Work-life balance concept started in 19th century with the workers’ Union campaign against the long working hours. In earlier 20th century , workers demanded for various liabilities such as maximum working hours. Later, in 1980, organizations started to promote more family friendly working policies in order to attract employees. Though these working comforts were implemented focusing on women workers initially, companies offered those family friendly work advantages to male workers as well.
During the initial stage of work-life balance concept it contained protect family life in competitive workplace & career focused society. But at present work-life balance concept has broad indicators such as health & safety at work, equality, labor market flexibility & international competitiveness. (Syed, 2015).
According to the UK labor market statics 43% of the female workers are employed in part time jobs where as only 13% male workers are engaged in part time jobs. (ONS, 2012) By looking at the fact we can define that the female workers are more concern about work-life balance.
Thomas (2013) suggested that the biggest problem is work-life balance is time pressure. Time pressure is the difficulty faced by the employee to manage both official work & home work. Thomas named the said issue as Work-family conflict. Most of the time women employees are getting affected by the work-family conflict. Women employees would get frustrated when they failed to manage their time. Hence most of the women choose to do a part time or a seasonal job to have more work flexibility.
Due to competition and increasing cost of living, most of women also engage in different type of jobs. Some of them continues their duty for more than 8 to 10 hours. These type of jobs are very stressful and used to add an additional pressure on employee. To reduce the pressure , most of companies in Sri Lanka including government and private sector give alternative options specially for female employees to balance their work - life. Some of them are ,
- Paid maternity leave for 84 days. If a government female employee, she can apply for no pay leave after paid 84 days.
- Fe eding hours for women who has children below 12 months.
- Medical reimbursements for parents/ children / spouse
- Compulsory 7 days annual leave .
These helps female employees to carry out a balanced work- life since majority of household work are done be female.
References
ONS (Office for National Statistics) 2012. Gender Working Patterns.
Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Phizacklea, A. and Walters, S. 2002. Opportunities to work at home in the context of work–life balance, Human Resource Management Journal, 12: 54–76.
Syed, J. (2015).Work-life balance. Managing Diversity and Inclusion: An International Perspective, pp.291-314. London: Sage.
Thomas, K.C. 2013. Work–Life Balance: A Sociological Study of Women Professionals in Kerala. Kerala: Mahatma Gandhi University.
Honestly speaking, working women getting caught in the work/life balance trap will continue to be an ongoing challenge. Careful planning and personal effort is the advice from those who have found balance in both career and home life. It is accomplished when an individual feels dually satisfied about their personal life and their paid occupation. It mutually benefits the individual, business and society when a person’s personal life is balanced with his or her own job. The work-life balance strategy offers a variety of means to reduce stress levels and increase job satisfaction in the employee while enhancing business benefits for the employer. In our increasingly hectic world, the work-life strategy seeks to find a balance between work and play. A sentence that brings the idea of work life balance to the point is: “Work to live. Don’t live to work.”
ReplyDeleteBalancing life and work is very important for both male and female employees and Many current organizational managers work to improve employee self-satisfaction and have introduced a flexible work arrangement for employees.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.flexjobs.com/employer-blog/the-benefits-of-allowing-employees-a-flexible-schedule/
It is important for the employer to bring in some restrictions so that the employees get compelled to do their job within the time. Actually it can be considered as being inefficient when one has to work for extra hours to perform the duties which is expected to perform within the allocated working hours or the employers put unfair load on employees. Either way it will effect badly on the work life balance
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ReplyDeleteWork-family equilibrium is a concept that refers to the perceptions of a person of the degree to which he/she encounters positive relationships between work and family roles, where the relationships are seen as compatible with each other and in equilibrium. "The word "workfamily equilibrium," like a fulcrum weighing the regular changing weights of time and energy distribution between work and family life,
ReplyDeleteBest and timely topic.Work life balance is a term used to describe the balance between an individual's personal life and professional life. A healthy work-life balance assumes great significance for working women particularly in the current context in which both, the family and the workplace have posed several challenges and problems for women.
ReplyDeleteWork life balance for Female employees should be given priority since the family attachments they have and responsibilities in leading a family. It is an important subject for any organization to use as a good branding strategy.
ReplyDeleteVery Interesting & hardly understood factor in most of the sectors. In sri lankan context, we observe many leisure activities being organized by the institutions itself to balance the work/life of their employees.
ReplyDeleteIts very interesting topic which related with female employees is little bit different from male employees. Which describes employees personal and professional life balance.
ReplyDeleteHonestly appreciated to you for talking like this kind of topics.