Do Human Resource Policies Designed to Improve Employees Work-life Balance - Coursework Example

Human Resource Policies University’s Name Submitted by Names: Tutor: Human resource is an important tool for the success of any organization. Human resource refers to all employees of an organization or a corporation. Therefore, this represents an important phenomenon about the human that distinguishes it from the other resources of an organization. Human resource is basically made up of human beings who are affected by several factors outside the organization. The employees have their family life, social life, among other factors that may end up affecting their service delivery to their respective organizations. It is based on these facts, therefore, that many companies have come to realize the importance of in calculating factors that will enable employees have a less skewed work life balance. Most of the strategies that are employed by different companies to improve work life balance of employees in an organization end up benefitting the very organizations. For instance, giving employees enough time to rest in order to mitigate burnout effects will benefit an organization in multifaceted ways. Improving their efficiency, consequently, their productivity is one of the benefits that spill over to the organization as a result of employee’s reforms. This paper intends to establish whether benefits that emanate from policies that are aimed at improving the work-life balance of employees extend to the individual organizations. Therefore, the paper will tend to use various cases that demystify the strategies that are employed to improve the work life balance of employees and how they end up benefiting the individual organizations. The paper will examine how different policies have been employed by various and how in the long run have ended up benefiting the individual organization. In the end, it will be determined whether the benefits of such policies are of double sword. That is, whether they benefit both the employees and their respective organizations. Policies that are aimed towards enhancing balance of work-life of employees of organization end up having a positive impact towards an organization. According to Beauregard & Henry (2009) various programs that are designed to improve the work-life balance of employees end up spilling over benefits to the respective organizations. Introduction of work-life balance practices are good at reducing conflicts that are found between different employees in a particular organization. Nonetheless, there exists some level of uncertainty in establishing whether the relationship is a fact since it is almost impossible to measure conflict that comes out of work-life balance. It has been established that conflicts resulting from life-to-work as well as work-to-life are practices that lead into both burnout and stress. Some of the behavioural outcomes that depict workers’ stress and burnout include; reduced effort in working, rise in cases of turnover and absenteeism, and reduced performance (Ansari, 1997). However, most of the strategies that are aimed at stabilizing work-life balance are directed towards enhancing family life of the employees (Baker et al., 2007). Most organizations have come to realize the importance of devising policies that will enhance better family lives of its employees. The practice enhances the family service delivery of employees at their work stations due to improved performance. Conflicts between the family life and work life of the various workers emanate from various sources. For instance, an employee is expected to perform different roles when he is at home and when he is with his family. These roles can be classified as either work or as the non-work roles due to the fact that they are performed under different environment (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). They are two different roles that keep on conflicting with each other. There is possible conflict between leisure and work. There also exist conflict between “self” and work. Leisure and “self’ are two aspects that must be demystified in a family set up in order for it to function properly. However, the properties might be disregarded at work places since they reduce performance of the employees. Therefore, they give various policy makers a headache when they are in the process of creating a better work-life balance. Family and work responsibilities require different inputs, thus, making it a difficult task to attain a stable work-life balance. The factor continues to create a constant conflicting interest between the family and the work of employees. According to Greenhaus et al. (2003) there exists a relationship between life quality and work-family balance. The relationship is interlinked by the time balance, involvement balance, and satisfaction balance. Time that is devoted to family and life should be usually balance in order to reduce the conflict between the two institutions. Moreover, an employee should be allowed to be fully involved in all the activities when he is at both family and work. On the other hand, employers should ensure that an employee is satisfied when he is at Home as well as when he is working. Individual who end up investing time that is substantial in both family as well as wok roles experience better life quality. The same case applies to individuals who use a huge chunk of their lives with their families. Nevertheless, the scenario is different for individuals use more of their time performing family roles. The three results indicate some kind of relationship that exists between family and the work roles (Kumari, 2012). The solution to ensure that the relationship is of mutual benefit is to ensure that an individual operates at the equilibrium point. Operating in such a point will ensure there is maximum productivity of the employees due to reduced conflicts between the family and the work life. Hughes and Bozionelos (2007) explored how male employee work-life balance is affected in a field that is dominated by males. There existed a huge imbalance between work and family life of the male workers. The imbalance was a principle concern to these workers hence making them to be totally dissatisfied with the condition in which they worked. Furthermore, the workers depicted a succinct connection of problems that were experienced between withdrawal behaviour and work-life problems (Kirrane & Monks, 2008). Moreover, this included the non-genuine absence due to fake sickness and turnover. Therefore, Joan and Bozionelos work depict a situation whereby most of the male employees were disadvantaged in terms of achieving a proper work life balance. According to De Cieri et al. (2005) various achievements have been made in the process of trying to create work-life balance of organizations in Australia. On equal measures, there have been a number of challenges that have been faced in the process of enhancing the same relationship balance (De Ciieri & Bardoel, 2010). Some of the achievements that have been made by organizations entail aspects such as the improved effectiveness of organizations and making these organizations become more competitive. The performance of these organizations in terms of work-life is comprised of four dimensions which are the alignment, supportive culture, communication, demonstrated value, and leadership expert. Despite there being some achievements, Australian organizations still face inevitable challenges as a result of imbalance that emanate from work-life relationship. It is a difficult task to attain a balanced work-family as well as work-life for majority of employees in Australian organizations. Briefly, policies that have been used to improve work-life balance entail initiatives such as study leaves, part-time work, job share, and devising of working time are flexible. Greenhaus et al. (2006) found out that enrichment of work-family is defined as the extent to which a role’s experience helps to define life quality in different roles. Here, two enrichment paths are proposed which are effective as well as instrumental paths. The model is also referred to as the interface of work-life or facilitation of work-family. Enrichment of work-family occurs during the process of work involvement. Enrichment of the family occurs when there is creation of a positive mood and when there is satisfaction support. This helps an individual to acclimatize to the work-life balance, become more confident, in addition to energizing a person to more effective in carrying out his role when working. In short, the work-family enrichment theory gives out strategies that can be used to improve the condition of work life balance of employees. Conflicts that emanate from work and family lives have caught the attention of many employers as well as some researchers (Felstead et al., 2002). As such, there are some are designed in order to measure this aspect. Majority of instruments that are used to measure the work-life balance are psychometric whereby they are a range of items that measure this aspect. They may use 15 or even more items to measure the work-life balance. According to Perry-Smith and Blum (2000) different organization differs in terms policies that they employ to manage work-life balance. They have different responsiveness in terms of how they view policies that aimed at enhancing work-family life of its employees (Zheng et al., 2002). There are some which have policies that are “family friendly” (Grigg, and Da Silva, 2007). Other organizations are driven by financial motives, making family-life balance policies formulation of their employees insignificant. Such organizations do not consider policies such as maternity leave formulation in case a female employee becomes pregnant. Family-life balance is an important as aspect that every organization must take into consideration of in case it wants to improve its public image. Organization must understand that family life of its employees must be put at the epicentre in order not to affect the employee’s performance. It is observed that organizations that are “family friendly” record better performance. Most of the Australian organization have realized the importance of enhancing its employees flexibility, thus, making them more comfortable. The simplest way to attain a stable work-life balance is to create a work-family enrichment program where all aspects of the employees are taken into consideration. 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Strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) and Attitudes Towards Managing the Work-Family Interface: The Role of Gender and Social work. 1(8): 23-67 Read More