Relationship Between Work-Life Balance Policies & Performance.
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Author | Barik, Pratibha |
Introduction
Initially Work life balance policies and practices (WLBPs) were associated only with female workforce, to reduce absenteeism and turnover of female employees (Lambert, 2000). But presently they are no more gender specific. Due to change in working environment, they are demanded by both female as well as male employees. The present study is on Development Officers of Life Insurance companies. The responsibility of a Development Officer is to be the in-charge of their territory and are responsible for marketing and procurement of business, meeting with prospective clients, training of agents and promotion of policies etc.
Salesperson is an important resource for an organization, and the overall investment in the sales force for large firms can be of the order of billions of dollars (Zoltners, 2001). They play a very vital role in revenue generation and brand building of firms and their performance and have an impact on the goodwill of a firm (Churchill, Ford & Walker, 1974). Marketing Officers are considered a strong pillar of an organization, but they are juggling hard to maintain a balance between personal life and work life. As they are under pressure to achieve their targets for which they are working 24*7. The marketing job involves frequent tours and travels, which leads to conflicts between their personal and professional lives. These demanding job profiles have forced the organization to implement work-life balance policies for the betterment of an employee. The present research will highlight the impact of work-life balance policies and practices on performance of Development Officer's working in a life insurance company. Today the insurance companies are battling to retain their talented employees. Many researches have explored this field, especially on female workforce but work-life balance policies requirements of salespersons have been neglected. The findings of the study will be fruitful for researchers and organizations in this emerging market.
Work-life Balance
Work-life balance (WLB) is the division of time spend by an individual between work and home (Julie Morgenstern, 2008). Greenhaus, Collins and Shaw's (2003) study focused on time balance between personal and professional lives. Gary Keller (2013) stated that "family and work are two sides of a coin but they are inseparable, disturbance in one domain affects the other domain too". Hudson (2005) also defines WLB as a satisfactory level of participation or 'fit' between the numerous roles in a person's life with specification to work and personal life of each individual. WLB often refers to a harmonious interface between different life domains, or a lack of conflict or interference between work and family roles' (Frone, 2003: 145). A solid work life balance means having a meaningful participation in all the aspects of a wholesome life with family, with work, with friends and with oneself.
Previously setting goals and priorities was part of time management, that is, the ability to schedule, plan and organize activities (MacAn, 1994). Renn (2010) found that employees who set goals and priorities on a daily basis are better able to avoid tensions between life domains than employees without time management skills.
Today, due to change in workforce demographics, family structure and priorities in life of an individual, employees' demand to balance their work and personal lives has increased. They are looking ahead for more family-friendly work environment. Work-life balance policies and practices are an upcoming supportive work-life harmony tools in HRM to manage a balance between work and personal lives of an individual. Parus' (2010) study revealed that the demand to balance between work demand pressure and family demand pressure hampers the health of an employee. The study on millennials by the Manpowergroup (Suryatapa Bhattacharya, 2016) has gathered data showing the number of hours worked by country. The report says Indian millennials put in the longest number of working hours per week, 52 hours to be exact compared to China's 48, USA's 45 and UK's 41 hours.
Work-life balance policies and practices are strategic, formal and informal approaches adopted by an organization to make their employees' life balanced (Osterman, 1995) and work-life balance/ family-friendly work environment has become a decisive requirement for an organization's commitment. The implementation of such programs and policies are considered as a high work commitment system ensuring employees' high commitment and better work efficiency (Osterman, 1995).
Today this issue is globally taken up by the organizations through flexi-time work arrangement which is playing a significant role in employees performance enhancement as it provides freedom to choose their own work-time schedule (Mwebi & Nicholas Kadaga, 2015) and employees' control on their time leads to reduction in absenteeism and tardiness (Perez et al, 2012). The freedom to decide when and where to work often resulted in reducing work family conflict.
In 1970, the first attempt to explore the impact of flexible work arrangements on individual worker's performance was done (DeMenezes & Kelliher, 2011). It was argued that absenteeism is perceived as negative consequence by organizations (e.g. Dalton & Mesch, 1990) and flexible work time reduces stress level (Baltes et al., 1999) which further lower the levels of absenteeism (De Menezes & Kelliher, 2011). The present study is based on the premise that the concepts of flexi-hours and place, flexi-leave arrangements and recreational activities have positive association with performance of sales officer.
Theories & Research Hypothesis
Flexi-hours and Place: Flexi-work arrangements (FWA) provides flexibility in work to be completed "when"(time flexibility) and "where" (telecommuting i.e., place does not matter)(Barbara Rau & Hyland, 2002). A flexi-place provided freedom to work from anywhere i.e., they are not bound to report to office only. Apart from the place, they are flexible to adopt their work time schedule. In Canada and United States, FWA offered family-friendly benefits with flexi-time and tele-work and have gained popularity (Comfort, Johnson & Wallace, 2003; SHRM Foundation, 2001). This has originated as a supportive work-life balance practice in an organization and had proven to be effective in managing work and family responsibilities (Jeffrey and Rothbard, 2001; Goode, 1960,).
* Flexi-time also known as flexi working hours or flexi schedule means the freedom given to employees to choose their own start and end working time making 8 hours of working (Baltes et al, 1999).The working hours have been linked to difficulties in balancing work and personal life, more working with less flexibility leads to work-family conflict (Rusek, 2006).This flexibilized working hours emerged as new hope for balancing work-life of employees (Kleeman, Matuschak & Vob, 2003), but organizations do not allow the employees to adapt flexi-hours as per their need, they implement it as per the requirement of organization (Margherita, O' Dorchai & Bosch, 2009). In this high work demand scenario flexi-working hours is based on social exchange theory. Both the parties look for their benefits with respect to future expectations to be fulfilled with inter correlation between organization and employee (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010). Researchers treat flexi working hours as a win-win situation with 5 distinctive interrelated sub themes i.e., performance (employees feel good and motivated as they plan their own working schedule), trust, being own manager (empowered to plan helps them to balance their personal and professional life), organizational commitment (loyalty and honesty is built up) and compensation and recognition (Galea et. al, 2014). The employees and employers are treating this flexi time as a strategic tool to blur the work-life conflict (Voydanoff, 2005)
The aim of the present quantitative research is to get insight into the effect of using flexi working hours and place on the Development Officer's performance (self-rated). The performance is divided into two parts; i) Work performance-employee's responsibilities at work and ii) Non-work performance-These are the household responsibilities performed at home by an employee. The work related to care taking for children and elderly parents, i.e., how effectively an employee is accomplishing his/her home responsibilities. Research question: does flexi-hours and place effect the work and non-work performance of Development Officers? Thus, we hypothesize:
H1: Flexi-hours and place have positive association with work performance
H2: Flexi-hours and place have positive association with non-work performance
Flexible Leave Arrangements
Leave policies are a set of rules and regulations by an organization to take work off by an employee. This is a support tool for an...
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