BSBHRM602 - Managing HR: Work-Life Balance Report and Recommendations

This report, prepared for King Edward Business College, addresses the critical issue of work-life balance, offering strategies to enhance employee well-being and organizational efficiency. It begins by defining work-life balance and explores factors contributing to imbalance, such as gender, time constraints, and family characteristics. The report then outlines strategies for achieving balance, including identifying purpose, creating space, sketching and scheduling, establishing boundaries, and prioritizing physical health. Recommendations for the organization include providing flexible working hours, offering added leaves, celebrating occasions, identifying staff needs, increasing job mobility, and implementing incentive-based payments. The report emphasizes the importance of organizational support in fostering a positive work environment and improving employee retention and productivity. The report also includes an action plan to achieve the recommended options.

Running Head: WORK LIFE BALANCE
WORK LIFE BALANCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................2
Strategies for Work Life Balance...........................................................................................3
Recommendations for maintaining the work life balance......................................................6
Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
References............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The purpose of the report is to provide work life balance strategies to create a
positivity in the minds of the employees. These strategies helps the corporation not only to
retain the employees who are probably thinking to leave the job but also to increase their
efficiency. Further recommendations will be provided based on the strategies, which has been
attained to solve the problems that can adversely affect the daily functioning of the business.
An action plan shall be suggested to take care of the problems and maintain the smooth
functioning of the business.
The term work life balance itself suggests that there exists problems in the personal
life, which occurs due to the daily pressures arising from work. It is the balance between the
personal life and professional life on an individual. The main parameter, which is the reason
behind this type of problem, is time. Sacrifice is the way of life, therefore to create an
equilibrium situation between the personal and professional life it is essential to sacrifice the
time span in the professional zone and devote it to the personal space for increasing the
positivity in the minds of the individual.
Reasons behind Work Life Imbalance
The main parameters of work life balance are:
a) Gender
b) Time
c) Characteristics of the Family

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Though it is based on the theory of majority determination, it has been observed that the
major problems occur is due to the differences in gender and their preferences in life. Mostly,
it is seen that the male gender are inclined towards the financial responsibilities and prefer to
sacrifice the time span of the personal time and tries to devote it towards professional time.
On the other hand, the female working professionals are more inclined towards their personal
life and likes to spend their time with their family rather than professional time.
Time is another important factor contributing and directly proportional to the balance
between professional time and personal time. The corporate structure of the companies
schedules employees to work for long hours due to the inflexibility of working hours,
elongated shifts, and night shifts luring the employees with higher remunerations. This
creates an imbalance in both the aspects of life. Though satisfaction is a subjective issue and
differs from person to person, work life balance is an essential element required for both
mental and physical health.
Thirdly, the characteristics of the family members are also of huge importance and
affects the mentality of the employee in both positive and negative way. They maybe single
or married, parents with single and dual source of income. When the professional life takes
away the necessary responsibilities away from the personal life, the balance gets disturbed
and causes mental distress.
Strategies for Work Life Balance
Strategies provide a structure to the situation and helps the individuals to plan out the
process in a systematic way which helps the entity to provide a direction to the stress and
come up with a fruitful solution helping him or her to cope up with the problems in real life.
The strategies for maintaining a work life balance are as follows:

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a) Identifying the purpose: The purpose is the driving force, which justifies existing
in the particular field and company. Identification of the purpose of one’s life is of
utmost importance. This will help the person to increase the inner confidence and
pursue his or her ultimate ambition.
The process of improving the work life balance is through finding the
elements which helps in achieving the inner motivation of the individual.
Identifying the strengths and the weaknesses of the person. Then the purpose
of life is to be written down somewhere so that he or she can see it every day.
This will help him or her to regain mental strength and remember the ultimate
ambition in life.
b) Creation of Space: The first step in the process is to identify the distractions in life
that are increasing in the gap between the present situation and the aspiration.
Whenever a person has an ambition in life and are getting distracted due to
distractions in life then the sense of guilt within, tends to hamper the mental
health.
The process of creating space in life is to identify and immediate removal of
those distractions in life. First there will be huge problems as it is changing
the daily ways of life but in the long run this will have a greaewtr and positive
effect in reaching goals and ambitions.
c) Sketching and scheduling: Another important and effective strategy chalk out the
main problems and the main goals of life. A proper schedule has to be created so
that the goals can be measured in terms of reality. It helps the individual to have
an overview of the problems and will help him or her to find out the probable

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solutions. Not only helps the individual to map out the expansion path to reach the
goal, it also helps him to view the the map or expansion path on a regular basis.
The process of sketching and scheduling is off due importance and all successful people
use this strategy 2checkout the daily tasks and act on them accordingly.
d) Boundary establishment boundary: in the process of goal setting and maintaining
a work life balance it is very essential to set out realistic goals both at the
workplace and at home. For instance it can be said that whenever there is an extra
lord in the workplace employees tend to sacrifice their personal time and devote it
to the work. This process is mainly taken so that the goal provided by the
employer is fulfilled. But it is to be noted that the employer who has given the
goal or target is it is worth achieving or not. We need to realise that if the goal or
target given is realistic or not. If the target is not realistic the sacrifice personal
time will go in vain and there will be an imbalance between the personal life and
the professional life.
The process of establishing boundaries is very simple that is to analyse the problem on a
real real life basis. It is very essential to understand the problem within the target and judge it
whether it can be achieved or not.
e) Taking care of the physical health: every individual must realise that to achieve or
aspire a tough goal, requires peace of mind and a perfect physical health. if the
physical health is not in a good condition then the mind starts to become negative
over the period of time. This process is very disturbing and quickly takes over the
mind. It is very important to eat healthy meals from time to time and perform
exercise to maintain a balance between the body and the mind. Taking care of the
physical health also includes a sound 8 to 10 hours of sleep a day. This helps in

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the circulation of blood in the body and regulation of red blood cells which in turn
activate the body to its maximum.
Recommendations for maintaining the work life balance
The organization plays a major role in maintaining the work life balance of the employees. It
is the responsibility of the companies to maintain a positive environment inside the company
so that it does not affect the revenue of the company. The initiatives which every company
must adopt are as follows:
1. Provision of flexible working hours: to help the employees to maintain a perfect work
life balance the employer must provide the employees with flexible working hours.
This helps the employees to maintain a balance between work and personal life. On
the other hand it helps the employee to form a positive image in the mind about the
company. This helps the employer to gain the confidence of the employee and
become loyal to the company. With the busy hectic schedule these days the employer
who can provide flexible working hours is not only helping the employee but also it is
helping the company to retain a good employee. Moreover it helps the employee to
gain maximum time for the work. Mostly it has been seen that providing flexible
working hours to the employee increases their efficiency and can do the same task in
a mass less less amount of time.
2. Provision of added leaves to the employees: every individual earns money to improve
the standard of living. If the company provides added leaves to them it will help them

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to maintain a balance and peace of mind so that he or she can concentrate on the work
better by improving the conditions in the personal life. Added leaves are generally
required when there is a family medical emergency or some issues related to their
child, it may be e some health problems. On the other hand if added leaves are
approved by the company the retaining capability of the organization is enhanced and
when the employee get some better opportunity in some other company which is
paying him or her a better salary the individual will hesitate and choose the old
company because the policies are flexible and takes care of their personal life
problems. This helps the company to build an emotional angle with the employee and
during peak seasons it helps the company to add pressure on the employee to generate
maximum output.
3. Celebrating occasions: today the multinational corporations are multicultural
comprising of employees belonging to different nations with various cultural
integrity. To relieve the employees of pressure another alternative solution for added
leaves is to celebrate the main occasions in the office. This helps the relationship
between the employee and the employer to get stronger over time and increase the
positivity in the office environment.
4. Identifying the needs of the staff: it is very important for the human resource team to
identify the problems and needs of the employees. An employee may belong to two
different background. The human resource efficient enough to identify the problems
which are affecting the efficiency of the workers. These include identifying physical
problems whether the individual is physically fit or not is very important. Are the
other employees treating him well? The human resource mast confirm that is
individual are enjoying the time spent in office. This helps the employees to form

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connection with other employees at an emotional level. From the revenue point of
view it helps the the company to unleash the efficiency of the workers by increasing
positivity and understanding their needs.
5. Increasing the job mobility: jobs often become very monotonous and hectic in nature.
To avoid the circumstances off the job getting boring or monotonous companies must
use the strategy of increasing the job mobility. This includes provisions like work
from home opportunities and provide the technological assistant to the employees in
their home and provider technological assistant to the employees in their home as they
are in the office. This help the employee to regain the faith in the company and retain
their services for a longer period of time. On the other hand if just from a subject for
point of view, it helps the company to increase the revenue as the steel mind of the
employee will automatically increase his or her efficiency and prove that the work
from home opportunity with has been assigned is justified.
6. Incentive based payment: the main aim of every employee or even the company is to
earn maximum revenue as possible. Therefore to increase the efficiency of the
workers as well as the revenue of the company the payment structure must attend and
incentive based scheme where the output of the employee will be measured in terms
of money. As prevalent in the sales field of every company there exist a benchmark
upon which proportionate incentives are provided to the employees.
7. Paid vacations: to regain the trust and interest of the employees towards the company,
the employers must arrange vacations and trips for the employees of the company.
This helps the image of the company to regain a respectable position in the minds of
the employees. Peace of mind is one of the most essential things required in a job.
Jobs are often very monotonous which consumes a lot of energy of the employees.
Vacations and trips helps to rejuvenated the minds of the employees and retain them

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for a long period of time. Every time the employee when approached or gets an
opportunity for a better remuneration the employee will hesitate to leave the company
because of the non-financial perks provided to them. In qualitative terms this non-
financial benefits increases the emotional attachment of the employee towards the
employer and the company. This is a very useful strategy which helps the company to
increase its revenue in the long run.
Action Plan for recommended strategies
The first component of the action plan is to maintain the health condition to
perfection. This includes getting ample amount of sleep eating proper food and at the right
time and doing some basic exercises. The action plan required for adults are minimum 729
hours of sleep. Keeping healthy food like vegetables and fruits and essential part of the diet,
and exercising every day in the morning for a minimum time period of 1 hour.
1. Establishment of regular working hours. The employee must make it clear to the
employer that e or she is available for a fixed period of time. This helps both the
employee and the employer to maintain a level of transparency and the employer
knows what he can demand from his employee. On the other hand it is very essential
to provide time to the family because they are the people for home one is earning. The
action plan required to maintain regular working hours is to leaving home and leaving
the workplace at the optimum time. This helps the employee to decrease the amount
of time wasted at both workplace as well as at home.
2. Accepting the workload is high: These days jobs are becoming more demanding and
tough with increase salaries. Every employee must accept that the amount of money
which he or she is getting paid for has to be confirmed and justified by the employer.

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With increase competition in the global market every company tries to maximize the
effort and efficiency of the employees.
The action plan required is to to increase the productivity within the limited time to be spent
in the office. This means that the productivity power of the employee has to be increased in
such a way that the total time invested in the office remain same.
3. Understanding the responsibilities towards the family: like the job which one is
working for the family is also an essential part of life. the employee must also check
out the tasks and responsibilities to the family so that no problem occurs at home and
the people engaged does not feel uncomfortable or pressurized do you to the
individual's workload.
The action plan required to fulfill this task is to create a list chalk out the priorities and fulfill
them on a daily basis.
4. Identifying the time wasters: It is very important for an individual to identify the time
wasters in life who are attracting the person to maintain the work life balance. In other
words the people who decreases the output at office and increases the total time to be
spent outside are the wasters. This is not only include people but also can be objects
such as television on mobile.
The action plan required is to identify who or what are the largest time wasters in the life.
Priorities the time wasters and eliminate them which consumes most of the time.
Conclusion
From the above descriptive analysis we can infer that work life balance is an essential
leverage which can be used to succeed in life. Maintaining a work life balance is tough, but if

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an individual can master the art of work life balance then he or she can concentrate on their
ambition and aspirations. The employer is also responsible to maintain a work life balance
which in turn helps the company to retain good employees who contributes to the revenue of
the company on a larger scale.

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