The impact of family-friendly policies on organizations and individuals

¶ … Ground and Statement of the Problem-2

What are the impact of family -- friendly policies to organizations and individuals?

What are the nature and pattern of family-friendly employment policies?

What are the aims and objectives of the policies?

When and who should promote family policies?

Hypothesis Tested

The Impact of Family-Friendly Policies on Organizations and Individuals

'Family- friendly polices' are the benefits and working conditions put in place by an organization to assist employees balance their work and life out of work. Indeed it has become a big challenge to many employees on how to balance work and personal life. The proposal will therefore look at how the designed polices impact on an organization growth and productivity and also how these policies impact on the individual work and personal life.

The significance of this study is to establish the difference between employees who had access to family-responsive policies and those that did not have the policies. Did those that benefitted from these polices show significant organizational commitment to the organization, were they motivated to work hard and give good results, did they want to retain their jobs in these organizations or did the organizations have high employee retention as compared to those who did not have such policies. The main question here is; why should an organization offer such policies? Do they gain anything in return or do they loose instead?

The aim of the study therefore is to analyze the importance of such polices both to the organization and also to the individual and his or her family. Have the policies helped employees become better at balancing time between work and family? The study can also aim to cultivate a family friendly workplace to help employee achieve work life balance.

1.1. A Background and statement of the problem

In today's competitive world, Organizations must be very creative in order to retain and attract employees. Successful and smart companies know that keeping employees happy is paramount and encourages them to deliver greater results. Studies carried out show 1 in 4 employees experience high levels of conflicts in how to balance work and family, based on work to family interference.

Employees are finding it more difficult to balance between work and life and yet it is very important to do that for greater outcomes at both fronts. In a work trend survey conducted by Rutgers University's Research Analysis at the University of Connecticut 88% of respondents rated the ability to balance work and family as extremely important. More than 99% of the respondents said that they wanted flexibility in their work schedules to take care of family needs.

Work-life balance is about creating and maintaining supportive and healthy work environments, which enables an employee to have a balance between work and personal responsibilities and thus strengthen loyalty and productivity.

Employees everywhere are in a tug- of -war between work and home. Do they go to a child school meeting or do they stay and finish up with a project? The employers too are facing a problem on how much time they should give to their employees for other activities other than work. How much time should they expect from their employees? Work and family conflict on a daily basis. The question or the problem at hand that the study will look at how family- friendly polices will help create a balance between work, life and work for the benefits of the organization and the individual.

Today's workers have many competing responsibilities such as work, children, housework, volunteering, spouse and elderly parent care, and this places stress on an individual, families and the communities in which they reside. The problem is increasing daily and that is why many organizations are coming with family-friendly policies to help ease the problem.

The problem is increasing overtime due to an increase of female into the labor force, an increase of single parent's families, the prevalence of the dual- earner family and the emerging trends such as elder care. The situation is further propelled by globalization, an aging population and incidences of low unemployment.

Long working hours and highly stressful jobs have adverse negative effects on the employees because it hampers the employee's ability to harmonize work and family life. The situation could also lead to health risks, such as weight gain, smoking, high alcohol consumption, and depression and heart attack. 'Work life conflict has been associated with numerous physical and mental health implications.'

Studies have shown that women are more prone to high levels of role overload and caregiver strain than men. This is because women have greater responsibilities at the family front than men in activities such as child care, elder care etc. The studies go further to show that women also experience less spousal support for their careers than their male counterparts.

It is because of the problems identified in many work places that organizations are participating in creating programs- that are family-friendly to achieve work-life balances for their employees. Not only do these policies help the individual's personal and family life, but by

1.2.

Research questions and hypothesis

1.2.0.

What are the impact of family-friendly policies to organizations and individuals?

Many of companies are focusing at creating family-friendly programs and a company culture that allows for better work-life balance, including flexible schedules and generous family-leave policies. Can putting the employees needs first pay off? However it is necessary to notice that achieving a better work/life balance is a cultural mindset, not jut a set of policies. (Lester & Sallee 2009)

If an organization came in to help an individual's life more balanced, the organization will too reap benefits from the employee and it will experience higher productivity, less burn out, higher loyalty and increase morale. The individual too will benefit from these polices by keeping him and his family happy while not just by maintaining but boosting the bottom line.

Employee with access to family-responsive policies showed significant greater organizational commitment, and expressed significantly lower intention to quit their jobs. The practical implication of the study for human resource management professionals is that providing comprehensive family-friendly may have a positive impact beyond the individual employees who tap these benefits. (Glover & Crooker, 2006)

The policies ensure that the employees do not work again too hard in a way to damage their lives outside of work or contribute to ill- health of the workers. Research findings from Community Business (2004) report that, over 75% of 1,000 of the respondents are suffering from stress because they do not have a healthy balance between their personal life and work lives.

Stress results to low employee morale, poor or low productivity and decreasing job satisfaction. As a matter of fact majority of employees are expressing that they are suffering from stress over work load and work time pressures.

Implementing of family-friendly policies in an organization significantly address employee retention, job satisfaction, employee morale and productivity (Lockwood, 2003) In addition, organizations that have adopted these polices have registered low employee absenteeism, and have seen improvement in service delivery by the employees. Researchers also discovered that employees benefiting from such policies expressed less intention to leave the organization and an increased commitment to the organization. (Grover & Crooker, 1995)

In addition, social justices predicted that employees benefiting from such family-friendly policies will normally have a positive attitude toward work and will look forward to it. The employees will be more committed to their work, if the organization shows interest at helping them balance work and life.

Family-friendly policies may not produce the desired or positive results to the organization or the individual. To give a positive result, the policies should at least have organizational support and if this culture is unavailable family policies may be unsuccessful.

In same instances there are those times or policies that are unworkable due to differing factors such as cost, lack of flexibility, lack of cooperation etc.

1.2.1. What are the nature and pattern of family-friendly employment policies?

There are many different types of programs advocated by the organizations. Health and stress management programs are sometimes also included as family friendly programs. (Alicia & Bryanne, 2002) These are effective tools in promoting job satisfaction, productivity, and company loyalty among employees.

Flex-time, a flexible work schedule, job sharing, employees, sharing a position each working a fraction of the time, allowing work away from worksite, employee and health benefits, in addition to health and dental insurance, on site fitness e.g. gym availability, tuition for employment education and others according to the organization and the needs of the employees. (Rapoport, 2001)

A number of organizations have implemented wellness programs or pay for their employees wellness programs or pay for their employees' gym membership as part of a benefit package. There are even those organizations that choose to improve their employees eating habits. Others choose to provide stress management programs which include stretching, yoga, counseling etc.

Employers are also offering to give a longer vacation than the mandatory. The other human resources policies that is in use by some organizations include implementing time off in lieu of overtime pay arrangement, providing a limited number of days of paid leave per year for child care, elder care or personal problems, or having policies around weekend and evening and use of laptops and Blackberries.

Other polices that are in use in organizations include five day work week, flextime, family leave, and employee assistance programs and turn over intention. The policies include the government-mandated Family and Medical Leave Act which stipulates that an employee is provided with 12 weeks of unpaid leave of absence for family or personal needs, and discretionary policies offered by the organization voluntarily.

Family leave policies allow employees to be away from their workplace for a varying period of time because of family responsibilities. However some specific polices for time away from work for maternity, paternity or adoptions are at the discretion of the employer in different organization. Family leave policies differ between organizations or employers. Female employees are however entitled to have a minimum of 10-week maternity leave in case of pregnancy.

1.2.2. What are the aims and objectives of the policies?

The need for family friendly policies is to give parents a chance to spend more time with their children and also take care of the loved ones especially the elderly. It is advocated as a way of reducing work and life stress among employees, the programs are also effective because they allow the employees to have more choice that is they have a choice to engage in many other activities. Individual react to stress according to their personality characteristics (Invancevich & Matterson, 1993)

Besides that employees become more productive and are in position to improve their economic status and quality of life. The employers through such policies are in position to keep valuable employees and recruit the best. Employees who benefit from such polices also become good for the society.

To implement these policies in an organization, the management has to decide where to start, the aim of the policies for purpose of delivering fairness among the employees. It is necessary for the organization to carry out research to find out needs of the employees and how they can be met. Besides that, the research is necessary to analyze the success of policies that have implemented earlier or elsewhere and their results. The organization also need to identify potential costs and benefits and if there are any alternatives that can be put in place. While at it (looking at how to implement the policies) the organization or the government should endeavor to seek to include other involved sectors.

1.2.3. When and who should promote family policies?

To promote family-friendly polices in the work place and in the government, it is necessary to garner for support of other influential groups such as trade unions and associations, working families, business associations, policy makers and the media.

People have to be involved in the policies. In fact for better success it is ideal that an organization hold meetings to discuss on the implementation process and success. Most organizations fail because they are not flexible with their employees and they feel left out of the process.

The government sometime comes in to demand that organizations provide these friendly policies to their employees. The government can encourage family-friendly policies by laws or other methods in business and public life. The government can mandate that businesses institute family-friendly policies, it can also tax breaks and subsidies to encourage businesses to adopt family friendly polices, it can also come in to fund and maintain family oriented public facilities while encouraging the policies to run among public agencies and services. It can also mandate a health insurance plan for all families.

Others who should come in to demand for such policies include business people, political society and other policy makers, people affected by family friendly policies, the media, and also a broad-based coalition. The family-friendly policies should be promoted if the employees and families are raising the issue this shows that they are being affected by the problem and it is time that the organization addressed the issue. The issue should also be addressed if families are having a tough time, for instance, they no longer have time with their loved and it is affecting the family. The programs can also be implemented if family issues are in the news and the public eye, and also if family issues are highlighted in political arenas, during labor negotiations and during an economic development campaign.