Analysis of ECU's Performance Management and Work-Life Balance

This report provides an analysis of Edith Cowan University's (ECU) performance management system concerning work-life balance and the management of work-life conflict. It examines ECU's initiatives, including flexible working arrangements such as flexible hours, home-based work, and various leave options, aimed at supporting employees' personal and professional lives. The report highlights the university's efforts to promote work-life balance, recognizing its importance for employee motivation, retention, and career development. The analysis delves into the existing flexible working policies and their impact on employees, including the university's efforts to encourage male staff to adopt flexible working hours. The report also provides recommendations for improving the performance management system, suggesting the exploration of new flexible working opportunities and the need to gather comprehensive data on informal work arrangements to maintain a competitive advantage in the job market. The report references academic sources to support its findings and recommendations.

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Contents
Analysis of Performance management system on work life balance and the management of work
life conflict.......................................................................................................................................3
Recommendations............................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Analysis of Performance management system on work life balance and the management of
work life conflict
Performance management is a significant process in which employees and employers solidly set
the individual objectives in line with company’s overall goals and where the individuals are
encouraged to attain better company’s results. ECU offers a workplace where employees are its
integral part and organization is working and making efforts for enhancing their performance
(Christensen & Schneider, 2015). The workplace at ECU assists its employees to have access to
a flexible working environment so that they can manage their life and work responsibilities. As a
result Edith Cowan University is looking for different methods for motivating their workforce
and which will aid them in giving their best to the organization (intranet.ecu 2018). Employee
performance is a crucial task for the business corporations and each and every policy and
strategy should be geared towards increasing the employee performance.
At ECU, Work life balance is a very significant phenomenon that is of great concern for most of
the employees within the organization. It is a broader concept and goes beyond prioritizing the
working role and personal life of an employee. It also stimulates the mental well-being,
psychological, social and economic life of an individual (Shagvaliyeva & Yazdanifard, 2014).
Considering the significance of work life balance, ECU inspires its supervisors and managers to
look on the basis of different case and understand the role of work-life balance for its employees.
The organizations states that it is the key to entice and retain the staff and it can assist them in
career development (Deery & Jago, 2015).
There are different types of flexible work arrangements at ECU and it has created a flexible hour
working policy to provide a better working environment to its employees (Shields, et al, 2015).
Different flexible working environments are such as home based work, annualized hours,
academic role flexibility, change in hours, pre-retirement contracts, deferred salary scheme,
purchase of additional annual leave etc. (intranet, 2018). The university provides many types of
leaves to support its employees to develop a balance between their personal and working lives.
These leaves are categorized as long service leave, partner and parental leave, personal leave,
study leave, community service leave and short leave (Zheng, Molineux, Mirshekary &
Scarparo, 2015). It indicates that university is using effective and beneficial working practices

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which support the employees to manage their personal and working lives. ECU is actively
engaged in promoting the flexible working hours to its males staff that assists the organization to
overcome different negative perceptions by boosting managers, employees and leaders. It assists
organization’s management to manage the work-life conflicts effectively (Hughes, Kinder &
Cooper, 2019).
Recommendations
As other organizations and employers use and expand their flexible working provisions,
especially with the advancements in technology, this university has risk to lose its competitive
advantage as an employer if it is unable to change it working environment (Kim, 2014). It is very
important for this university to explore new opportunities for flexible working hours by using
new techniques. In analyzing the current flexible working levels at ECU, recent information is
limited to the part time working and purchase leave approval but it is unable to capture what it
understand is the number of informal working arrangements (Fluke, 2017). This data highlights
that 85% of flexible employees are female in a relation where approximately 30% of jobs at ECU
are working as part time. At this organization, active promotion of flexible working to male
group is an effective way that can be used to overcome the issues related to work life conflicts. It
is hereby recommended that this university should use different policies so that it can enhance its
working environment.

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References
Christensen, K., & Schneider, B. (Eds.). (2015). Workplace flexibility: Realigning 20th-century
jobs for a 21st-century workforce. Cornell University Press.
Deery, M., & Jago, L. (2015) Revisiting talent management, work-life balance and retention
strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), 453-
472.
Fluke, A, (2017) 11 creative strategies to improve employee work life balance, [Online].
Retrieved from: https://www.frontstream.com/work-life-balance-strategies/.
Hughes, R., Kinder, A., & Cooper, C. L. (2019). Work-Life Balance. In The Wellbeing
Workout (pp. 249-253). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
intranet, (2018) Flexible working at ECU, [Online]. Retrieved from:
http://intranet.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/781245/Flexible_Work_Strategy.pd
f.
intranet.ecu, (2018) Human resource services, [Online]. Retrieved from:
http://intranet.ecu.edu.au/staff/centres/human-resources-service/our-services/work-
environment-and-conditions/flexible-work-arrangements.
intranet.ecu.edu, (2018) Flexible work checklist, [Online]. Retrieved from:
http://intranet.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/752301/Manager_workplace_flexib
ility_checklist_FINAL.pdf.
Kim, H. K. (2014) Work-life balance and employees' performance: The mediating role of
affective commitment. Global Business and Management Research, 6(1), 37.
Shagvaliyeva, S., & Yazdanifard, R. (2014) Impact of flexible working hours on work-life
balance. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 4(1), 20.
Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., &
Plimmer, G. (2015) Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices,
strategies. Cambridge University Press.

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Zheng, C., Molineux, J., Mirshekary, S., & Scarparo, S. (2015) Developing individual and
organisational work-life balance strategies to improve employee health and
wellbeing. Employee Relations, 37(3), 354-379.