A Study on Work Life Balance

(With Special Reference to Executives Working at NTPC, Korba)

P. Vakula Kumari

Asst. Professor, Department of Management, Chouksey Engineering College, Bilaspur (CG)

*Corresponding Author E-mail: vakula_pv@yahoo.co.in; vakula.kumari@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Work life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and they work. Work life balance refers to a person’s control over the conditions in their work place. It is accomplished when an individual feels duly satisfied about their personal life and their paid occupation. It mutually benefits, the individual business and society when a person’s personal life is balanced with his or her job. The work life balance strategy offer a variety of means to reduce stress levels and increase job satisfaction in the employee while enhancing business benefits for the employer. This paper mainly discusses the balance between the work life and personal life. It mainly deals with how to maintain balance between personal life and professional life of executives working at NTPC, Korba

KEYWORDS: Work life balance, professional life, personal life

INTRODUCTION:

Work life and personal life are the two sides of the same coin. According to various work /life balance surveys, more than 60% of the respondent professionals surveyed said that are not able to find a balance between their personal and professional lives. They have to make tough choices even when their work and personal life is nowhere close to equilibrium. Traditionally creating and managing a balance between the work-life was considered to be a woman's issue. But increasing work pressures, globalization and technological advancement have made it an issue with both the sexes, all professionals working across all levels and all industries throughout the world. Achieving "work-life balance" is not as simple as it sounds.

Work life and personal life are inter-connected and interdependent. Spending more time in office, dealing with clients and the pressures of job can interfere and affect the personal life, sometimes making it impossible to even complete the household chores. On the other hand, personal life can also be demanding if you have a kid or aging parents, financial problems or even problems in the life of a dear relative. It can lead to absenteeism from work, creating stress and lack of concentration at work.

Work/life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a satisfactory level of involvement

Or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life. Although definitions and explanations vary, work/life balance is generally associated with equilibrium, or maintaining an overall sense of harmony in life. The study of work/life balance involves the examination of people’s ability to manage simultaneously the multi-faceted demands of life. Although work/life balance has traditionally been assumed to involve the devotion

of equal amounts of time to paid work and non-work roles, more recently the concept has been recognized as more complex and has been developed to incorporate additional components. A recent study explored and measured three aspects of work/life balance:-

· Time balance, which concerns the amount of time given to work and non-work role.

· Involvement balance, meaning the level of psychological involvement in or commitment to, work and non-work roles.

· Satisfaction balance or the level of satisfaction with work and non-work roles.

According to the above figure proper balance between professional life and family life is important for both employers and employees. It not only benefits towards the success of the employers but also towards the employees. Studies have shown that greatest complaint among employees is the extensive number of hours they have to work. According to 2002 data from the organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), workers in the United States tend to work longer average annual hours than most advanced industrial economics. A survey by the families and work institutes indicates that most American workers would like to see a reduction in their working hours.

BENEFITS OF WORK LIFE BALANCE:

· Increased productivity

· Improved recruitment and retention

· Lower rates of absenteeism

· Reduced overheads

· An improved customer experience

· A more motivated satisfied and equitable workforce

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

· To analyze whether the employees are able to maintain the right balance between their work and personal life.

· .To motivates employees to maintain the right balance between their professional life and family life to increase their productivity.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

This study is descriptive since descriptive research design has been used for describing the characteristics of a particular individual and group. Sample size is hundred and sampling unit are the executives employees of NTPC, Korba. Primary data is through questionnaire and direct interview where as the secondary data have been obtained from published information on various websites as well as company magazine. The data so collected have been analyzed with the help of chi-square statistical tool.

RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS:

After analyzing the data majority of the executives of NTPC are satisfied with the working hours and they make a perfect balance between their professional life and personal life. Enjoying work is the best way to perform well in the job and according to the data analysis 65% of the executives enjoy their work where as 35% of the executives enjoy but up to a certain limit. the basis for work life balance is the proper division of time between family and work and according to the analysis 75% of the executives are comfortable with the division of time where as 25% are comfortable with some limitation. hypothesis testing had done to check whether the employees are comfortable or not with the division of time between work and family for 3 degree of freedom at 5% level of significance and it had been found that the calculated value of chi-square is much higher than the tabulated value, which means that the employees are very much comfortable with the division of time between work and family.

FINDINGS:

· The human resource department of NTPC believes in maintaining the good relations at work and therefore the employees do believe in working like a family together.

· Keeping pending work is not the culture of NTPC; however some specific departments have the kind of work which gets pending due to its nature.

· Since the employees are highly social they make perfect interpersonal relations and thus maintain balance between work and family.

· Work stress makes employees a little bit uncomfortable to maintain the balance between work and family whereas the degree of work pressure is very less.

· Though being public sector employees, respondents are highly attentive towards career development and keep their professional aspirants alive.

· The reason for not having any pending work is that the employees do enjoy their work

· Employees are quite comfortable with the division of time between work and family which leads to better management of time

· It is highly appreciative that being a public sector employee people fulfilling their work role satisfactorily which finally leads to higher productivity of the company.

· One more reason of completing work in due course of time is that employees do not neglect their work role due to family needs.

CONCLUSION:

During the whole study the researcher truly discovered that all the executive employees of NTPC, Korba are highly satisfied with their job and company policies. The study says that the employee hardly have pending work and therefore they enjoy their holidays without any tension or guilt feeling, and not only holidays but the employee also enjoy a good social life apart from work life. Fulfilling the work role satisfactorily and maintains good relations at work by attending the social functions at work help employees in maintaining proper balance between work life and personal life. As this is a balance between life and work an employee must have the ability to succeed in their profession. The employee needs to be able to succeed in and out of work to achieve this. The structure of the person’s professional life needs to allow for progression in accordance to performance. Through this the person can truly shape their own destiny generating self worth and in conjunction with other work life balance concepts they will be able achieve in home life as well.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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Received on 01.01.2011 Accepted on 27.01.2010

Asian J. Management 2(1): Jan. – Mar. 2011 page 25-27