Work-Life Flexibility Will Replace Work-Life Balance †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Work-Life Flexibility Will Replace Work-Life Balance. Answer: Introduction In the era of globalization, organizations are crossing domestic barriers and entering into the foreign market to expand their operations. With the growing base of organizations operations, the need for skilled and capable human resource keeps on increasing. The workload of individuals is increasing day by day due to the complex working and structure of organization. The present working environment is very competitive and involves a lot of work pressure on the employees. The future of workplace has to face a number of challenges and opportunities in terms of use of technology at workplace, employee engagement and commitment towards one employer as in the future workplace will consist of millennial who want to Hop around from one job to another to gain experience and side by side fulfill their passion and work life flexibility which will replace work life Balance (Bhattacharya, 2017). The report discusses about the implications of work life flexibility on the work place of the future. Many employees find it difficult to strike a balance between their personal and professional lives and as a result they end up compromising and choosing either work life or professional life. A flexible working arrangement is an effective solution for employees to manage both of them efficiently. The report will discuss about the implication of work life flexibility on employees, HRM and leaders. The report also discusses about the negative aspect of implementing a flexible working environment and whether it supports the goals and objectives of the organization or not. Need for work life balance In the fast paced corporate life and increase in the market competition employees are burdened with lots of workplace responsibilities. Employers are forcing their employees to be more productive and achieve greater results for their organization. To prove themselves in the organization and to achieve targets they forgot giving time to their personal lives. Employees in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization do overtime which have some serious implication on the health of employees. If employees is engaged in only their personal life and forget about their personal and social life they face issues such as stress and other diseases caused due to working for longer hours, high rate of absenteeism and low productivity (Collatz Gudat, 2011). Work life balance is very important concept which means finding and maintaining a balance between the professional and personal life in such a way that one gets the best of both the worlds. Work life balance is very important for the happiness and productivity of the workplace as happy employees are committed, dedicated and engaged in achieving the goals of the organization. The most suffered individual due to the work life balance issues is women who find it hard to fully commit to their professional lives while giving time to their family. Many of them have given their professional roles as the employer is not willing to consider her situation and even if the managers allow them to work for fewer hours so that they can give time to their families they receive a reduced pay. The factors influencing the work life balance in an organizations are number of women working, families run by single parent, individuals who are aged and planning to retire are some of the categories which requ ires a work life flexibility to create a work life balance due to various commitments and responsibilities (Smith Gardener, 2007). The absence of a work life balance has a negative impact on the performance of employees. It also affects their family life of the employees and end up creating a situation of conflict between the work and family. The psychological implication of inappropriate work life setting is depression and anxiety due to job stress (Muthu, Pangil Isa, 2015). An optimum balance between work and home will help the employees to stay focused and attentive at the workplace and in their personal lives. The priorities will be set and employees will be able to fulfill their responsibilities efficiently (Debnam, 2012). Some of the initiatives that can be taken by employers are: Gym facilities at workplace or giving gym membership discounts at local gyms, crche service or childcare services will help mothers or single parents to focus on their work without working about their children at home, regular outings and social gatherings will reduces work life stress. Allowing employees to work from home or work for restricted number of hours worked. The employer should focus on productivity rather than on number of working hours, giving maternity or paternity is also a great practice to make employees feel that the organization care for them and motivates them to be loyal and productive for their employers. An organization can provide assistance in the form of helping employees in reducing their home responsibilities burden with the help of concierge services (Miller, 2016). The employees should also stay committed towards organizational goals and be productive after they are being provided with the benefits from their employer to manage work life balance. Role of work life flexibility in work life balance The future workplace will be accountable for more innovative practices which will increase the productivity of the employees. Work life flexibility is not a new concept in todays world but they are not widely adopted by the organization. The future workplace will allow individual to ditch the conventional 9 to 5 job routine and adopt work hours that will be convenient for them. The basis of analyzing the individuals performance will not be the hours worked but hoe productive they are in those working hours. Work-life flexibility will allow individuals to complete their work without any time and location restrictions. The technological development is at its peak and in the coming years they will be more advanced and will support individuals to fulfill their personal and professional obligations without any issues (Pacock, Skinner, 2009). Work-Life flexibility is an alternative to the regular working hours routine. It not only gives freedom to fulfill their personal responsibilities of being a mother or a parent or a child in an effective manner while managing the corporate responsibilities. There is a positive impact of the work-life flexibility on the work-life balance. In the coming years employees will not have to worry about juggling between their personal and professional lives because the work-life flexibility will give them freedom to choose what is important at that point of time. Work-life flexibility will create loyal workers and help the organization to retain talent in the competitive working environment (Shagvaliyeva Yazadanifard, 2014). Creating a work life balance is a responsibility of both the employer and employees. In organization there are work life balance policies which are biased towards permanent employees and individual who choose flexible working hours. Employees who choose to work for a limited number of hours are deprived from performance appraisal activities such as promotion and reward and incentives scheme as compared to individual who may not be more productive but still they are being preferred when it comes to promotion. Unequal pay is another important concern as individuals who work for less hours but produce the same output as the regular shift hour individual is producing are being paid differently rather they are paid on the basis of hours spend and not on the basis of efficiency in the output (Dhas Karthikeyan, 2015). Implications of work-life flexibility on the employees There are different types of flexible working setting available to the employees: Flexitime: It involves giving employees freedom to choose their working hours and come early or late with the permission of the management. Part-time work: It is the most common type of work arrangements which involves working for less number of hours unlike the individual who are working for full time. Overtime: Overtime allow individuals to work extra for making additional salary to meet their personal obligations. Job sharing: Job sharing involves two people who have same set of skills and qualification to share their job work in alternate shifts or days. Work from home: Work from home gives the freedom to individual to fulfill their workplace responsibilities from home and not from the employers premises (Acas, 2015). The work life flexibility will help the employees to be more productive as they have the control in how to manage their time effectively and focus on what is important. Employees can be stress free at the workplace as they are not compromising with their social and personal lives due to their hectic work culture. Employees will be happier and motivated as employees will get more sleep and they can take care of their health resulting into less work life conflict and emotional exhaustion (Wilson, 2016). For some individuals work-life flexibility can prove to be advantageous and but at time there are various insecurities attached with the work life flexibility. For women who have just entered their mother hood or those who have family obligation, flexibility in work life can help them to pursue their professional career without sacrificing their professional lives. Women are more open to such work life flexibility than men because they feel such working arrangement is associated will low salary package and job security is a major concern because it is often perceived that employees who complete their regular shift are preferred more (Bhate, 2013). But slowly they are being adopted by men also due to the single parent responsibilities or other commitments (Wei, Yili Tian, 2013). Although the work-life flexibility has certain drawbacks but they have proven to be very effective in retaining skilled employees in the organization because they have the freedom to work on their own terms. It also has a positive impact on the employees engagement and motivation towards the goals and objectives of the organization. Implications for HRM The work-life flexibility strategy can only prove to be effective; HR of an organization plays a key role. The HR has to consult the top level management and convince them that the flexible arrangement is important for the productivity of employees. Once the approval of the top level management is done the HR should design policies that take in to consideration the interest of both the organization and employees. A work-life flexibility program can hinder the growth of the organization if not implemented successfully (SHRM, 2016). They also have to deal with resistance on the part of employees and keeping in mind the other operational issues that may arise due to such arrangements. HR is also responsible in monitoring the efficiency of employees who are working from home or working for less number of hours. They have to ensure that the productivity of employees is not being affected as they are the ones who are answerable to the top level management for their decisions. They also have a responsibility of designing a performance appraisal scheme which should not affect the employees who are coming and working regularly in the office. They should design schedule of work and keep a check whether the employees are following it or not. There are many legal issue too associated with the work life flexibility policies such as whether the workers compensations should be given when employees faces any health issues while working at home. HR has to also ensure that the confidentiality of the sensitive information of the organization should be maintained. The responsibility of HR in designing work-life flexibility policies has been crucial as they are accountable for any issues arising from such arrangements. They should make sure that the policies implemented does not affect the organizational growth and support the organization to be sustainable in the market. Implications for leaders and Managers Managers and leaders have a collective responsibility of guiding the efforts of individual into the direction of management goals. Managers and leaders with the flexible working hours approach can attract talented employees who may not be able to work due to some personal reasons and it also helps to retain the competent employees as they feel they are valued because organization takes their interest into consideration. Managers are able to engage employees and they are being more focused toward the goals of the organization (Hays, 2016). The employees who are allowed to work according to their own term reduce the cost of hiring the new employee as the turnover rate will be low (Fell, 2013). There certain issues which are being faced by the managers and leaders are violation of the policies by the employees. The employees may take the undue advantage of the policy and may not provide output as expected from them. If they are working from home, managers have a restriction on supervising whether the employees are actually performing their roles and responsibilities or not (Tovey, 2014). The leaders may find it difficult to convince the employees who resent about the decisions of flexible working hours. The training cost involved in educating employees about the new process and communicating them about what behavior is expected from them when they will work for less number of hours or will be away from the office premises (Dishman, 2015). The managers also have the duty to ensure fairness among all the workers whether flexible or regular. Managers should set clear policies on work hours. A record should be kept about the number of hours worked. Leaders should address the is sues of employees who are not sure about the new working arrangements and clear all their doubts. Manager should continuously monitor the work progress of individuals and check whether their performance meet with their standards of the organization or not. The implementation of flexible working arrangements is a difficult task but it can be proved to effective with the support of leaders and mangers of then future workplace. Conclusion The future workplace will be competitive and employees will have to deal with work load and responsibilities. This may affect their efficiency and productivity. Employers in order to boost the morale of the employees have to shift to work place setting that will enable the employees to fulfil their workplace responsibilities stress free. Work-life flexibility is the solution to this problem. It allows individual to work as per their convenience. Work life balance is the most challenging concept in the lives of professionals as among the fast paced corporate life they find it difficult to maintain a right balance between their personal and professional life. As a result they end up sacrificing their personal or professional lives. Work life flexibility provides an effective solution to the problem work-life balance. It helps the individual to not maintain a balance between both the lives but to choose what is important at that point of time. There are various options available to employees such as work from home, part time or flexible working hours. It helps to reduce employee turnover rate as many individuals like women find rigid working hours a hindrance in managing their personal lives, though it has many advantages for employer and employee but create some issues for HR and mangers and leaders who handle the designing and implementation part. HR, Managers and leaders should focus on designing such work flexibility strategies that compliments the gaols of the organization. References ACAS, 2015, Flexible working and work-life balance, Accessed from https://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/j/m/Flexible-working-and-work-life-balance.pdf 29 May 2017. Bhate, R, 2013, flexibility at work: Employee Perceptions, Accessed from https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/agingandwork/pdf/publications/QI2_flexibilityAtWork_Employee.pdf on 29 May 2017. Bhattacharya, G, 2017, Why Millennials Keep Ditching Your Company, Accessed from https://fortune.com/2017/01/25/millennials-talent-retention-leadership-career-advice-job-hopping/ on 28 May 2017. Collatz, A. Gudat, K., 2011.Work-life-balance. Hogrefe Verlag. Debnam, D., 2012, Workplace Flexibility and Work-Life Balance: Its a Benefit, Not a Burden, Accessed from https://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/workplace-flexibility-and-work-life-balance-its-a-benefit-not-a-burden/ on 29 May 2017. 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