Abstract
The paper involves studying the importance of Work-life balance to enhance employee productivity. The aspect of this paper is importance because labor is one of the essential factors for a company’s success and managers should know how to tap into that resource efficiently to achieve overall success. The study will detail a brief introduction regarding WLB, its importance and benefits to both employees and employers.
Introduction
Work-life balance is a combination of three words work, life and balance. Work is the physical and mental activities one does on a daily basis to attain a salary at the end of the month. Life is any other activity in your life that characterizes an individual’s personality, mental and physical state. It can include some things such as family, health, leisure and spiritual development or religion. Balance has various meanings. It can mean to regulate, scale or set two or more element in an equal portion (Safework SA., 2010).
There are many different definitions of Work-life Balance (WLB). It can be an employee achievement of equilibrium between priorities in his or her work-life and personal lifestyle. It is the relationship between the commitments of employment and those of an individual’s personal life. Other may also define it as the ability to prioritize and have excellent management skills (Harvard Business School, 2000).
Research conducted by psychologists show that it is important for any organization to implement WLB mostly for the mental and physical benefits of the employees. The staff in any organization is the primary source of labor and one of the essential factors for success (Safework SA., 2010). A company that does not employ WLB will end up burning its workforce making them mentally unstable and physically incapable of performing organizational activities efficiently and to the best of their abilities (Clawson, 2010).
Another research also supports the study the psychologist conducted. The companies that implement the use of WLB were very successful as there was high productivity and less monotony leading to the production of quality products or services. It was also a conclusion that those organizations had a high employee retention capacity. Studies on the firms that do not implement WLB have negative results regarding production, profit and employee retention (Clayton, 2004).
Background information
The use of WLB policies in the organization improves the performance of workers. It allows for there to be better coordination and integration of company activities (Women's Forum Australia, 2010). The primary reason as to why there was the creation of WLB was to deal with WLB problems present in the workplace (Kelly, Moen, Oakes, et. al. 2014). There are different variations of WLB, which are present in five categories such as flexible work schedules, telecommuting, job sharing, career breaks and part-time job fixtures (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007).
The benefits of WLB were not only for employees but also for employers as well. The employee is more focused and healthier while businesses receive more productivity that increases the company’s profits. A global research regarding WLB shows that WLB is the only concern o employees today and 38% of the reasons for employee turnover are when the worker wishes to go to another organization because it has better WLB policies and offers. The fact has made WLB an important strategy that firm use for employee retention purposes (Budd and Mumford, 2006).
Research conducted on the top Multinational companies such as Johnson and Johnson’s, shows that the firms had a lower employee turnover and fewer sick leaves compared to businesses that did not implement WLB. The successes of these enterprises have to lead to companies in other regions such as Kenya and South Africa to implement the WLB policies and attain the benefits that come with it (Harvard Business School, 2000).
The research also equipped other organizations with the information regarding WLB methods that allows them to develop and implement strategies tailored to the needs of their employees. It is because the policies are flexible and capable of adapting to the changes present in any regions economic status. The fact also makes WLB a global economic issue when it comes to achieving company success (Hessler-Key & Kotopoulis, 1997).
Thesis Statement
The primary purpose for this paper is to detail the importance of work-life balance and the benefits it has to both employers and employees which results in overall productivity of the company.
Literature review
This section will look at the three aspects of work life balance. It will explain in detail the importance of WLB and highlight reasons for a company should deploy it. It will also describe the benefits that come with its implementation and state the disadvantages a company may face on both the employee and employer side when it does not use WLB.
The importance of Work life balance
There are three reasons why it is vital for any enterprise to implement the WLB. They include the following: employees do not get burn out easily, management can pay attention to the different organizational activities, and the staff experiences fewer health problems. The reasons are the factors that enable a manager to tap into employee productivity (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007).
Less Burnout: A worker can experience a burnout mostly because of stress. The main causes of stress in the workplace is due to factors such as giving high workloads, unrealistic deadlines, lack of proper organizational of production activities and giving an employee a role that does not fully utilize his or her skill set. Stress in the workplace can make an employee fell overwhelmed and unable to meet the company’s production activity (Russell, O’Connell and McGinnity, 2009).
When the worker has a stress at work, it can also affect his or her personal life. It means that there is no proper management between the work and personal life. It makes the worker life confused, and that leads to decrease productivity (Clayton, 2004). The use of WLB will enable the management to take in the factors that cause stress and make sure that the company implements every measure to ensure that employees are happy and satisfied leading to increased productivity (Clawson, 2010).
Attention: The implementation of WLB allows a worker to maintain focus on what is important in the workplace and at home (Bailyn, n.d). When at work, there will be attention paid on performing the production activities efficiently. When at home, attention will turn and concentrate on your well-being and that of your partner and family. The use of WLB will enable both parts of a worker’s life to be balanced and not conflict and mix with each other thus improving overall performance (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007).
Fewer Health problems: As stated in the introduction, lack of use of WLB could lead to severe mental and physical problems. Performing organizational activities can make an employee feel tired and run down. If the feeling continues, it eventually leads to stress, and that affects the immune system making one incapable of working (Real Life Production, 2010). The use of WLB enables an individual to have a life outside his or her professional one making him or her find other ways to relieve stress and rejuvenate (Hawks, 2008). It can be through doing exercises, eating well and other leisure activities. These assist a worker to experience fewer health problems that may be due to working too much (Reinigungsgesellschaft, 2004).
The benefits of work-life balance to the organization
The use of WLB in a company can lead to some advantages. The allow the firm to experience a constant level of success in the marketplace and even enable it to attain a competitive edge that maintains a segmented market and allows it to receive also attain a competitors part of the market (Hawks, 2008). The benefits of WLB are such as increased productivity, enhanced employee engagement, reduces recruitment costs, decreases employee turnover, lowers absenteeism and enhances the perception of company brand to the market (Women's Forum Australia,2010).
Increased productivity: the use of WLB enables the organization to provide a work environment that reduces monotony and increases work productivity. It removes hindrance of the company’s success from issues such as stress and pressure (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007). Reduction in employee turnover and recruitment costs: The deployment of WLB will enable the establishment of a productive work environment that satisfies the needs of workers (Kelliher and Anderson, 2010). It leads to the company experiencing a decline in staff turnover. It will also affect the recruitment costs of a company because since there is less employee turnover, that means there will be no additional cost the company deploys on hiring (Clawson, 2010).
Enhanced worker engagement: The use of WLB allows employ to focus on the production activities and that leads to them being more creative and loyal. The workers will also have fewer sick days and willing to promote the business (Hawks, 2008). The lower rate of absenteeism: WLB allows the management to cater to the needs of its employees and that means deploying methods that make the work environment fun thus lowering the absenteeism rate (Women's Forum Australia, 2010). Improvement of the company brand perception: the use of WLB enhances productivity and allows production of quality products and services. It leads to the company creating a strong brand perception to the public (Clawson, 2010).
Lack of Using the WLB in a company
Organizations that do not deploy the WLB lack to understand its importance. The lack of intelligence of the employee productivity technique will cause these companies facing more challenges when it comes to labor and in overall do not attain its success. It is simple to know the companies as they will have a higher employee turnover, there will be more absenteeism, poor structure of the organization thus there is a larger workload and high level of monotony as there will be no employer-employee engagements (Budd and Mumford, 2006).
Employees who are in organizations that lack the implementation of the WLB strategy have poor health rate and would be suffering from different level of stress. The reason as to this is due to high workloads and the tight deadlines. The outcome will be complete burnout of the workers ability to work and use his abilities (Kelliher. and Anderson, 2010).
Employers who do not deploy the WLB will tend to face loses rather that profits. For example, their methodologies are to work and work, and achieve profits in the shortest time possible. The short time success will be run over by the loses that come with time such as high recruitment costs, large expenditure on medical insurance and lack of performance of production activities due to high levels of sick leaves and absenteeism. It will lead to loss not only in profits but also in its market coverage as the brand will be unreliable and companies that implement the WLB will have the competitive advantage to take it (Paludi & Neidermeyer, 2007).
Conclusion
The benefits associated with WLB just shows how vital it is to the success of any business by allowing it to tap into the labor force effectively. The company who do not implement the WLB can try to implement the strategy by offering its employees flexible working hours, allowing them to work from home, offer more time off, organize family/employee events and provide child care options (Ryan and Kossek, 2008). The deployment of these WLB strategies will enable the organization to receive higher employee productivity.
The use of WLB is beneficial and essential for every company. It will enable the establishment of a productive business environment and results in creation of quality products and services (Bailyn, n.d). Apart from that, it will make every participant in the production process happy, the employers, employees and the market. It use benefits everyone.
References
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