Work-Life Balance

11 Key excerpts on "Work-Life Balance"

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  Office Ergonomics

  Ease and Efficiency at Work, Second Edition

  • Anne D. Kroemer, Karl H.E. Kroemer(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Work–life balance is a self-defined, self-determined state of well-being, one that allows us to effectively manage our many responsibilities, including those at work, at home, and in our community. An effective work–life balance supports our physical, mental, emo-tional, familial, and community health, with little stress or negative impact. As an employer , you can help your employees find this work–life balance by estab-lishing the following: Ensure that human resource policies are family friendly and that they apply to both men and women in all states of career development: • These policies should evolve to reflect cultural shifts; for example, today, many adults care not only for their children but also for aging parents. • They should apply to employees at any level of career with the company. Give employees more control over their time: • Allowing employees to negotiate flex time and remote work when feasible establishes a better working relationship. 56 Office Ergonomics: Ease and Efficiency at Work • Employees who feel in control of their time are generally more satisfied at work. • Giving employees flexibility recognizes the reality that everyone has differ-ent needs at different points in their lives. Dispel the notion of “face time”: • The idea that managers need to “see” their employees to know that they are working and productive is passe and undermines the notion that we trust and value our employees. • Employees should be held to the same performance targets regardless of where or when they work. • Performance on these targets should be used to evaluate the employee rather than the time spent in the office. As an employee , you can take measures to balance work and life by considering the following: Define success for yourself by setting qualitative and quantitative goals about your work and your personal life: • Recognize that these goals will change as your circumstances at home and at work evolve.

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  Office Ergonomics

  Ease and Efficiency at Work, Second Edition

  • Anne D. Kroemer, Karl H.E. Kroemer(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  In most any career, there are times where we must work long hours and other times where workloads ebb. We all work differently, and ideal working hours are highly subjective. Work–life balance is a self-defined, self-determined state of well-being, one that allows us to effectively manage our many responsibilities, including those at work, at home, and in our community. An effective work–life balance supports our physical, mental, emotional, familial, and community health, with little stress or negative impact.

  As an employer , you can help your employees find this work–life balance by establishing the following:

  Ensure that human resource policies are family friendly and that they apply to both men and women in all states of career development:

  • These policies should evolve to reflect cultural shifts; for example, today, many adults care not only for their children but also for aging parents.
  • They should apply to employees at any level of career with the company.

  Give employees more control over their time:

  • Allowing employees to negotiate flex time and remote work when feasible establishes a better working relationship.
  • Employees who feel in control of their time are generally more satisfied at work.
  • Giving employees flexibility recognizes the reality that everyone has different needs at different points in their lives.

  Dispel the notion of “face time”:

  • The idea that managers need to “see” their employees to know that they are working and productive is passe and undermines the notion that we trust and value our employees.
  • Employees should be held to the same performance targets regardless of where or when they work.
  • Performance on these targets should be used to evaluate the employee rather than the time spent in the office.

  As an employee , you can take measures to balance work and life by considering the following:

  Define success for yourself by setting qualitative and quantitative goals about your work and your personal life:

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  The Boomer Retirement Time Bomb

  How Companies Can Avoid the Fallout from the Coming Skills Shortage

  • Donald L. Venneberg, Barbara Welss Eversole(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 5 Work-Life Balance By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. Robert Frost (1874–1963) SENIOR WORKERS SEEK FLEXIBILITY (AND SO DO OTHER EMPLOYEES) Integrating employees’ work and nonwork lives is increasingly becom- ing of interest to organizations. Work can enhance the personal lives of workers, and a fulfilling personal life can facilitate working effec- tively. Work and life are often seen as two spheres that compete with each other for scarce resources of time, money, and emotional involve- ment (Friedman and Greenhaus 2000). However, there is great value to organizations to enhance work effectiveness with Work-Life Balance. Before discussing the role of Work-Life Balance in defusing the retire- ment time bomb, let’s first look at what work-life programs are. Although work-life programs are often marginalized as benefits to working mothers, all four generations in the workforce are interested in integrating their work and nonwork lives. In particular, workers want flexibility. However, workers may want flexibility for different reasons based on their generational cohort and or stage of life. A flexi- ble work culture can be particularly useful to retaining older workers (Johnson, Noble and Richman 2005). While many older workers are concerned with reducing their hours, some are concerned with taking care of their aging parents. Some are dealing with both older children who have moved back home and aging parents at the same time. While this ‘‘sandwich’’ phenomenon is usually present in younger gen- erations, older workers can find themselves between generations. WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY Work-life programs were first instituted in the workplace to help alle- viate the conflict employees, originally working mothers, were experi- encing in the workplace, known as work-life conflict.

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  Ageless Talent

  Enhancing the Performance and Well-Being of Your Age-Diverse Workforce

  • Lisa M. Finkelstein, Donald M. Truxillo, Franco Fraccaroli, Ruth Kanfer(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  7

  Enhancing Work-Nonwork Balance and Well-Being of Evolving Workers

  What Is Work-Life Balance?

  This chapter is devoted to work-nonwork balance as we age. In Chapter 2 , you already had a short introduction to this topic and its relevance with regard to the quality of individual and organizational life. Work-nonwork balance goes by many names: Work-Life Balance; work-nonwork balance; work-family balance. Others use the term “conflict”, instead of balance, to describe the negative side of the relationship between work roles and domains outside of work, such as family context, leisure time, and the community where a person lives. Yet others talk about “work-life integration” or “work-life alignment”. The central point is to understand how your work relates to, interacts with, can interfere with, and may even enhance other areas of your life – and vice-versa. In this chapter we chose to use the label “work-nonwork life balance”.

  Consider this example. Imagine Robert, a middle-aged man (45 years old) who works as an advanced laboratory technician for a large pharmaceutical company. As part of his job, he is responsible for coordinating the activities of 12 coworkers who also work with very sophisticated biomedical analysis tools, but nine of whom work a different shift. The task sheets provided to workers are often incomplete, and because of his role as a coordinator, Robert is often called at home by his colleagues to help decipher task sheets. Although Robert is passionate about his work and is committed to the company, work calls on his evenings and often interrupts family time and activities with his two children and wife, Sarah, who is employed as a school manager in the same city. Sarah's job also involves a lot of responsibility, but it does not usually require her to be available when she is not at work. Robert is very keen on being with his children and participating in the significant events of their growth. Although the distribution of family obligations between Robert and Sarah is equitable and career development is important to both partners, their job demands typically require substantial negotiation of priorities that sometimes leads to conflict between them. For example, a new responsibility for Sarah in a challenging project for her school may require Robert's presence in the family to cover some childcare loads. Robert and Sarah also enjoy a number of sports and community activities, such as sailing and cheering on the local basketball team, and they look forward to engaging in activities with their young children on weekends. And as part of a larger religious community, they are committed to following the rituals of their community and to cultivating their children's spiritual growth.

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  Work-Life Advantage

  Sustaining Regional Learning and Innovation

  • Al James(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  ‘The work‐life balance agenda is where philosophical questions about what is the good life and what is the common good intersect with the political. We need to challenge the centrality of work in our lives, and reconsider the price we pay for our wages … the economy should be the servant of our needs, not our master’ (Bunting 2005: xxvi–xxvii). Objective state of affairs ‘Satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict’ (Clark 2000: 751). Subjective experience ‘Work‐life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. It is achieved when an individual’s right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society’ (The Work Foundation/Employers for Work‐Life Balance (Jones 2003). Practice ‘Work‐life balance practices in the workplace are therefore those that, intentionally or otherwise, increase the flexibility and autonomy of the worker in negotiating their attention (time) and presence in the workplace’ (Gregory and Milner 2009: 1–2). Alternative working arrangements ‘Work‐life policies and practices are geared to … enhance flexibility to increase worker control over the location, place or amount of work, or provide additional instrumental resources such as information and direct services to enable individuals to be able to combine employment with caregiving or other important non‐work roles’ (Kossek et al. 2010: 2). Perception/feeling ‘Feeling that work and family/personal demands each make legitimate claims on an individual’s time, but the individual cannot control the balance between them’ (Tausig and Fenwick 2001: 102).

  Further criticisms have also been levelled at the constituent ‘work’, ‘life’ and ‘balance’ elements used in WLB terminology, which are by now widely rehearsed in the literature. In summary, these relate to the implicit dualistic suggestion that work is somehow not part of life; that people’s lives are only divided between paid work and some other undifferentiated activity called ‘life’; its overlooking the possibility that some people might actually like their jobs; its potentially undermining unpaid carework by implying it is just another part of the non‐work domain; its (false) implication of work and personal life as mutually exclusive; its overlooking the shifting nature of people’s work and non‐work involvements and meanings given to these over the lifecourse; its implication that balance and equity are synchronic (relating to now), rather than diachronic (relating to a temporal span); that work is somehow bad and life is good; that a balance has been achieved by some and could be achieved by many more; and that balance is synonymous with 50/50 equity (see, e.g., Rapoport et al. 2002; Mitchell et al. 2004; Moen and Sweet 2004; Gambles et al. 2006; Ransome 2007).

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  Work-Life Balance in Europe

  The Role of Job Quality

  • S. Drobnic, A. Guillén, S. Drobnic, A. Guillén(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The preferred work schedules are generally predictable: they include regular variation such as a shift rota (to permit planning and co-ordination with other activities) and arrangements such as flexitime that offer flexibility for employees to adapt their hours to their needs and changing circumstances. However, other job quality factors are also pertinent. A second strand of the literature on Work-Life Balance emphasizes the issues of ‘boundary work’ and ‘spillover’ between the domains of employment and personal 72 Colette Fagan and Pierre Walthery life (Hochschild, 2001; Kelly and Voydanoff, 1985; Staines, 1980; Lewis et al., 2003; Pocock, 2003). This literature draws attention to how job features other than working time may impact on Work-Life Balance; for example, if the job is very stressful and emotionally demanding, the individual may be left with insufficient mental and physical resources to engage in personal life. Within this approach to conceptualizing Work-Life Balance, occupational psychologists have elaborated a con- ceptual distinction between work-family and family-work conflict in order to study the differentiated impact of the work environment and other factors on each side of the interface (Frone, 2003; Grzywacz and Butler, 2005; Voydanoff, 2005b). The focus of much of the research on the impact of job features on Work-Life Balance has been on the rela- tionship between working conditions and psychological strain. In the classic demand and control framework, proposed by Karasek (Karasek, 1979; Karasek et al., 1981; Karasek and Theorell 1990), job strain is pro- duced by the combined impact of the psychological demands arising from a job and the degree of job control enjoyed by the worker. Whereas a moderate degree of demand provides stimulation and allows workers to develop new skills, jobs that are too demanding may cause stress and tension.

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  Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior

  Evidence-based Lessons for Creating Sustainable Organizations

  • Steve M. Jex, Thomas W. Britt, Cynthia A. Thompson, Cynthia A Thompson(Authors)
  • 2024(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  People derive a sense of identity from the domain with the strongest priority; a person who experiences “balance” is both effective and satisfied in the role(s) deemed most important. In 2018, Casper and her col- leagues (2018) expanded the definition of work–family balance to include the broader term, work- nonwork balance, to highlight the fact that balance is not just about work and family. The expanded definition includes an employee’s evaluation of emo- tional experiences, involvement, and effec- tiveness in work and nonwork roles and whether they are commensurate with the value they attach to the roles. Based on an analysis of 290 studies, they found that work-nonwork balance was conceptually distinct from work–life conflict and work– life enrichment. Additionally, through three meta-analyses of the correlation between work-nonwork balance and job satisfaction (48 unique samples), life satisfaction (28 unique samples), and family satisfaction (21 unique samples), they found that work- nonwork balance is strongly related to job, life, and family satisfaction. In a recent meta-analysis of personal and work-related antecedents of work–family balance, Vaziri et al. (2022) examined 130 independent samples (n = 223,055) and found that several personal characteris- tics (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, and psychological capital) were related to bal- ance. Psychological capital, which refers to the positive psychological capacities of hope, resilience, self-efficacy, and optimism, had the strongest relationship with balance. They also found that work-related factors were powerful predictors of work–family balance. Specifically, job autonomy, sched- ule control, family-friendly culture, and perceived organizational support were posi- tively related to WLB, and work demands (i.e., work hours, work overload, and job insecurity) were negatively related to WLB.

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  Available until 15 Jan |Learn more

  Going Diverse: Innovative Answers to Future Challenges

  Gender and Diversity Perspectives in Science, Technology and Business

  • Carmen Leicht-Scholten, Elke Breuer, Nathalie Tulodetzki, Andrea Wolffram, Carmen Leicht-Scholten, Elke Breuer, Nathalie Tulodetzki, Andrea Wolffram(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Budrich UniPress

    (Publisher)

  Work-Life Balance in Academia 185 A significant proportion of female academics in both samples report having considered, but not taken, a career break offering explanations that underline the ‘either-or’ nature of the decision, its tight coupling to becoming a mother, and the anticipation that the decision is potentially harmful to career ad-vancement (see Box 1). 7. Work-Life Balance Geography and flexibility are particularly important in the current employ-ment choices of academics and employees of the university administration in our samples (Table 2). Aside from personal significance, flexibility is consi-dered the major contributor to a good Work-Life Balance in general by a ma-jority of our respondents, regardless of their sex and affiliation (Table 4). In line with other research on this issue (see e.g. Corporate Leadership Council 2009), these results strongly suggest that Work-Life Balance to a highly quali-fied workforce is first and foremost about contributions to a better ‘workload management’. This includes the reconciliation of work and domestic or fami-ly issues but also facets beyond these, like allowance for absence on short notice or the provision of home offices. To universities, these results should underline the importance of elastic solutions to the preferences of their em-ployees regarding Work-Life Balance.

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  Educational Leadership

  Personal Growth for Professional Development

  • Harry Tomlinson(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  20 Work and Life: Achieving a Balance and Planning for the Future The Observer , in association with the Department of Trade and Industry (www.dti.gov.uk/work-lifebalance) published a special supplement on 3 March 2002 entitled Work Life Balance: Redressing an Imbalance . The government had launched its Work Life Balance campaign in March 2000 making it a priority to promote the benefits of flexible working practices. The problem caused by exces-sive hours is not only an issue in education as evidenced in the Teacher Workload Study, but requires a change to the pervasive UK work culture which makes people feel they have to be seen to work very long hours. The initiative is aiming to cul-tivate conditions where employers can see the benefits of adapting traditional working practices to enable workers to ask for alternatives. Increased flexibility means happier, healthier, more motivated and more productive staff. Current prac-tice in schools needs to be reformulated to make this possible. The pace of change will not reduce nor will the need to perform better in a context in which transfor-mations in technology require schools to meet the pace of change head on. Overwork and inflexible working practices mean a less productive teaching force with recruitment and, particularly, retention problems. A better work–life balance can support developments associated with many of the issues we have addressed in this book – productivity, motivation, performance, morale, loyalty and creativ-ity – to help staff with family and caring responsibilities. If a school can retain its staff by looking after them better they will contribute more positively. The European Working Time Directive (1998) which limited working hours in the European Union (EU) to 48 hours, with an opt-out clause for the UK, needs to be explored more fully in the education context. A new issue which is emerging is for fathers who want quality time with their children, not just paternity leave.

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  The Freelance Editor's Handbook

  A Complete Guide to Making Your Business Thrive

  • Suzy Bills(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  246 Everyone’s heard of work/life balance, but it seems that few people achieve it—or if they do, they don’t maintain it for more than a few weeks or months. And some people believe that work/life balance is a myth. My take? You’re not likely to experience this balance 100 per-cent of the time, but you can enjoy it often—if you have the right mindset and are committed to applying key strategies. So, this chap-ter will explore those topics. I’ll also talk about how to address nega-tive client feedback, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome, all three of which can obviously decrease your work enjoyment and seep into your attitude toward life overall. Though I can’t guarantee that fol-lowing the tips in this chapter will keep your life perfectly balanced, I am confident that you’ll be closer to maintaining that balance and you’ll know what to do if things start to wobble. Balancing Work and Personal Pursuits Adopting the Right Mindset Those who think work/life balance isn’t possible often reach this conclusion because they assume balance means “to make equal.” Sure, that’s one definition, but I prefer another of Merriam-Webster ’s 11 Achieving Work/Life Balance a c h i e v i n g w o r k / l i f e b a l a n c e 247 definitions: “to bring into harmony.” 1 For most people, it’s un-realistic to think that they can spend as many hours per day on personal matters as they do on work. When your work life and personal life are in harmony, you’ll feel good about the amount of time you spend on both. And you won’t fall into the trap of think-ing that you need as much leisure time as work time in order to achieve balance. Perhaps you’re skeptical about balance not meaning “to make equal,” so let’s consider an example. Research indicates that people need a combination of carbohydrates, protein, and fat for overall health. We need a balance among the three, but we don’t need the same amount of each for maximum functioning.

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  The Employment Relationship: Key Challenges for HR

  • Paul Sparrow, Cary L. Cooper(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  More inclusive definitions have to be applied to organizational and individual action. 8  Finally, public policy makers have to recognize the implications of changes in family structure and institutional arrangements have to reconcile the needs to ensure equal employment protection with legitimate needs for organizational competitiveness. In conclusion, the challenge presented to the employment relationship by the need for work–life balance is made more complex by many long-standing assumptions about work and family. These assumptions are little more than social and historical constructs. In order to meet current needs they need to be renegotiated and reconstructed in order for us to reconcile work and family. This process is slowly taking place. However, in the next chapter we introduce one final important consideration. We cannot conduct this dialogue based purely on our understanding of current needs and priorities. We must also consider, first, whether the needs and desires of the future generation are likely to be in line with those that we are reconciling now, and second, whether the challenges that they will face will introduce the need for new values and new flexibilities for which even future generations might not be well equipped. References 1.  The work summarized by R. Taylor draws upon several emerging outputs, including research by: M. White at the Policy Studies Institute and S. Hill from the London School of Economics on attitudes to paid employment and pressures faced at work; J. Hyman from Glasgow Caledonian University on call-centre and software firm employees; survey work by the Institute of Employment Research at Warwick University and IFF on work–life balance; S. Himmelweit and M. Sigala at the Open Univerity into the work experience of mothers with pre-school children; I. Bruegel from South Bank University looking at educational and employment experiences of young Pakistani and Bangladeshi women; and D. Houston and G

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