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

Student Name: Tutor: Title: Human resource policies designed to improve employee’s work-life balance Course: Human resource policies designed to improve employee’s work-life balance Introduction The landscape and economic and the social pressure of modern life have drastically changed the manner in which people are affected by work across the world. Work-life balance concept advocates for employees to split their energy and time between work and other family or personal responsibilities outside work (Petersen & Boller, 2004). There is an effort to make time for community participation, family, friends, personal growth, spirituality, self-care and other personal obligations beyond the workplace responsibilities. The implementation of work-life balance lead to reduction of stress that employees are likely to experience. Younger employees expect more flexibility at work as compared to their predecessors. Sophisticated technology makes work to be attended to without necessarily reporting to a specific work station (Dalcos & Daley, 2009). The use of virtual office is always on the rise. The importance of work-life balance policies cannot be overemphasized. Personal and family commitments can hinder employees from giving their best at the workplace or increased errors owing to lack of concentration. Organizations have to come up with initiatives that will help employees meet their personal needs alongside performing their work functions successfully. Work-life balance policies’ benefits and challenges Workers become more productive if they have achieved a work-life balance that gives them an opportunity to meet their personal responsibilities outside the workplace. Work-life balance policies offer a framework under which departments can look for the best way to support staff to achieve an effective balance between their personal responsibilities and work obligations (Withers, 2001). Professional and managers are placed uniquely to experience difficulties grappling with non-work commitment and work responsibilities owing to long working hours and increase application of communication technologies that enable work functions to be attended to anytime. The workforce has to maintain work-life balance hence the need to design policies that provide initiatives that facilitates the integration of work and non-work functions. The need for childcare and health assistance for employees is important for providing for needs that are not work related (Petersen & Boller, 2004). When employees spend most of their days in activities that are work related and feel like they are neglecting the other part of their personal lives, they may lapse into a mood of unhappiness and stress. If not properly addressed, it can result into unproductiveness. Work-life balance makes the employees to feel like they are attending all crucial elements of their lives without leaning on one side. Managers have to spearhead the implementation of work-life balance initiatives at the workplace. Research has indicated that too much work can result into stress-related illnesses that affect employees’ vitality, making them prone to errors while working, burnout, absenteeism, and turnover. The likelihood of work to dominate the lives of employee increases when there are layoffs while hiring freezes; hence leaving few workers with a lot of work to accomplish. The workers who remain are hard to be replaced since they are the best. The company has to implement work-life balance polices in order to encourage them (Vincola, 2001). The support for work-life balance has to come from the top in the organization and supported by the management. Work-life balance issues can make a company understand the needs of workers better and come up with suitable policies to address them. Companies have to design work-life balance policies that can help employees to balance between their family and work responsibilities better, accomplish a boost in well-being and result into organizational benefits. There are various family friendly policies that include job sharing, flexible working hours, compressed work weeks, part-time work, on-site childcare facility, telecommuting, and parental leave (Koekemoer & Mostert, 2006). Moreover, companies can offer a variety of benefits related to the health and well-being of the employee, including personal days, extended insurance health cover for dependents and the employee himself, programs to enhance fitness, volunteer work participation, and support for their children’ education. Flexitime gives workers the opportunity to decide when to start and end their working hours as long as they meet the targeted hours per day. Personal or family commitments can be met without eating into the working hours hence maintaining or even increasing productivity because workers are less stressed (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007). Telecommuting is more common whereby employees can work from home and submit their work online instead of going to the work station. Family and personal needs can be met despite attending to work obligations. Work related expenses and commuting time reduce while an employee has the opportunity to work in a less disruptive and stressful environment. Employees who have disabilities can work better in their home environment. A compressed work week ensures employees work for longer shifts in order to be given in the number of working days in the work cycle (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010). Employees have the opportunity to get additional days off. Employees can also extend their daily operating hours hence leading to reduction in overtime. Part-time arrangements can assist people with health problems or disabilities to participate in the labour force, gain skills and get experience. Career breaks provide the opportunity for such employees to sharpen their skills and get more training. Employees also can use part-time work to attend to personal and family roles. Operational flexibility can be realized through implementation of part time. Job sharing is a policy that permits two employees to fill one fulltime job, with working time and responsibilities shared equally between them (Mayberry, 2006). Job sharing is important where chances for part-time jobs are rare. The workers cover each other as the other attends to personal or family responsibilities. Work commitments cannot delay them an opportunity to attend to their roles outside the workplace. Job sharing helps in developing working partnership. Work-life balance policies have been tailored to increase the inclusion of women in the labour force and enable them to meet their family responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility of organizations has been extended through application of work-life balance policies. The organization has to involve all stakeholders in the organization in order to avoid more conflicts coming up due to implementation of work-life balance policies (Bowers, 2003). The number of women entering the workforce is increasing rapidly hence the more reason for a company to implement work-life balance policies to accommodate special needs. Flexible working schedules are important and have to be factored into work-life balance policy for flexible operation functions at the workplace. Employers have to ask the opinion of their employees before implementing any work-life balance policy for easy acceptability and implementation. Workers should not feel left out in the planning because they end up distrusting the intention of the initiatives. Employees are sometime reluctant to take up work-life balance responsibilities because they are concerned about the repercussions of applying such initiatives (Galinsky, Bond & Hill, 2004). Some employees do not have the desire or need to use the initiatives. Many organizations forget to evaluation and monitor their work-life balance initiatives and how they are affecting productivity. Without proper design and implementation, work-life balance policies lead result in more conflicts within the organization. An environment where workers feel that their personal needs are being met increases their productivity and concentration in the work hence eliminating errors (Bach, 2009). It is crucial for the organization management and employees to work together during the design, implementation and evaluation of work-life balance policies to avoid conflicts or implementation of useless policies that employees do not need. Employee loyalty can be enhanced through work-life balance initiatives. Conclusion Work-life balance policies are important for increasing operational flexibility in the company and providing an opportunity for employees to meet their family and personal responsibilities. Work pressures and personal as well as family commitment at home can lead to stress and unhappiness on the part of the employee. It is upon the company’s management to find out ways of allowing employees meet their personal obligation without delaying their work commitment. Telecommuting has allowed employees to work from the comfort of their homes while giving them a chance to attend to family obligations like childcare for working mothers. Compressed work weeks, job sharing and part-time jobs allow employees to have time breaks to attend to personal and family needs. A work environment that ensures the individual needs of workers are met is more productive as compared to where the workers feel neglected. Flexible working schedules make the employee juggle successful between work and personal responsibilities. Productivity is bound to increase in a stress-free environment. References Bach, S., 2009, Managing Human Resources: Personnel Management in Transition, John Wiley & Sons, London. Bianchi, S.M., & Milkie, M.A., 2010, Work and family research in the first decade of the 21st Century, Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(1), 705–725. Bowers, P. 2003, Work-Life Balance is the Key to Employee Loyalty, Atlanta Chronicle. Dalcos, S.M., & Daley, D., 2009, Work pressure, workplace social resources and work-family conflict: The tale of two sectors, International Journal of Stress Management, 16(4), 291–311. 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