Work-Life Balance: Google's Policies and Practices

This essay analyzes work-life balance, focusing on the practices implemented by Google. The paper begins with an introduction to the concept of work-life balance, defining the interplay between professional and personal life and emphasizing the role of organizational policies. A literature review explores the impact of workplace stress, cultural and economic differences, and authentic leadership on work-life balance. It highlights how authentic leadership can foster job satisfaction through better work-life balance perceptions. The essay then examines Google's contemporary practices, including the use of scientific approaches like gDNA to understand employee needs and preferences. It discusses the effectiveness of Google's policies, such as segmenting and integrating approaches, and addresses the psychological pressures employees may face. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of eliminating work pressure and providing time for employee well-being.

Running head: WORK LIFE BALANCE
WORK LIFE BALANCE
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Introduction:
The main aim of this paper is to discuss work life balance in in the organisation like
Google. Work life balance refers to the gap and opposition between the work and personal life
rules. This is a state of equilibrium for which the demand of the personal and professional life
and the family life are equal. The policies and structures of the organisations play a vital role in
motivating the employees to concentrate in the work as well as play responsibilities for their
families also. detailed literature review will be done in terms of understanding work-life balance
and the policies of Google will be discussed so that the steps taken by this type of company can
be understood.
Literature summary:
Workplace stress affecting work life balance:
According to the study by Sirgy and Lee (2018), the thorough review of the literature
marks an assimilated conceptualization of the work life balance. This involves two important
assignation in the work life and the non-work life. There is a negligible conflict among the social
role in the working and non-working life. Depending upon this conceptualization, this paper has
reviewed much evidences regarding the significances of the work life balance in the terms of
work and non-work related as well as stress related results. This paper then has identified a set of
personal as well as organisational antecedents for the work life balance. This paper then explains
their effects on the whole life balance. There are sets of theoretical contrivances connecting the
work life balance and life satisfaction.

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Differences affecting work life balance:
This study by Abendroth (2018) has referred to the work life balance reading across the
European countries. According to this author, the differences in the cultural, economic and
institutional settings have direct connection with the work life balance. The term workplace
conflict is established for highlighting the fact that the work is interfering not only with the
family responsibilities but also the personal activities also work life balance and satisfaction is
dependent upon the cultural factors related to indulgence. according to this author, indulgence in
the different European countries are very good stuff in some countries the people believe in
indulging their personal activities and balance those with their work but in some other countries
the people are pragmatic there for focus more on the work rather than playing the responsibility
of the family. In the Nordic countries like Netherlands Germany score in the state workplaces
and the family support in the work life balance the service sector employees have achieved more
work life balance satisfaction. On the contrary the balance is not search properly in the countries
like Portugal, post-Communist countries like Hungary and Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.
These differences in the work life balance in different European countries indicate that the work
life balance is not clearly followed by the welfare state for the gender religion typology whether
they are influenced by the cultural, institutional and economic factors to study in first in the
implication of different dimension of balance and conflict of work life.
Authentic leadership can lead to work life balance:
In this paper, the authors like Braun and Peus (2018), have connected work life
equilibrium with an authentic leadership. The others have built conservation of the resources
theory for developing a leader follower crossover model this creates an effect of authentic
leadership on the job gratification of the followers through the leaders and subordinates work life

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balance. This model integrates and authentic leadership as well as crossover study for suggesting
that the factions see authentic leader for getting better balance with their professional as well as
personal lives. This enables the followers to achieve great work life balance and positive work
culture which ultimately motivate them to contribute the skills for organisational growth. This
make them satisfied with their job and feel connected or engaged with their organisation.
Authentic leadership helps in achieving job satisfaction through perfect work life balance
perception. There are practical implications for developing authentic leadership in the
organisations for promoting the employee wellbeing and avenues for our research in the future.
Psychological support for work life balance:
This paper by Russo, Shteigman and Carmeli (2016), presents 3 researches to explore the
ways through which different support sources like workplace and family support can help the
persons to experience a good work life balance. these studies have there was developed a sense
of psychological availability as well as positive energy at work in this study the authors have
examined serial mediation model across the three population groups in a region of Israel by
using time lag data from the part-time students. The cross-sectional data from the workers in the
industrial sector and the physician working in the public hospitals of the same region are also
collected. The results have indicated that the complicated process of family support and
workplace satisfaction increase positive energy among the employees and they attain for life
balance. This increases psychological availability and develop a positive working culture. Here
the main focus has been put upon the family support which allow people to work effectively in
the organisations.
Practice:

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Contemporary practices in Google:
Work life balance in the organisations related to the employee satisfaction and
engagement with their work. From the above studies it has been found that the employees also
need the support from the family members along with the authentic leadership so that they can
feel motivated to be attached with their work and feel concentrated in their tasks to achieve
goals. This has been understood profoundly by the international technology company Google. It
uses scientific approach for allowing the employees to attend work life balance. This scientific
approach is inspired from the research of Framingham from which the people innovation lab of
Google has developed gDNA. It is the first main long term study of Google for accepting work
and how the company can motivate the employees to be engaged in the organisation by creating
a positive work culture. The smart decisions have profound impact on the future cells and the
future of works. The gDNA survey can collect information about the image characteristics of the
employees and the surrounding nature. the survey upon 4000 employees have pointed out that
there are various factors like personality, traits, characteristics, attitudes about the culture, the
co-workers and work projects. These play important role by interacting with one another along
with the biographical characteristics like performance and role to make the employees feel
motivated and bring work life balance.
The survey has revealed that there is a large percentage of employees in the Google who wish to
separate their work from their personal lives. Some of the employees are capable to attend this
work life balance because they strategize their actions and stick to that but others may not follow
the same because of incapability and gap of knowledge (Hbr.org 2014). However work life
balance is also the responsibility from the organisations where the employees are working. This
is the reason why the company has designed environment that can make them feel disconnected

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with their work while not in duty. in the office of Google the employees drop of their devices
before going home at the front desk which make them feel stressless and blissful in their home
similarly they can ignore of our emails and utilise their vacation days for personal wellbeing.
Effectiveness of this practices:
Google has pointed out some fascinating puzzles beyond the work life balance (Hbr.org
2014). Within 2 years Google has found out that there are two approaches for work life balance
one is segmentors and another is integrators. These are the divisions of the employees and play
important role in the perfect achievement of organisational goals by the support of the team
members and allow them to you enjoy their family lines. These people do not think about work
when they are with family but the survey has found out only 31% employees of the company are
cable to draw the boundaries between the work and life. However the server has also revealed
that 69% of the Google employees cannot bring balance between work and life and they are
termed as integrators. They have works looming constantly in their background and they do not
find themselves remain free from work but keep on checking their Gmail to find whether new
work has come. In Google the integrators wish to become segmentors but they cannot. Another
psychology of work life balance related to the fact that it is mainly a psychological pressure
which these people feel all the time regarding their works (Jha & Mishra, 2016). They are not
capable to concentrate on their family responsibilities because they seem to be more responsible
to their works.
Innovations:
The survey has revealed that the manager level employee’s field is type of pressure in
every category and every branches of this company. In some cases the policies and structure of

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the organisation is responsible to put pressure on the manager level employees to break the work
life balance satisfaction but in most of the cases it is the psychological understanding of the
employees which create barrier for attaining a great work life balance within them. This type of
work pressure must be eliminated and more recruitment is needed for this. This will allow them
to provide time for their indulgence like vacations and free time with the family members.

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References:
Abendroth, A. K. (2018). Work-life balance across Europe. The Work-Life Balance Bulletin, 12.
Braun, S., & Peus, C. (2018). Crossover of work–life balance perceptions: Does authentic
leadership matter?. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(4), 875-893.
Hbr.org. (2014). Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance (and Much More).
Retrieved 29 March 2020, from https://hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to-work-
life-balance-and-much-more
Jha, S., & Mishra, S. K. (2016). Work Life Balance Programmes in IT Companies: A
Review. Review of HRM, 4(2), 15.
Russo, M., Shteigman, A., & Carmeli, A. (2016). Workplace and family support and work–life
balance: Implications for individual psychological availability and energy at work. The Journal
of Positive Psychology, 11(2), 173-188.
Sirgy, M. J., & Lee, D. J. (2018). Work-life balance: An integrative review. Applied Research in
Quality of Life, 13(1), 229-254.