position and enjoying all of the comforts it was bringing with it. After a while this wasn’t...
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...Employee’s Perception of Quality of Work Life: The concept of the ‘Quality of Working Life’ is imprecise and thus problematic to operationalize. Historically, it can be traced back to the quality of working life movement that largely consisted of a number of industrial psychologists in response to a perceived disenchantment with the organization of work in the late1960s and early 1970s (Walton, 1973; Stjernberg, 1977; Littler and Salaman, 1984). QWL has also been associated with organizational changes aimed at increasing the levels of job enlargement (greater horizontal task flexibility) and job enrichment (greater vertical task flexibility including the taking on of new responsibilities including those formerly undertaken by supervisory or managerial personnel). Crucially, the idea is that of attaining higher levels of participation and thereby motivation by improving the attractiveness of the work itself rather than through improving the terms and conditions of work (Herzberg et al, 1959: 52). Walton (1973) has given focus on the following factor of QWL: · A just rewards system with minimum guarantees; · A safe and healthy physical and psychosocial work environment; · Job design based on the needs of both workers and their organisations; · Employment security with prospects for internal career advance; · A working climate with a positive social atmosphere and social integration; · Clearly articulated individual right; · Worker participation in decision marking; ...
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...struggling to chart a path towards success in our careers and fulfill our goals in all other aspects of our lives. We have lots of things to fit into our lives. We need to achieve our objectives at work as well as at home, but the problem is that there isn’t enough time. A balanced life means different things to different people. It’s about living a lifestyle that nurtures a person physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. For most people, juggling the demands of a career and a personal life is an ongoing challenge. Why so much importance has been given to this area? What has changed now? Traditionally in India, we had joint family system where men of the house used to go for work and women used to take care of the children and the home and there used to be perfect balance. Nowadays the joint family system is slowly eroding and more nuclear families are emerging. Since both husband and wife go to work, there is nobody to take care of children. Work has taken over the top priority of many people. But the problem is too much focus is on work and there is less time for home. This imbalance causes stress. We all know that stress is the cause for many illnesses. So there is a need to strive for a healthy balance. When we feel satisfied with both personal and professional life, it can be said we are...
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...straight at a leading Citybank had admitted that he felt “pressurised” to succeed. Moritz Erhardt, 21, was found dead as he neared the end of a gruelling seven-week placement with the Bank of America Merrill Lynch's (BAML) investment bank division. He collapsed in the shower in his student flat in East London amid claims that he had worked throughout the night eight times in two weeks in a bid to impress company bosses, returning home at 6am on three consecutive days. It has been claimed he suffered an epileptic fit. In an online profile, Mr Erhardt, from Germany, revealed that he had developed a tendency to be “over ambitious” at an early age. He said: “I have grown up in a family that expected me, in whatever respect, to excel in life. By implication, I felt somehow pressurised. However, I did not intend to belie my parents’ expectations. “Therefore, I have become a highly competitive and ambitious nature from early on.” Members of internet message boards used by City staff claimed that other interns had been ordered not to discuss Mr Erhardt’s death. One poster wrote: “One of the best interns in IBD BAML — 3 all nighters — didn’t turn up, colleagues went to find him.” Another claimed that someone who worked on the same floor as Mr Erhardt had told him: “He was working very, very, very long hours (as in 4 days spent almost without sleeping).” One intern who lived in his block said: “Apparently he pulled eight all-nighters in two weeks. They get you working crazy...
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...2.2.1 The relationship between Family flexibility and Work-life balance According to (Kenny 2002) is Work-life balance and Family flexibility seeks to find out what difference is there between work and life, so that you can feel comfortable with work and family responsibilities. Sometimes for the life of public and private professionals are 'balance among these three factors which are: paid work, unpaid work and personal time. By definition there is no term that is accepted and contributed to a Work-life balance is a repetition the word regularly mentions to one of the subsequent components: organizational support reliant on care, supple work choices and family or personal. For family boundary is great permeable if the worker receives...
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...Analysis of Factors Affecting Work Life Balance among University Teachers: the case of Pakistan Noor Fatima: Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Pakistan. noor_e_fatimah@hotmail.com Dr Shamim A.Sahibzada: Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Pakistan. shamim@szabist-isb.edu.pk Abstract Balance in work and family life is an emerging challenge for both employees and employers. The present research categorises selected variables as work and family related factors to study work life balance. This paper analyses the determinants of work and life imbalance with respect to male and female university teachers. A total of 146 teacher’s responses from both private and public sector universities are included in the study. Statistical analysis reveals that partner support, colleague support and job resources are positively associated with the work life balance whereas unfair criticism at job is negatively associated with work life balance. Independent sample t-test is used to analyse the effect of independent variables on work life balance with respect to male and female university teachers. The variables, partner support, childcare responsibilities, elder dependency, and colleagues support have different effect when analysed by male and female university teachers as independent samples. Keywords: Work life balance, University, Teachers, 1. Introduction Work/life is commonly referred to as work and family. To balance between...
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