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21 – 30 of over 14000The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the workers and managers of an Anglo‐German MNC, focusing on how each group attempts to maintain an acceptable work‐life…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the workers and managers of an Anglo‐German MNC, focusing on how each group attempts to maintain an acceptable work‐life balance.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is based on a two‐year‐long ethnographic study, including in‐depth interviews, participant‐observation and archival research.
Findings
Although the bulk of the company's work‐life balance initiatives focus on the managers, and the managers display greater loyalty to the company, the workers are better able to achieve work‐life balance. Neither group displays a more positive attitude to their work; however, the managers focus more on achieving status and the workers on personal satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
The findings challenge assertions that “flexible” working practices are good for work‐life balance, that managers are better able to maintain a good work‐life balance than workers, and that the development of an appropriate work‐life balance policy assists in ensuring company loyalty and positive attitudes to work.
Practical implications
This article suggests that flexible working may contribute to poor work‐life balance, and that success may be less an issue of developing work‐life balance policies and more of encouraging a healthy attitude towards work.
Originality/value
This article focuses on the occupationally stratified aspects of work‐life balance, comparing managers and workers within an organisation.
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Andrijana Mušura, Mirna Koričan and Siniša Krajnović
With the rapid use of new technologies and longer working hours, balancing work and one’s personal life is becoming more important from the employees’ and employers’ perspective…
Abstract
With the rapid use of new technologies and longer working hours, balancing work and one’s personal life is becoming more important from the employees’ and employers’ perspective. Research suggests that employees who have greater work-life balance perform better and are less likely to leave the organization. Additionally, the satisfaction and balance of life and work also becomes a predictor of job satisfaction and productivity in the workplace. When organizations put increasing pressure on their employees and do not manage the above mentioned balances appropriately, work-life conflict may appear. Work-life and life-work conflict consequently negatively affects employees, as well as their employers. To analyze which antecedents can predict work-life balance and conflict in Croatian companies an online survey was conducted on a sample of 107 respondents. The results showed that work stress factors, job satisfaction, work-life balance company policies, and level of self-esteem influence worklife and life-work conflict.
Victoria P. Weale, Yvonne D. Wells and Jodi Oakman
The purpose of this paper is to explore job satisfaction, and how the work-life interface might affect job satisfaction, among residential aged care staff. The statistical package…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore job satisfaction, and how the work-life interface might affect job satisfaction, among residential aged care staff. The statistical package PROCESS was used to analyse the impacts of workplace stressors (poor safety climate, poor relationships with colleagues and poor relationships with management) and potential mediating variables that measured aspects of the work-life interface, specifically work-family conflict (WFC) and work-life balance.
Design/methodology/approach
This survey research was carried out through distribution of a paper-based questionnaire to approximately 800 permanent, fixed term and casual employees working in residential aged care. All job roles, including both direct care and support staff, were represented in the sample.
Findings
WFC and work-life balance act serially to mediate the relationships between workplace stressors and job satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
Study participants were restricted to residential aged care facilities in the metropolitan Melbourne area, Australia, limiting generalisability of the findings.
Practical implications
The work-life interface is a legitimate concern for human resources managers. Implications include need for greater understanding of the contribution of work-life fit to job satisfaction. Interventions to improve job satisfaction should take into account how workplace stressors affect the work-life interface, as well as job-related outcomes. Enhanced work-life fit should improve job-related outcomes.
Originality/value
This paper explores the potential mediating roles of WFC and work-life balance on job satisfaction and demonstrates a pathway through which the work-life interface affects job satisfaction for workers in residential aged care.
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The purpose of this case study is to highlight to individuals and businesses the importance of work‐life balance and how it can have a massive impact on one's daily life. It aims…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this case study is to highlight to individuals and businesses the importance of work‐life balance and how it can have a massive impact on one's daily life. It aims to describe the pitfalls of not having a policy in place and also how a business can go about implementing a policy.
Design/methodology/approach
The subject scope of the paper is to inform employers and employees of all aspects of work‐life balance from the cause and effect to the methods available to help them achieve a great balance and improve productivity and wellbeing.
Findings
The case study shows that work‐life balance is having a massive impact not only on businesses productivity, but also on the economy as a whole. A massive amount of money is being lost due to illness, etc. The information included from companies such as BT who have already implemented a work‐life balance programme shows that the results are significant. The increase in staff wellbeing and productivity is amazing and shows that implementing these programmes really makes a difference.
Originality/value
The case study is invaluable to any employer who has a team of staff. The findings of the research undertaken with BT shows that companies cannot wait until work‐life balance becomes a “must have” – it needs to be implemented straightaway to ensure that staff are happy in their job and that no aspect of their career is contributing to ill health. BT show that by ensuring that “work‐life” balance is prevalent in their business they have reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and have a more responsive and effective workforce.
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Adem Sav, Neil Harris and Bernadette Sebar
– This study explores how Australian Muslim men cope with potential conflict and achieve feelings of balance between their work, family and religious roles.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores how Australian Muslim men cope with potential conflict and achieve feelings of balance between their work, family and religious roles.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is guided by the interpretive paradigm and is qualitative. Data is collected from participants via semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=20) and analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Personal coping strategies (e.g. making permanent changes and time management) seem more effective in coping with immediate conflict and achieving work-life balance as opposed to external ones (e.g. supervisor support). Although some of the strategies mirror existing research, their extent of use and reasons for usage by Muslim men are different. Muslim men use these strategies in a preventive manner to actively achieve work-life balance rather than just cope with episodic work-life conflict.
Research limitations/implications
The study is conducted with a small sample and the findings may not be generalizable to non-practising Australian Muslim men. To date, research has not clearly articulated how people who do not experience work-life conflict, make decisions to achieve balance. This study has a positive look at a negative issue by indicating that workers can go beyond coping with conflict and explore avenues to achieve work-life balance. The findings underscore the importance of preventive coping in achieving work-life balance and caution researchers about investigating how people cope with immediate work-life conflict only.
Originality/value
In addition to work and family roles, this study focuses on religious commitments, with religion being a largely overlooked concept within the work-family coping literature.
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Yeongjoon Yoon and Sukanya Sengupta
Research on the effect of pay cuts/freezes on employee morale is limited. More importantly, past studies examining this relationship tend to focus on fairness perception as a…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on the effect of pay cuts/freezes on employee morale is limited. More importantly, past studies examining this relationship tend to focus on fairness perception as a mediator. This study hypothesizes that work–life conflict also mediates the negative relationship between pay cuts/freezes and employee morale.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 13,139 employees in 1,830 workplaces in Britain in the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey were analyzed.
Findings
The analyses confirm the above hypothesis. The results also demonstrate that this mediating mechanism can be mitigated to some extent when work–life balancing practices are available, but much more strongly when they are actually used.
Practical implications
If possible, organizations should provide and encourage employees to use work–life balancing practices when employees' pay needs to be cut or frozen if maintaining employee morale is a concern.
Originality/value
Our study highlights the need to incorporate various theoretical frameworks, and not just the dominant justice/fairness theories, into the study of pay cuts and freezes. The current research demonstrates that the work–life conflict framework can also be applied to understand the relationship between pay cuts/freezes and employee morale.
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Doris Ruth Eikhof, Chris Warhurst and Axel Haunschild
The purpose of this article is to initiate critical reflection on the assumptions and evidence underpinning the work‐life balance debate.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to initiate critical reflection on the assumptions and evidence underpinning the work‐life balance debate.
Design/methodology/approach
The article reviews a range of international literature focused on and related to the work‐life balance debate and issues.
Findings
In the work‐life balance debate, over‐work is perceived as the problem. Nevertheless, beyond working time and the provision of flexible working practices to enable child care, there is little in the debate abut the need to change work per se. The debate also narrowly perceives “life”, equating it with women's care work, hence the emphasis again of family‐friendly polices.
Research limitations/implications
The article suggests that reconceptualisation is required in analyses of both work‐life balance and the relationship between work and life.
Practical implications
The article implies that current work‐life balance policies are myopic in terms of addressing the needs and aspirations of employees.
Originality/value
The article offers a synthesis of evidence that is wider than that typical in current analyses of work and life.
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The aim of this paper is to examine the gendered nature of work‐life policies in and the work‐life conflicts of managers in a multinational corporation in Hungary.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to examine the gendered nature of work‐life policies in and the work‐life conflicts of managers in a multinational corporation in Hungary.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on 30 qualitative interviews with male and female managers at junior, middle and senior management levels located in Unilevers Eastern European headquarters in Budapest.
Findings
The results show that while legislative measures for family‐leave related policies are being encouraged in the EU, this is not the case with employer organizations in transition states, yet this is an important aspect of gender and employment policy as accession states begin to redesign their programmes to fall in line with EU guidelines. The research reveals that attempts to introduce family‐friendly policies still create gendered effects and gendered dilemmas for individual managers. The results reveal that men and women have different perceptions of work‐life balance and adopt different coping strategies to manage work and family commitments. Overall it is found that work‐life balance is constructed as an individual, rather than a corporate responsibility and this also creates gendered inequalities.
Research limitations/implications
The study focuses on one organisation in a transition context and so results cannot be generalised.
Originality/value
The paper aims to contribute to the limited knowledge that currently exists on work‐life initiatives in a transition context and attempts to clarify how gender equality measures can be understood and further developed within the Hungarian context.
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Aqeel Ahmed Soomro, Robert J. Breitenecker and Syed Afzal Moshadi Shah
People in both the developing and developed worlds now face issues like work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore the…
Abstract
Purpose
People in both the developing and developed worlds now face issues like work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between work-life balance, work-family conflict, and family-work conflict and perceived employee performance with job satisfaction serving as a moderating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
The object of this study is a full-time teaching faculty. Responses from 280 young university teaching faculty serving in public-sector universities in Islamabad, Pakistan, were investigated by applying linear regression analysis to test six hypotheses.
Findings
The results show that work-life balance and work-family conflict have a positive effect on employee performance. Job satisfaction has moderating effects on the relationships between work-life balance, work-family conflict, and family-work conflict with perceived employee performance.
Originality/value
The study presents some unique results, which are different from previous studies such as work-family conflict has a positive significant effect on employee performance, family-work conflict has no significant effect on employee performance, and job satisfaction can be a negative moderator between these relations.
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The purpose of this paper is to address notions and practices relating to work–life balance for native German scholars and researchers who have migrated from the former Soviet…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address notions and practices relating to work–life balance for native German scholars and researchers who have migrated from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Issues will be explored from a cultural perspective, identifying culturally based interpretations of work–life balance.
Design/methodology/approach
Foregrounded in a diversity approach, this empirical study draws upon explorative interviews to discuss work–life balance in German academia. To overcome monocultural observations, 25 German scholars and 11 researchers originating from the FSU were interviewed, all of whom are highly skilled female scholars.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds can perceive huge differences in identical working conditions. The study links meanings of work–life balance with individual practices and identifies key components of work–life balance within this population. It also discusses the decisions that scholars make about starting families or remaining childless for the sake of their careers.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind in Germany, and represents a strong implication for policies and their evaluation. It identifies the crucial role played by culturally rooted notions relating to work–life balance practices.
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