A comprehensive study on Work-Life Balance initiatives in the IT sector

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Abstract:

Human beings on this earth have to work for inevitable reasons. For the purpose of employment, people even migrate to their nearest cities or even they may relocate themselves to far-off places, due to the swiftly growing population across the country, and also the number of people getting qualified degrees has increased a lot. On the other hand, the scope for employment is considerably reducing day by day. This has made job markets completely employee driven. When job markets become employee-driven, by all means, employers will extract much work from employees. This will make them spend more and more time at the workplace and less time with their families. The result of this will lead to an imbalance between work and family life. This study tries to cover many insights on work-life balance especially covering major BPO employees working in Bangalore.

Keywords: Inevitable, employment, work-life balance

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Introduction

In present-day situations after completing a degree, it is very difficult to find jobs suiting the individual profiles. On the other hand, the age and commitments of people never stop, so it makes them get satisfied with whatever jobs he finds and has to remain faithful to their employee. To some extent this is acceptable, but in the later stages when an individual’s family develops, commitments increase, and responsibilities increase, one has to make sure that he takes out some time as leisure and invests the same with the family too. This can help in building better family attachments, smoothen family relationships, and strengthen family bonds. Over a period of time perhaps a better understanding is possible.

Today people find that they are missing a lot in their family life and the prime reasons for this are long working hours, stress and anxiety at the workplace, employees never ending targets, and high expectations. Stringent terms and conditions, unfavorable and unsupportive work atmosphere, employee discrimination on employee’s unfavorable and unequal treatments, etc, will lead to a lot of stress and strain on individuals and result in a lack of morale and motivation, a drop in work efficiency and productivity. Hence it is always advisable to maintain proper diversity or balance between work life and family life and family lives. Work-life imbalance can bring out more scope for increasing employee turnover, losing fairly profitable, and result delivering employees to other organizations.

Our aim to conduct this research is to find out the answers to the following questions

1.????What initiatives do companies take to help maintain the work-life balance of employees?

2.????Is the work-life balance the same at different levels of the company?

3.????Would employees prefer to work from home or work from the office?

Statement of the Problem: During covid. Since the introduction of Work from Home, people got habituated to it, which had both advantages and disadvantages. But now when they are called back to the office people are now showing some resistance.

Literature Review-

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the work-family interface in the literature on human resource management, particularly regarding the sources and outcomes of conflict between these two spheres. The literature on work-life balance has been studied and is available from various perspectives. Numerous research has looked at this problem from various angles. Ingram and Simons (1995) and Goodstein (1994) provided an institutional view on organizations' reactions to work-family conflicts, while Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) and Greenhaus et al. (1989) looked at the causes of conflict between family and work. In addition, Campbell, Campbell, and Kennard (1994) investigated how women's work dedication and job performance are impacted by their family obligations. The relationship between business-marriage partners is addressed by extending the work-family issue even further (Foley & Powell, 1997).

Hyman and Summers (2004) identified seven key issues with the way that people currently approach work-life balance. There is no evidence of a reduction in working hours, tangible and intangible work intrusions into home life, uneven adoption across various sectors and organizations, lack of formalization of policies at the organizational level, restricted employee voice, policies that are primarily focused on meeting business needs rather than those of employees, and the continued predominance of women in domestic duties According to research by Vloeberghs (2002), there is a need for a useful tool to assess the current state of work-life balance. However, as discovered by researchers Eikhof et al. (2007), current work-life balance policies are limited in how they address the needs and aspirations of employees. However, there is a need for its realization, as highlighted in an Emerald article from Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol.12 Iss: 7 (2004), which stressed that employers are realizing their responsiveness and taking creative steps in order to meet employee expectations for flexible benefits.

Miller (1978) stated that while the bulk of working people's professional lives now begin at the age of 20 and conclude at the age of 62, it used to begin at the age of 16 and end at the age of 70 in the past. However, as more people get older and their health permits them to enjoy leisure and the thought of retirement, there may be some changes in work-life history that are related to the modest implications of the recent 80-year increase in the average life span. Despite this, shifting attitudes toward marriage and relationships have an impact on work-life balance because many women no longer expect to find a life partner. As a result, they place a higher value on acquiring skills and qualifications, whereas in contradiction to the above Milkie and Peltola (1999) stressed that happier marriages are related to a greater sense of success in balancing work and family.

According to Higgins et al. (1992), Hochschild (1989), Kelley and Voydanoff (1985), Hochschild (1989), Thompson & Walker (1989), working women face well-documented conflicts as primary caregivers for their homes, children, and/or elderly parents due to women's greater responsibility for children and other family members, and they experience more interruptions than men, resulting in typical household issues. In contrast, Kiecolt (2003) found that those who find work a haven spend no more time at work than those with high work-home satisfaction. Milkie and Peltola (1999) found that if one's spouse has to do a smaller portion of housework, one will feel less successful in achieving their own work-family balance. Higgins and Duxbury (1992) stated that workplace conflict is a major cause of work-family conflict, although personal or family lives that interfere with work are related to less hours of labor, but work that interferes with life matters as disclosed by the researcher Reynolds (2005)

Numerous studies have examined this issue from diverse perspectives. A few publications on the subject are examined.

According to Vijaya Mani (2013), the top concerns affecting the work-life balance of women professionals in India are role conflicts, a lack of social support, organizational politics, gender discrimination, challenges caring for the elderly and children, health problems, and time management issues.

In research with 827 female employees conducted in Los Angeles, Valdez and Gutek (1987) showed that married women had the lowest levels of job discontent, as they have prepared themselves for job advancement and are either divorced or separated, in contrast to?Women who have never been married are less satisfied in their jobs.

Conclusion: Employees in the private sector are more likely than those in the public sector to be satisfied with their jobs. Employees expected more prospects for career advancement and job promotions. Job satisfaction and both monetary and non-monetary incentives have been shown to have a substantial link. Employees who are satisfied at work are more likely to be happy in their personal lives.

According to Ali (2006), a study on women in the IT industry found that social support from family and the workplace is necessary for women to carry out varied obligations. While their husbands were abroad on business, the women in that research were exclusively responsible for running the home and raising the children, and they reported having difficulty hiring a dependable maid. They had to deal with raising small children while juggling their occupations because there were no daycare services. These women, who traveled frequently, frequently encountered the challenges of balancing a job and children. They observed that the stress of raising a little child, especially when traveling for lengthy periods of time, can be difficult in the absence of a support structure.

According to Desai et al. (2011), women who work from home are less stressed, more adaptable, and happier in their jobs. In her study on working-life balance efforts for women in the hotel sector, Doherty (2004) studied the primary barriers to advancement into managing roles. Long workweeks

According to Perry-Smith et al. (2000), software engineers will be the primary focus of future studies on "knowledge workers." Workers in the IT sector are the most likely to face work-life conflict due to the culture of long hours and round-the-clock support. Interference between work and personal life was discovered to have a major effect on attitude toward one's employment for this specific group of workers. They contend that the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment is mediated by work-life boundary variables, which influence organizational trust. Although IT personnel is distinct in their direction, market-oriented, and unlikely to display loyalty to a single organization.

Work-life balance, as defined by Manisha Purohit (2013) in "A Comparative Study Of Work-Life Balance In Various Industrial Sectors In Pune Region," is a notion that entails effectively prioritizing "workaholics" (career and ambition) over "lifestyle" (health, pleasure, leisure, family, and spiritual development). It is a term used to describe strategies for balancing an employee's expectations for their personal and work lives. Many organizations nowadays must develop work-life balance efforts to assist employees in maintaining a good balance between their professional and personal lives. Organizations should develop human resource strategies and policies that address the work-life balance needs of a diverse workforce. This article describes the outcomes of a survey done among a cross-section of significant business entities in Pune representing the four industrial sectors, namely manufacturing, information technology, education, and banking. The findings highlight the similarities and contrasts in the work-life balance policies of the four industries. The research finishes with ideas for how to deliver work-life initiatives in a period of slowing global economic development, which necessitates a dynamic HR team that will innovate on current ways to make them more cost-effective. Organizations, in addition to monetary solutions, might provide valuable interventions. Businesses, for example, could assist employees who are concerned about their work-life balance in changing shift arrangements. Employees must be more aware of their work-life balance priorities and work to accomplish them.

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Research Methodology

One of the essential factors in successfully managing work–life balance is the ability to reduce and control stress. Stress is undoubtedly one of the biggest problems faced by the modern workforce. It is also becoming an increasingly worrying problem for employers. The scope of the study is the IT professionals of various age groups working in IT sectors and the study is limited to Bangalore city.

1.????To identify the factors leading to stress among IT professionals. Sampling Used- Random Sampling

2.????No. of respondents- 50

3.????Sector- IT

4.????Target Respondents- People working in the IT sector.

5.????Research Approach- Descriptive

6.????Type of research- Qualitative

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Sample Size

The present study was carried out in Bangalore city by selecting IT professionals working in the IT sector. A sample of 50 employees was selected for gathering primary data.

Data Collection Techniques

The primary data has been collected by the researcher, directly from the IT professionals, by administering questionnaires to them and carrying out a survey.

Secondary data is the reuse of data that have already been collected or researched by someone, which can be broadly categorized as published and unpublished data. Various sources of secondary data that are referred to are books, journals, documents, and e-journals.

PROBLEMS DUE TO WORK-LIFE IMBALANCE

???????Less productivity

???????Higher rate of attritions among employees

???????Absenteeism

???????Failure to meet deadlines

???????Will have very low or no social life

???????Will not get time to look after family matters

???????Will be stressed and always feels under pressure

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Findings and Analytics

·??????Majority of respondents are from the 23-30 age group.

·??????On the basis of the survey, we conclude that the majority (41.2%) of the people do not work more than 9 hours a day generally.

·??????Survey shows that majorly employees do not work more than 6 days a week (52.9%)

·??????Surveys show mixed responses that they are not able to balance their work life, but overall survey concludes that they are able to balance their work life.

·??????Employees usually do not work in shifts, surveys show (82.4%) responded highly disagree to work in shifts.

·??????Survey shows mixed responses are the employees able to spend quality time with their friends/ family.

·??????Surveys show employees do not get tired or depressed because of work.

·??????Majority of the respondents are happy with their current working hours (58.9%).

·??????Survey shows 35.3% of employees do not have to work overtime while 29.4% of employees work a few times a month.

·??????Survey shows very positive data that the majority of respondents (47.1%) are able to take out time for their hobbies.

·??????Majority of respondent says they haven’t missed any personal event because of work.

·??????Survey shows that the majority of companies help employees maintain work-life balance.

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Conclusion

Employees are the real assets of the organization and they need to be seen with extreme care because they work for the organization with their wholehearted efforts. Employees are the prime people who will be there with the organization for longer periods if they receive humanistic treatments. If they are utilized as professional resources, they themselves will remain loyal, dedicated, and committed to the organization. If they are expected to have cost-effective resources they will very soon slip out of the organization and will remain as a particular case for increasing employee turnover rate, by this credibility of the organizations remain affected.

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Steps Recommended to Reduce Work-Life Balance Problems

As per the study, if the suggestive measures are implemented properly the organizations can reduce the problems of work-life balance and can help the employees to feel comfortable at their workplace.

1. Fixation of minimum working hours and communication of same.

2. Flexible working hours and working shifts as per the comfort of employees.

3. Overtime work should be avoided and in extreme circumstances, if made should be paid with overtime allowances.

4. Training employees from time to time from professional networks.

5. Proper recruitment policies with total transparency (absence of politics)

6. Coming across policies like working from home.

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Bibliography

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·??????Nandy, S. (2019, December 1). Work-life balance. Academia.edu. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/41140644/Work_Life_Balance

·??????American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Apa PsycNet. American Psychological Association. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-18579-001

·??????A comparative study of work-life balance in various industrial sectors ... (n.d.). Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://indianresearchjournals.com/pdf/IJMFSMR/2013/March/19.pdf

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·??????Work–family human resource bundles and perceived organizational performance. (n.d.). Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276944176_Work-Family_Human_Resource_Bundles_and_Perceived_Organizational_Performance