Motivation Is Not Independent of an Employees Work Environment or Personal Life - Coursework Example

Motivation is not independent of an employee’s work environment or personal life Modern day working life and its related pressures have meant that there are many that just do not have time to address their personal goals or to make time for them outside the scope of work. The reasons many believe could be traced to company practices like long working hours, take-home assignments, paltry vacations, travel demands, and the occasional weekend e-mails from bosses (Harvard Buisness School Publication, 1992). This has meant that most employees are having to push back against relentless encroachments on their personal time and are seeking ways to balance the two sides of their lives. This does however one cannot accomplish single-handedly. What this means that cases such as this would require complete support and collaboration from employees. It might appear at the first thought that providing an employee with a concession in the sense that his work load would be reduced, would be cost to the company (Cousey, 2002). After all, if company was to announce that it would be cutting back on overnight travels to employees would have more evenings at home; the ability of the company to coordinate far-flung activities or meet with customers in distant cities might be impaired. It was however observed recently in the much talked about Harvard Review article where it was stated that there is small but growing breed of managers who operate under the assumption that work and personal life are npot competing but complementary ones. Increasingly though, employers have found that helping workers with the creation and maintenance of a balanced lifestyle between their home and work lives is the key to the retention of the best employees (Smith and Mazin, 2004). It has been found that through alternative work and scheduling arrangements and other life and family-friendly programs, employers that help employees in the reduction of stress and in them gaining personal satisfaction reap the benefits of a more loyal, motivated, and productive workforce. These programs can make a company more desirable to prospective employees and have been shown to decrease absenteeism among executives. If one was to define the process of work-life balance from the perspective of the manager, one would find that it is the maintenance of a balance and through responsibility sharing at the workplace as well within the home environment. This would help the employee view the benefits of working in conditions in an overall help to their life in both the domains of his existence-the workplace and the home (Bardoel, Tharenou and Moss, 1998). The concept of work-life balance stands in direct contrast to the concept of work/life conflict which is again defined as a form of inner role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and other life domains, such as family are mutually incompatible in some respects therefore making participation in one role being in direct confrontation with the other (Cierri,Holmes, Abbott and Petit, 2002). In this scenario, the participation in one aspect of the relationship means that some sort of difficulty would develop in the other aspect of one’s life. Conflict in the personal life would automatically then spill over to the professional as well, reducing the levels of output productivity that would characterize an individual’s work. There have been efforts to bring about an understanding of this definition in a more structured empirical manner. Some argue that although the term gas been used in a blanatntlky wide and all encompassing manner, there is yet an definition of the term to be arrived at. In this context, one can identify the very basic form of manners in which a balanced work/life structure could be maintained. 1. Multiple roles 2. Equity across multiple roles 3. Satisfaction between multiple roles 4. Fulfilment of role salience between multiple roles 5. A relationship between conflict and facilitation; and 6. Perceived control between multiple roles Based on our review of this research we identify the two primary features of the work-life balance definitions and propose a new definition of this construct. There are numerous theories that focus on the work-family balance and many have been devised within the available literature to explain the merits of the process as a whole. The idea has been to define the fact that an easy mind would any day be a more productive mind which would have lot more to give to a given company. There are no direct well developed measure of the construct, which constrains the kind of ability one would have in the investigation of the phenomenon fully (Kalliath and Brough, 2002). For instance, without a direct measure of work-family balance, it is difficult to investigate the impact of ‘family-friendly' policies on key individual and organizational outcome variables. We also acknowledge a recent shift in terminology used to refer to this phenomenon, with many organizations using the term ‘work-life balance' so as to include employees who are not parents but who desire balance for non-work activities such as sports, study, and travel. One can find proof of the fact that creation of a work-life balance at the workplace helps in a better motivation of employees and creation of more dedicated individuals is evidenced by the fact that there are increasingly adapted trends of flexible work hours in most countries like the UK (Perry Smith and Blum, 2002). In fact some believe that organizations have started increasingly introducing flexibility at the workplace so that they would be able to keep up with the competition. Yet others have introduced these in response to employee’s needs to be reconciled to the demands of work and family. Originally, these arrangements were mainly aimed at helping the newer members of the workforce, especially ones that were parents, but gradually the needs of all employees irrespective of marital status with a wider range of responsibilities have been considered. The idea in most places has been aimed at the development of the capability to attract, motivate and retain a highly skilled, flexible and adaptive workforce. This is particularly valuable at management and senior management levels, in order to develop the leadership skills necessary for organizations to survive. Any given organization that aims at a rise in its competitive advantage within a given market area would have to work towards the development of an approach with respect to the management of human resources within the organization that would be in line with and serve the increasingly varied needs of an increasingly varied workforce. The above mentioned equation could be proved in line with the fact that there is an increasingly progressive trend that places the interests of the employee at the centre of the management concerns. The idea would be to stop the loss of creativity or productivity due to stress or a person being overworked. It has been registered that employees as part of the organization and in their capacity as organizational stakeholders would expect their employers to be responsive to their need to balance work and life commitments (Kossek et al., 1994). There have also been efforts made by the research and literary community to ensure that there would be the development o innovative frameworks for the integration of community into the analysis of work with family (Vydanoff, 2001). There is a requirement for further profit-making and market sustainability, that companies and firms, take up the task of ensuring that they do not just support but officially provide for a sensible and practical work/life balance policy. This would have to be modeled along an idea that would seek to benefit and meet the requirements and demands of the employer and the employee in a comprehensive manner (MacDonald, Bradley and Brown, 2002). Added to this one would have remember the fact that an organization that does not provide a chance for worker for the development of a work/life balance would be making itself susceptible to a workforce that would be increasingly dissatisfied and unproductive. This would in turn mean that there would be an automatic raise in the numbers of attrition. It would also have to be remembered that an organization that would focus simply on the creation of work/life policy framework would not be doing all that is needed (rapport and Bailyn, 1996). There is also the automatic need for the development of an organizational culture that would be supportive of the use of available policies. In recent years, the term ‘work/life balance’ has replaced what used to be known as ‘work/family balance’. Although the concept of family has broadened to encompass extended families, shared parenting, same-sex relationships and a wide range of social and support networks and communities, the semantic shift from work/family to work/life arises from a recognition that care of dependent children is by no means the only important non-work function. Other life activities that need to be balanced with employment may include study, sport and exercise, volunteer work, hobbies or care of the elderly. ‘Eldercare’ in particular is becoming a growing issue for employers. In conclusion therefore it maybe reiterated that there is the need for the development of a life-work balance in an individual life so that the employee can remain motivated and given the complex nature of the work environment today it would be required that such work is proactively done by the companies as part of their active day-to-day policy towards their workers. References: Harvard Business School Publication, 1992, Time management: increase your personal productivity and effectiveness, pub, Harvard Business Press, p108 Smith S and Mazin R A, 2004, The HR answer book: an indispensable guide for managers and human resources, pub, Border Books, p88-90 Kalliath T and brough P, Work-life balance: A review of the meaning of the balance construct, pub, Journal of Management and Organization, Vol. 14 No.3, p323-327 Rapoport, R., and Bailyn, L. (1996), Relinking life and work: Toward a better future, The Ford Foundation, New York. Perry-Smith, J., & Blum, T. (2000), Work–family human resource bundles and perceived organizational performance, Academy of Management Journal, 43, pp1107-17 Cousey M, 2002, Getting the right work-life balance: implementing family-friendly practices, pub, Border books, p5 Cierri H D, Holmes B, Abbott J and Petit T, 2002, Work-Life Balance Strategies, Working paper, 28/50 Voydaoff P, 2001, Incorporating Community into work and research, pub, Human Relations, Vol.15 No.64, pp1609-1637 McDonald, P., Bradley, L., & Brown, K. (2005), Explanations for the provisionutilisation gap in work-family policy, pub, Women in Management Review http://au.hudson.com/documents/emp_au_Hudson_Work-Life_A4_Std.pdf http://www.agilistics.com.au/newsletter/links/WorkLife%20Balance%20Stratgeies.pdf Read More