Industrial Relations Issues - Essay Example

Industrial Relations Student’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Since 1960s, incorporation of work-life balance within various organisations has gained significant presence owing to the realisation that the whole process is critical in ensuring well being of employees. This in-turn influences a myriad of human resource issues such as commitment, satisfaction, productivity and reduced turnover. Most literatures indicate that employees if not given an opportunity to have a balance between life and work issues such as burnout, stress and absenteeism are likely to be recorded in higher level (Wilkinson, 2008, p.121-122). Owing to such realisations, the aim of the paper is to address four critical issues. First is to conceptualise and define what the concept of work-life balance entails. Secondly, the paper seeks to identify the benefits associated with the concept both to employees and employers. Thirdly, to pinpoint problems that can be associated with the introduction of ‘family friendly’ in national or multinational enterprises operating in industrialised and less industrialised country. Lastly, to find out how national culture can complicate a multinational enterprise operating in an industrialised and industrialising country as a result of implementing work-life balance and certain plausible remedies for the same. Work-Life Balance Concept Bird (2006, p.21) observes that work-life balance concept discourse has grown phenomenally and it presents a domain that human resource practitioners and executives are obliged to manage owing to the realisation that in a the bid to reap maximum out of employees there is need to appreciate the fact that they have lives outside employment. The discourse of work-life emanated in 1960s & 70s anchored on the determinations that most women found it difficult to raise their families and meet a rigorous demand of employers. The trend was heightened in US in 1980s by legislations such as Pregnancy Discrimination Act. This saw various giant multinational corporations engage in re-organisation agenda in regard to internal policies and procedure so as to attain family friendly policies. The whole aspect of life-work balance was cemented in 90s as most employees sought employers who cared about work-life issues (p.22). Owing to increased intensity of work, deterioration of quality of home & community life and aspirations of generation X, the need for work-life balance ensued (Guest, 2002, p.257-258). Work-life balance concept rooted on quality of work life is premised on the urge to incorporate human dimension into work-life that is dominated by technical and economic parameters of job design. According to Bird (2006, p.22) work-life balance policy can be attained through implementation of various strategies singly or in combination. Such strategies include having employee assistance programmes, maternity leave, child-care referral, home-based work/ remote working and flexible schedules. Wilkinson (2008, p.124) add other strategies such job share, time off in lieu, career brake, compressed hours, part time working and term time working. According to Robbins (1989, p. 207 ) Work-life balance is “a process by which an organization responds to employees’ needs by developing mechanism to allow them to share fully in making the decisions that design their lives at work”. On the other hand, Lau (2000 cited in Al-Qutop & Harrim, 2011, p.195) observes that quality of work life is “the favourable conditions and environments of a work place that support and promote employees’ satisfaction by providing them with rewards, job security and growth opportunities”. Guest (2002, p.262) notes that life-work balance in simple is the strategies aimed at giving employees opportunities to have life outside their daily routine of employment. Benefits Associated with Work-Life Balance for Employers and Employees According to Skinner & Chapman (2013, p.1), work family conflict has been found to cost economies such as Canada C$2.8 billion. However, with implementation of work-life strategies, a company and nation at large is able to reduce these costs. For instance, they established that work-family conflicts lead to reduced physical and mental health. Al-Qutop & Harrim (2011, p.194); Guest (2002, p.273) notes that the ultimate benefit especially to employees is the ability of work-life balance/ work life quality is to confer mental, physical health benefits and wellbeing to employees. They deduce that personal well being is integral as it equally influences parent child relationship and the interpersonal interactions they have. Such relationship influences the behaviour of a child and the marital relationship of employed partners. For instance, Mauno & Kinnunen (1999 cited in Guest, 2002, p.274) established that work stressors such as work family conflict spiralled into marital satisfaction as they lead to exhaustion psychosomatic health issues. Organisations that take care of employees work-life balance by curtailing negative impacts that causes work-family conflict contributed to healthy marital relationship that is transferred to the organisation in terms of effectiveness and productivity. According to Al-Qutop & Harrim (2011, p.194), it these benefit accrued by employees that is transferred to employer in terms of increased in productivity; commitment, retention and reduced absenteeism which implies reduced employee turnover and ability to hold onto talented employees and finally it allows business operate beyond the normal operating hours as employees can work in shifts. A case example of flexible-working policies can aid organisation attain lower recruiting, training & absenteeism costs and higher productivity is the case of Deloitte Touche. According to their estimation, through implementation of flexible working programme, the company established that out of their 30, 000 employees, they managed to avoid $41.5 million costs (Wise & Bond, 2003, p.22). Indeed, Work life balance is equally significant to firms in relation to retention of employees and talents and thus reducing increased turnover (Allen, Bryant & Vardaman, 2010, p.50). Apart from the financial cost involved, turnover normally leads to disruptions at work place (McLean, 2007, p.393). The role of work-life balance in this regard is best contextualised by the study conducted by Wilkinson (2008). According to the findings by Wilkinson (2008, p.125), firms in Australia and New Zealand within the Surveying Industry that implemented work-life balance saw an enhanced 25% in overall recruitment and retention of employees. In terms of gender, these firms recoded 19.9% recruitment and retention rates; 19.2% in regard to ethnicity and 17.9% in terms of recruitment and retention of disabled individuals. Problems Associated with Family Friendly Policy This section examines the shortcomings associated with implementation of family friendly policy by multinational enterprise operating in industrialised and industrialising countries. For the case of this discourse, the countries to be relied are Australia as an industrialised nation and China as an industrialising nation. In overall, Mulvaney et al. (2007, p.70-71) observes that implementation of family friendly policies at work place can lead to poor results, frustrated and over worked employees as result of the fact that in given circumstances employee can be few at work place. This is especially true to organisations that operate even in odd hours such as hotel industry. Closely linked with the later is scheduling challenge brought by the irregular hours because the manager has to strike a balance between the flexible work request and the needs of customers. Moreover, managers in given situations are expected to be present under the ‘culture of face time’. Ackroyd et al. (2005, p.66) observes that while states have attempted at advancing family - friendly policies in Australia, in overall, the country exhibits a limited level of engagement by government in issues of work-life arrangement. It this low level that indeed poses a problem associated with implementation of work-life strategies. The problem associated with work-life strategies is the possibility of increased cost because it is restrictive to companies to outdo ‘collective action problems’. this particularly true to the private sector as compared to public sector since they neither have publicly subsidised childcare or paid family and medical leave under the social insurance system. As such firms that adopt family-friendly policies in Australia are likely to experience high operational costs which are detrimental to their competitiveness. On the other hand, implementation of life-work balance problem is associated with kind of perception of neglect it receives as most Chinese people do not appreciate the significance of the concept. as such it implies that investment in quality work life might not necessarily translate into the expected benefit. The problem is that owing to high number of those willing to lend their labour or over supply of labour, most Chinese employees are not keen on leveraging on the same anchored on the belief that it might not show commitment enough and thus they could be replaced (Wong, Tang and Ye, 2010). How National Culture Complicates Adoption of Work-Life Balance and Solution Cultural distances exist as result of differences in national culture (Mulok & Ainuddin, 2010, p.27). Issues of national cultures have been explained by various liteartures with pioneers being Edward Hall, Geert Hofsteed and Ferdinand Tonnies. For instance, Hofsteed formulated a cultural model that employs parameters such as individualism & collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity & feminism and power distance (Minkov & Hofstede, 2011, p.12; Hofstede, 2001, p.235). The complication aspect of national culture within the context of multinational enterprises adopting global policy and practice such as work-life balance falls on the realisation that national cultures are strong socialising agents that influence psycho-social mental orientation of individuals in regard to certain issues. As such, national culture is important in meaning making and social meaning it imparts on the recipients and thus a unique cultural value (Ghauri & Fang, 2001, p.307). According to Daft (2007cited in Wu, 2008, p.169), “the diversity and complexity of cross-nation and cross-culture may result in strategy conflicts for multinational companies when they implemented international standardized human resource management”. The concern for this section is how the national culture influences employee’s perspective in regard to ‘working to live rather than living to work’ or voice verse; work style that is in sync with lifestyle and putting family ahead of job (Beauregard, 2007, p.101). For the case of China, one cannot talk of Chinese national culture without touching on Confucianism. Confucianism has six fundamental values and important variabilities such as Guanxi (Ghauri & Fang, 2001, p.308 & 309). Beauregard (2007, p.103) observes that the generational shift experienced in Western world where the Generation X and Y values family ahead of work as compared to baby boomers who lived to work has not been experienced in China. Most Chinese population still anchors to the old adage of living to work. Most Chinese are not as much concerned as Western nations on embracing profession and employer that offers ample time for non-work activities and interests. The whole process that anchors this observation is the Confucian culture that obliges individuals to place adherence to duty at the forefront beyond enjoyment. In this regard, most Chinese are inclined towards attaining financial wealth as the detriment of their family life. In pursuit of this ambition, instead of adjusting their work-life to the family obligations, they expect family obligations to adjust to their work-life. This complicates application of family-work balance because even if an organisation was to place the strategies the employees will not be willing to easily accept them as it does not constitute bulk of their culture. On the other hand, according to Hofstede (1984, p.390), most western nations including countries such as Australia, people display high levels of individualistic tendencies as opposed to collectivism. This implies that most employees are likely to embrace aspects that address this egoist behaviour. As such this is where the nexus for the urge for better working conditions that suits their lifestyle emerges. Therefore, for people in developed economies in Australia, having a balance between employment and family responsibility is paramount (Beauregard, 2007, p.101). however, the same individualistic tendencies if advanced from employers perspective, it implies that they expect their egoist needs to be meet and this implies that employees are expected to work longer hours and display high level of commitment (Holmes, Abbott & Pettit, 2002, p.4). Since most of these issues are cultural aspects related to Schemas, belief and stereotypes they hold which are greatly influenced by their national culture, a cultural solution is the most plausible option in solving the same for any manager/ human resource manager working with multinational enterprise. In this regard cross-cultural leadership becomes integral. In this regard, it implies that an effective cross-cultural leader has to understand attitudes, expectations and behaviours of employees in various conditions as dictated by culture as one leadership style might not be effective as it used to be elsewhere (Mockaitis, 2005, p.44). Failure to appreciate this reality translates to negative consequences on the organisation such as reduced opportunity to realise return on investment. Conclusion The aim of the paper was to address four issues. The first was to define life work balance where the paper established that is a human resource managerial strategy that empowers organisations to allow their employees contribute effectively to the organisation and guarantee them opportunity to engage in lifestyle outside work station. Secondly the paper sough to establish the advantages of life-work balance and it established it contributes to employee wellbeing and improved health. This can be transferred to household level as result of reduced work related stress. Equally this would benefit employers as it aids in ensuring improved productivity, commitment and reduced absenteeism. Thirdly the paper sought to establish the problem of implementing the said strategy. Using case example of Australia and China the paper found out that in Australia issues of implementation cost arise while in China issue of acceptability arises. Finally, the paper sought to establish how national culture might impede life-work balance. The paper using case example of China and Australia established that Chinese are not inclined to the concept as result of belief in hard work under Confucius belief. On the hand, in Australia the opposite is true. To solve such problems that paper proposes adoption of cross-cultural leadership. References Ackroyd, S., Rosemary, B., Thompson, P. & Tolbert, P. (2005). The oxford handbook and organisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Allen, D. 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