How Individiual Experience Work-Life Balance LeMyHuyen - NHDKhoa

HOW INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
A Review of the Literature
NAME: LE MY HUYEN
IU ID: BABAWE13009
UWE ID: 17047754
ADVISOR: NGUYEN HUU DANG KHOA
WORD COUNT: 6614
Declaration:
I declare that the coursework submitted is my own work and has not (either in whole or part) been
submitted towards the award of any other qualification either at UWE or elsewhere. I have fully
attributed/referenced all sources of information used during the completion of my assignment, and
I am aware that failure to do so constitutes an assessment offence.
How individuals experience work-life balance
Table of content
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….…………..…3
1. Introduction………………………………………………..…………………..….. ....…..….4
2. The Concepts of Work-life Balance…………………………………..……………………..6
3. Diverse Views on Work-life Balance…………………………………….………..…...…..12
4. Factors that affect Work-life Balance…………………………………….…………….…15
4.1. Individual factors…………………………………………………………………..…....15
4.1.1. Individual‟s emotional intelligence…………………………………………........15
4.1.2. Spiritual intelligence………………………………………………………....…..16
4.1.3. Personality & demographic factors………………………………………............17
4.2. Organizational factors…………………………………………………………….......…18
4.3. Social factors………………………………………………..………………….…..…...19
5. Methodology……………………………………………………...………………….…...…21
6. Implication………………………………………………………………………………..…23
7. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….…….…25
8. References………………………………………………………………………..……….…27
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Abstract:
The general objective of this article is to define in detail about what is work-life balance and
investigate the factors affecting it, in which some theories of other authors are used for superior
review. A wide range of factors are found out such as emotional, spiritual intelligence,
organizational factor and social factor which have substantial contribution to this theme. At the
end of this paper, some tips for better work-life balance are also suggested, that can lead to a
satisfied employee mindset which ensures the overall organization productivity. This article is
adopted by previous researches, which draws the most remarkable points from the writer's
personal thoughts.
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1. Introduction:
The world is constantly evolving and the business environment is increasingly complex making
it is difficult for individuals to live and work comfortably and deliberately. Nowadays, people are
perpetually connected, thus they working all day so as to rival with internal and external
organizations (Daipuria et.al, 2013). In consequence, the term work-life balance is more and
more interest about how bring the benefits for both individuals and organizations. For a long
time, the topic of balancing work and life has been measured by a great deal of scholars, and it
becomes more and more remarkable for both employees and employers globally. The research
performed by Hill. EJ, Hawkins, Ferris, and Weitzman (2001) has attracted attention from
audiences with a large numbers of viewers. Moreover, the research of EJ Hill, BC Miller, SP
Weiner in 1998 is also worthy of consideration. In reality, work-life balance indicates the extent
to which an employee reaches the satisfaction and fulfillment in both work and non-work sides
of life. In order to lead a happy, successful, and meaningful life, people should stay in a poise of
work and personal life. The foundation of this concept is to give people the ability to balance the
busy schedules at work and home (Chimote et.al, 2013). On the whole, through being
experienced better quality of work-life balance, individuals „status quo are shown in improved
and enhanced states, such as greater job and pleasure life, and their work behaviors are more and
more professional, for example, lower turnover and absenteeism (Tuuli P, Karisalmi S. 1999,
Donaldson SI, Sussman S, Dent CW, Severson HH, Stoddard JL. 1999, Korunka C, Hoonakker
P, Carayon P. 2008). Besides, the aim of this paper is to make clear how work-life balance now
becomes noteworthy (McCarthy, Cleveland, Hunter, Darcy, & Grady, 2013; Lester, 1999; Syrek,
Apostel, & Antoni, 2013), and review the influence of some elements on the balance between
work and life fields, in which individual, organization and social factors are significantly
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involved. However, to avoid the confusion of the subject, this paper will be itemized in five
parts following a logical sequence, including abstract, introduction, the concepts of work-life
balance, implication and conclusion, so that people do not take a wrong approach.
Nevertheless, to start more smoothly, I will briefly introduce the term work-life balance. It is
explained that work and life are separated entities which need to be balanced to lead a happy life.
As I mentioned before, work-life balance does not have a certain rule applied for everyone has
different job, especially play the dissimilar role in society. The absence of work-life balance can
cause a lot of harmful consequences that damage the effectuation (Hobson, Delunas, & Kesic,
2001). Firstly, Pike (2012) declared this absence would have an impact on family relationship of
the workforce. Accordingly, the conflict between work and family is significantly involved
(Alam, Biswas, & Hassan, 2009; Doble & Supriya, 2010), which leads to reduction of
concentration at work. Secondly, it is believed that depression and pressure-related issues
resulted from longer office hours (Major, Klein, and Ehrhart, 2002). In addition, the research of
Kinman and Jones (2003) also support for the above judgment when showing that work overload
can create pernicious influences on both physical and spiritual well-being of the workers, such as
anxiety, stress, and heart-related diseases. In conclusion, the ways how to balance life and work
play a really important role to individuals and organizations. This paper contributes to the
literature by assessing the impact of individual, organizational, and social factors to the work-life
balance, and clarifying how it becomes attractive today.
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2. The Concepts of Work-life Balance:
In the midst of demanding and hasten pace of life, people are increasingly working as a machine
to compete with other people, to keep up with their fellows in the work, to create highlights in
their career, which pay little regard for other things in life. Nowadays, no matter what gender
people are, what background they have, people significantly concern about the balance of work
and life because of burden with carrying out missions in working as well as learning (Warren T
(2004), Arch Intern Med. 2012, Potgieter, S.C.B. & Barnard, A. 2010). For workers, they work
arduously to get as many products as possible, whereas for students, they learn all day to solve
many tasks, practice many questions to remember how to tackle. However, sometimes 24 hours
per day is not enough for them to work. As a result, people sometimes forget to spend time for
themselves, their families and friends. Or when looking back and people suddenly realize that
they miss lots of opportunities to receive invaluable gifts that life offers such as long trips, the
moments with their family. Then they comprehend the importance of the balance between work
and life and they wonder whether they balance both sides in their lives. I firstly present about
what work-life balance is, and say more about factors involving to this phenomena later. Work-
life balance reflects “the extent to which an individual is equally engaged in – and equally
satisfied with – his or her work role and family role” (Greenhaus, 2003). Guest (2001) gives a
more subjective definition of work life balance, as “a person‟s perceived balance between work
and the rest of life”. Currently, the term work-life balance has been seen as work and family
equilibrium (Hudson Resourcing, 2005). This change arises from the awareness of practical
significance of childcare which is not the only important non-work obligation, but is also applied
to any non-paid activities in daily life, such as travel, sport, soft skills, voluntary work or health
care, for every subject from singles, women, men, to couples, parents. Right from the start,
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understanding the correct meaning of work-life balance is so important, which does not mean to
devote an appropriate amount of time to inside and outside paid work. But in the broader sense,
it is explained as a fitting and satisfied level of participation or involvement among multiple
functions of people in their lives. Although the variety of definitions and explanations, this term
generally refers to the sense of balance between the total time and determination that someone
dedicate to work activities and individual duties, so that they can keep the harmonious
relationship of these domain in their lives (Clarke, et al 2004, 121). Moreover, that balance also
requires the mindful determine between different needs and personal resources, including energy
and time, from that we are able to tackle this issue. With this awareness, the suitable options how
to allocate our valuable sources can be considered and evaluated. Such this sensible choice, the
appropriate decision-making and arrangements will be provided in both all the aspects of
individual life and benefits of organizations.
In addition, according to Clarke (2000), work-life balance is defined as the gratification and fine
operation result from minimum conflict between workplace and home. In the core meaning,
work-life balance is regarded as helping people equalize their duties to work and to their lives
(Chandra, 2012; Daipuria and Kakar, 2013; Gayathiri and Ramakrishnan, 2013; Foster, et.al,
2014). On this subject of life, it refers to family and personal arrangements, which people can
control the location, time and the ways they work (Chandra, 2012; Daipuria, et.al, 2013;
Gayathiri, et.al, 2012). As it is mentioned before, the concept of work-life balance cannot be
easily expressed as well as measured because of the multiform and complicated roles, emotions
and awareness of people in their lives (Chandra, 2012; Gayathiri et.al, 2013). As such, work-life
balance depends on whether or not people feel satisfied and happy in their daily life including
work and family commitments, also whether or not he or she overcomes difficulties in achieving
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such balance (Daipuria, et.al, 2013). In this context, it refers to the personality and intelligence of
each person, which will be explained in more detail later (Costa & McCrae (1992), Ishaq et al
(2013), Kaur (2013) Satija and Khan (2013), Eswaran et al (2011)). Accordingly, the characters
of extroverts who are positive, energetic and delighted have more ability to improve social
relations and reduce disadvantages for their personal responsibilities, so that they get better
interaction with work-life balance than the remaining people. In addition, when people are in
good health, people will work faster and more efficiently to advance in completing tasks and
avoiding stagnancy and overwork (Kinnunen et al. 2003[68]; Mudrack 2004[69]; Crooker et al.
2002[70]; Fleeson et al. 2002[71]).
Furthermore, because the meaning of work-life balance is influenced by milieu of the
conversations and the speaker's point of views, it has to have versatility in each situation that it
belongs to. To precisely understand about the concept of work-life balance, it is necessary to
explain the meaningfulness of work-life balance in various perspectives based on the works of
Guest (2002) and Dex (2003):
- From work to family aspect, work-life balance means quality of life and flexible work
arrangement, which currently include broader connotations than the term work-family balance
before. It means that some people do not really stay rigorously and rigidly from 8:00 to 5:00
o‟clock, but they look for more flexible work or they want to work from home, as long as they
accomplish their projects of assignments.
- From conflict between work and family, it occurs when work demands and family life interfere
each other. To be more detail, the conflict occurs when an unhealthy balance exists which forces
a person to place work demands above and beyond the demands and needs of family, or
alternatively place family demands above those of work.
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- From the employee viewpoint, it is the difficult choice between fulfill work obligations and
family responsibilities.
- From the employer viewpoint, work-life balance is the challenge for the company to create a
better working environment to support and encourage employees‟ rate of progress and make
them happy.
To support for the benefits of employees, which allow them to tackle their individual problems,
family‟s duties that does not interfere and delay their works at the same time, they need to have
work-life programs. These programs the employees receive from their boss such as finance or
time to deal with their works and personal responsibilities. On the other hands, organization must
establish work-life initiatives, which are policies and methods in their working environment to
enhance employees‟ performance at work place and handle personal/family involvement at the
same time. Moreover, to create the balance between employers and employees, the appearance
of work-family culture is essential. That culture is created by organization that respects their
employees‟ outside- work obligations, in which the appropriate policies are used for enhancing
the corporation between management and employees to bring benefits for both sides.
After explaining about the meaningfulness of work-life balance, I now discuss what should be
the appropriate ratio for work-life balance. For some people, it can mean completely separate
from work after leaving the office. Others may view it as the freedom to decide what to do
during their time. Most people may think a 50:50 ratio is the ideal ratio. However, work and life
balance does not mean that your time is split into equal amount between work and personal life.
A rigid separation will bring failure and frustration. Once in a while, you need to take more time
to work in the office than at home, and vice versa. It is important that you are comfortable with
where you are spending that period of time.
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Additionally, this proportion has to change over time because the standard of work-life balance
transform is different stages of life. A time formula for working when you are single will no
longer be accurate when you get married. At that time, you have to spend more time for caring
your family. For every one, having a happy family, in which all members ensure the blooming
with health, have time to relax and share together are the most precious. These standards will
change again in the later stages of your career when your children are old enough to take care of
themselves. Besides, health is also essential factor for the decision how much time to devote to
your career.
To achieve work-life balance, it requires several things. The first thing is trade-offs. Along with
work and life, there will be time when you realize there are things you can achieve and there are
things out of your reach. You will have to sacrifice time to do something more meaningful.
Understanding what is important and priority is the key to achieving a successful work-life
balance. Essentially, for every person, having a high-paying job or owning so much money is not
the ultimate value of life. More than that, people need to have a meaningful, valuable life that
brings happiness both to themselves and to the people around them. That is when their lives get
fullest pleasure and contentment in all aspects. The more people see the true value of what they
are doing, the happier life they live, and the better awareness they recognize in the right
direction. The second thing is a long-term view of life. Life is unpredictable. Therefore, it is
important that you have a long-term perspective while evaluating the speed of your life. Were
you able to spend enough time with your family, friends and activities that led to great success in
the lately years? Or is your career growing along with time? After all others, work-life balance
means people enjoy their success. Success and pleasure are the things you should enjoy in a
comfortable way. Success will give you enthusiasm, sense of pride, while joy allows you to
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enjoy the sweetness of success. Activities that enjoy success and joy frequently are the basis to
have a meaningful life. Enjoying the success also denote that the satisfactory feelings people
receive form their victory (Clark, 2000; Kirchmeyer, 2000; Kofodimos, 1993).
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3. Diverse Views on Work-life Balance:
Discussing about work-life balance, different scholars have different interpretation about the
relationship between work and personal life of an individuals.
Firstly, Edwards and Rothbard (2000) considered work-life balance as segmentation phenomena,
in which work and personal or family duties have no effect on each other. It also means that
work and life have been inherently separate by time, area, and function. This issue is also
supported by Staines, 1980; Zedeck, 1992. The segmentation process occurs when people can
keep all things relates to their work, such as emotions, behaviors, thoughts far away from their
private life (Piotrkowski, 1979). For example, a military officer is always strict, outspoken,
punctual and maintains discipline during the period in army. However, when he comes back to
his home, he become a warm, soft-spoken, humorous father, a thoughtful husband, who know
how to care for and keep an intimate atmosphere for his family. This model was applied to blue
collar workers by two Blood and Wolfe (1960). They explained that for workers in unsatisfying
or un-involving jobs, segmentation of work and home is a natural process. However, the close
relationship between work and family are demonstrated which create some challenges for the
adverse authors (Bruke and Greenglass, 1987; Voydanoff, 1987). It is a bidirectional
phenomenon that work always support and compensate for personal or family obligations and
vice versa. Thus, both fields are likely to be interdepended in a balancing way. For instance,
people will develop their career if they do not have a happy married life.
In contrast to the first standpoint, spill over is the second matter that scholars deliberate about.
This tendency claims that inside work and outside work are influenced each other in either a
positive or negative way (Belsky et al., 1985). This interaction directly relates to people‟s moods,
values and behaviors. That is, what is created in one domain will be transferred into the other
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domain. Besides, mood spillover occurs when mood of work and mood of personal life affect
each other. For the positive way, that is when people bring the inspiration and satisfaction from
workplace to home. On the other hand, exhaustion and tiredness being brought out from the
workplace will cause negative state (Xu, 2009). Robbins & Judge (2011) argued that emotion is
connected to unreasonableness, and difficult to control and exchange. People bring their personal
emotions to workplace to behave with their colleagues or solve the public problems may lead to
the damage in their career or status. Therefore, emotion necessarily requires rational thinking and
professional control. Dasgupta (2010) suggested person needs to incorporate both reasonable
thought and emotion. With consideration and deliberation, individual will have strong sense of
self awareness, recognize the emotion when experience a situation that may bring expert effect to
the other ones. The more rate people comprehend their own feelings, the more extent that they
are aware of themselves, from that they can manage the surrounding circumstance better.
Raisinghanil & Goswami (2014) believe work interferes with family more than family interferes
with work. For every organization, there are always rules and regulations that are hard to break
or disobey. Whereas there are no specific manners for the family, hence people can change the
deportment in any situations.
Additionally, compensation is the next assessment, which shows that work and personal/family
life are considers as two spheres, and what is lacking in one sphere, people will make efforts to
achieve satisfaction in the other. In other words, people pay the compensation for their failures or
disappointments from a part of their lives through a grander association with the rest. According
to Piotrkowskt (1979), this notion is deemed that employees expect their homes as shelters,
likewise their families by way of contentment and happiness which are deficient in occupational
area. Moreover, the form of compensatory phenomenon is divided into supplemental and
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reactive compensation following the argument of Zedeck and Mosier (1990). Supplemental
compensation happens when individual tries to find rewards in one area that are inadequate in
the other area. In this case, the rewards from both areas merge together into the expected
cumulative rewards rising from both areas are accomplishing. For instance, people who are not
delighted with autonomy in workplace will pursue greater autonomy at home. On the contrary,
reactive compensation refers to a circumstance in which unwanted experience in work pattern is
moderated by looking for the opposite experience in non-work pattern. An example of this case
is when people throw themselves into work in an effort to stop worrying or thinking about
problems at home. Clark (2000) and Tenbrunsel et al., (1995) are the supporters for this view
when they find a contradictory relationship between work and life.
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4. Factors that affect Work-life Balance:
There are a lot of factors affecting the work life balance of employees, including individual,
organizational and social factors.
4.1. Individual factors.
4.1.1. Individual‟s emotional intelligence
It can be said that the emotional intelligence is one of the most important factors affecting the
work life balance of employees. Having good emotional intelligence, employees will be able to
control their office and social life and they will understand and manage wisely their human
relations while still spending enough time to focus on work. Employee with good emotional
intelligence will know when they need to relook and consider their work to balance their
workload after feeling distressed and they will never forget their families and their health to only
achieve career development (Ramanithilagam & Ramanigopal, 2012). Or, they will know their
situations, their objectives in different stages of life. For example, when they are young and
single, they can spend more time on working and studying to achieve certain positions. However,
once they get marriage and have children they will start spending more time for their families
and beloved people, while still delegate enough time for work. Additionally, emotional
intelligence will help employee to monitor their own emotions, manage their attitudes and set
suitable priority at work and life, hence, they can still know how to enjoy their work, reduce job
pressures, feel encouraged and create good relationships with their partners and family, by
which, create better work life balance for themselves as well as support others on their own lives.
Moreover, employees can also know how to efficiently affect other people around them to solve
their problems at the office as well as in the family. Sharing the same point of view, Lenaghan,
Buda, and Eisner (2007) also stated that the ability of emotional intelligence would help
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employees in effectively perceive, understand and manage their emotions, leading to better work
life balance management as well as effective responses to stressful situations.
4.1.2. Spiritual intelligence
The second factor affects to work life balance of employees is their spiritual intelligence which
will help individual to solve their problems by facilitating everyday problem solving and goal
achievement. With spiritual intelligence, employee will be able to transcend the physical,
material, experience heightened states of consciousness, sanctify daily experience as well as use
spiritual resources to deal with troubles and lead to better life quality (Emmons, 2000). In fact,
with good spiritual intelligence, employees will have better states of consciousness and
effectively face up with their problems. They can exactly recognize their problems, then deal
with it easily and spend more time with their families. As a result, employees will have more
positive power, stay away from anger, fear or worry. Or, according to Emmy (2016), spiritual
intelligent can lead to an ability to stay calm and focused in the face of crisis and chaos, a more
selfless and altruistic attitude towards others and a more enlightened and relaxed perspective on
life, which lead to high level of work life balance of employees. Therefore, it can be said that the
spiritual intelligence will create more positive energy for employees, making them feel good and
encouraged at work to improve their effective performance and productivity, they will
understand their responsibilities and complete their works effectively and spend more time for
their social life and families (Chiang, Birtch, & Kwan, 2010).
With the increasing influence of social media, employees and organizations always need to
prepare for their communication crisis or any psychological recession as a results of new of past
business failure, for example. Hence, the spiritual intelligence will help employees to be more
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careful in remaining his characters and habits as well as adjust their confidence levels as well as
take care of their families.
4.1.3. Personality & demographic factors
Personality is also very important because different people have different characteristics and
orientation, someone enjoys peaceful lives with children and housework, they will enjoy it, while
other dynamic people who want to work hard, they will feel bored if they cannot go out working.
Additionally, while younger employees will have more free time and energy for working, they
will go for work more than their social life because work is a part of their social life with co-
workers, clients and partners (Saif, Malik, & Awan, 2011). However, such older employees will
take more care of their children, family and their health because they don‟t have much time as
before. Their health is also not as good as before, hence, they cannot contribute much time and
energy as before. Moreover, single employees also have different concerns and interests
compared with married co-workers, and there is the fact that married employees will be greater
users of work-life balance initiatives than single co-workers because they need to correctly
calculate their work and life factors as well as set suitable priority. Next, female also have
different points of view on work- life balance compared with male partners. Female workers tend
to take disadvantage of work life balance more than male employees. Women have to take care
of their children, flexible working hours, job sharing and the chances to work at home (Susi &
Jawaharrani, 2011). According to a recent survey of Dinithi and Geethani (2016), demographic
factors also influence a lot on the ability of manage work life balance of employees, this survey
also revealed that females as a best group in Work Life Balance and under marital status single
group is having Work life Balance greater than married group.
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4.2. Organizational factors
The balance between working and social life adjust isn't just the duty of the representatives, yet
in addition of the businesses. Associations likewise should deal with their representatives by
helping them keeping up a solid harmony between their own and expert life. As it was,
hierarchical must give the required help to the representatives to keep up work-life adjust.
The support from organization is vital in keeping up a decent work-life adjust. Associations that
did not comprehend the significance of work-life adjust may mishandle their representatives'
diligent work and exertion. Then again, associations that think about the prosperity of their
representatives would indicate bolster by executing project and approaches that underscore on
work-life balance. The working schedule, working hours, work monitor and role modeling will
affect to the attitude and social life of employees. Some organizations with fixed working hours
and strict culture may lead employees distressed and cannot balance their work and life balance,
they will easily stuck at work overload and have no time for other relationships, families or
socialization. While, in some supportive and open organizations, managers can be more flexible
when arranging the working hours for female workers with children, families, etc. or special
cases to make them feel motivated and engaged at work. Additionally, the pressure and attitude
from other co-workers are also very important; coworkers who are supportive and sensitive to
the needs of peers can create a working environment that supports work life balance and
motivate work life balance initiative use (Wong & Law, 2002).
Additionally, the organizational culture also takes an important role in work life balance because
it will affect the employee satisfaction and engagement with the organization, influence on their
attitudes and work performance. While an open, friendly and supportive working environment
with open culture where employees can raise their opinions and directly discuss with managers,
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employees will feel more motivated and positive with their works, their work performance will
be better and as a result, they will have more time for their social life and families. Hence, they
can easily balance their work and social life. As McCarthy, Cleveland, Hunter, Darcy, and Grady
(2013), organizations which take care of employees‟ wellbeing often implement their supports in
policies and programs emphasizing on work life balance.
However, with some strict and aggressive organizational culture where managers are very strict
and have no sense of sensitivity, employees will easily get stressed and tired at work, they will
be discouraged and feel overloaded, as a result, their mood and attitude become negative, leading
to negative feelings on other issues. Accordingly, the bad mood at work can ruin their positive
feelings at home and other people, making them stressed and much more tired (Hayman, 2005).
4.3. Social factors
Last but not least, social factors also have big influence on the performance of work life balance
in employees. According to Susi and Jawaharrani (2011), different countries have different
culture, affecting the mindsets and thinking of their residents, hence, employees will feel
different on how to set their priority of work life balance in life. In some high context cultures
like Japanese or Korean, employees live to work for their countries and earn money for their
livings as well as the whole families. In Japan, the women often stay at home, doing housework,
taking care of children and totally ignoring their work life, while the husband always stay at the
office working hours to hours to earn the living for the whole family. In fact, the husband works
for the whole days, from early morning till late night, sometimes, he doesn‟t have chance to look,
eat and play with his children, and always feel stressful. The workload of Japanese employees is
really high that they have to work nonstop for their companies, and in Japan, organizations often
have an unwritten rule is that if the manager still stays at the office, none of his employees can
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come home earlier than him. That is the reason why the work in Japan is very stressful. The
culture is also very strict so people cannot break the hierarchy and traditions. That is why they
work until getting exhausted and cannot live for their social lives. They actually, don‟t have time
for their families, beloved people and other things in life (Zohar & Marshall, 2000).
Recently, in Japan‟s young generation, they also have a new trend that they call themselves as
work-addicted, because all they know is working and working, they don‟t think about playing
out, hanging out with friends, ignore their marriage and working nonstop to achieve their
purposes, earn more money and create their position in the society. They even do not think about
love or finding their partners but just working all day; this fact becomes a serious issue when
Japan‟s population is getting older while its birthrate is really low. As a result, Japan will have to
face up with its serious shortage of labor in the future. Vice versa, in some Western countries,
employees are not keen on their working as their financial situation is really good, therefore they
sometimes only go to work for fun and mainly focus on their social and entertainment lives. That
is why their work is really weak, the performance and productivity negatively affect the
company‟s performance. This pleasure culture like that is also not good for the organization and
community, hence, in the nutshell, it is very important for employees to create their own work
life balance for effective work and live in this complicated world. With so many factors affecting
the work life balance, it requires not only employees but also employers and the community to
support their work life balance application and initiatives (King & DeCicco, 2009).
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5. Methodology:
The purpose of this part is to analyze the methods used to collect the data for the research
involved in the literature, which play a very important role for providing the useful resources to
this topic in the future. It is essential that the methods used are appropriate and relevant
throughout the research since the reliability of the literature. In this article, in addition to
theoretical literature, empirical literature is also intermixed to create practical assertions. In
detail, literature reviews are the main and most important form as representatives for theoretical
literature. Alternatively, empirical methods are evaluated based on sample size collected, which
allows profound investigation. This article focuses to scrutinize the relationship between work
and personal life, as well as the elements have influences on the balance of work and life.
This article is written based on the study which is authored by Xeniya Kurmayeva, Marsel
Kurmayev, Mais Zainalabidin, Saleem Rabbani & Hesham Mubarak, submitted in 2014. I
choose this research because of its detail analysis and great literature review on many topics of
work-life balance. The first object for the survey of the chosen study is managers and executives
of Hafilat Industries - sole proprietorship specializing in bus assembly in Abu Dhabi. The survey
conducted only on managers and executive become they are believed to understand more about
culture of organization. To be more specific, the study uses questionnaire technique as well as
searching to gather information. On the contrary, the second survey conducted is on all
employees to measure their work-life balance. It is surveyed a total of 31 employees, 4 of whom
were supervisors, 5 were managers and 22 were non-managerial staff. As such, we had a
response rate of 73%. Finally the data from the survey was analyzed using statistical analysis
namely cross-tab, regression and correlation analysis.
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As the results of the research, emotional intelligence and work-life balance had a substantial
relationship. This evaluation is reinforced by some studies which are carried out in India
(JothiSree & Jyothi, 2012; Ramanithilagam & Ramanigopal, 2012). Following this tendency, the
correlation of work-life equilibrium and emotional intelligence is clarified. For the cases of work
overload and technology advancement, although positive and negative influences are
demonstrated, they are evaluated to get associations with work-life balance (Vogel, 2012 Lester,
1999; Stephens et al., 2007). However, spiritual intelligence gets the opposite results to all above
factors, which it is considered as optional factor for work-life balance. Spiritual intelligence
helps individuals tackle the problems more proficiently, so that they are able to spend time for
other activities (Emmons, 2000).
22
6. Implication:
Work-life balance refers to a fine equilibrium of personal and professional life of individuals.
For women, a healthy work-life balance has a great significance, especially in a present context,
both family and workplace poses many challenges and problems. The dynamic of the working
environment has put enormous pressure on working women because they need to deal with
almost full-time job in the office and another work at home. Reviewing the literature related to
this topic has shown that working women are more difficult than men in balancing work and
family. In Vietnam, as an Eastern country, there are a lot of women after getting marriage and
giving birth choosing to stay at all, scarifying their career to taking care of the family and
children. The old generation always asks their daughters to stay at home like this. And,
unluckily, sometimes the wife is bullied because she becomes independent financially on the
husband and not active, charming like before. Some very talented and smart women bury their
abilities at home for nothing, and their husbands get tired of them and get other relationships
outside. Therefore, when the gender equality becomes more concerned, nowadays, younger
generation like me still want to remain our work life balance as well as the equality between wife
and husband, even, the wife still needs to bear heavier burden for families. However, hopefully,
in the future, when people have a clearer view in the contribution of female employees for the
business market, government contribution or community development, they will have better
sense of work life balance for female workers.
As a business person in the future, I am also very concerned for my working life in the future,
especially how to balance my working and social life. In fact, it turns to be harder for a girl,
because of maternity as well as the responsibilities with the family in the future. Now, as a young
person, I am still very active with lots of positive energy and enthusiasm for my jobs with lots of
23
passions, ambition, and purposes to achieve in my career. Especially, I will focus on my work to
devote my abilities for my organizations, constantly learn new things and strengthen my skills,
knowledge and experience for further development in the future and achieve a certain position in
the industry. It will not be an easy task but with my work, I can meet a lot of people, expand my
networks and it will become an important part of my social life in the young ages. However,
maybe five or six years later when I start thinking about getting marriage or getting children, my
passion and time will have to be separated for work and family. I need to set the priority for
myself at that time because a married woman will have lot of different things and interests
compared with a single lady. Anyway, I still stay in Vietnam an Eastern country, where the
woman rights are respected however, no one can deny that, somehow, one cannot ignore their
roles in families, especially giving birth and taking care of children. So compared with a man, in
Vietnam, a wife still has more concerns and responsibilities in the family. Luckily , Vietnamese
organizations now also have a lot of favorable and suitable policies and programs for female
employees such as maternity leaves, insurance, allowances, parental leaves, etc. that the working
schedule and hours can be more flexible, which will help a worker have suitable time for
families but still can ensure her task performance and effectiveness at work.
24
7. Conclusion:
To sum up the overall idea of this paper, work-life balance plays a remarkable role in
determining worker‟s efficiency, productivity as well as the quality of the final outcome.
Employees can accomplish a harmonious balance amongst work and family life through
adaptable working timetable scheduling. Therefore, effects of this investigation will be
advantageous for associations to better the production process as well as to improve overall
productivity, accordingly helping association to build the adequacy and profitability.
With the busy and developing business environment today, people are always rushing for work,
they needs to ensure their work performance to meet deadlines effectively as well as earn more
money for their livings and other relied people. The rushing and busy life also brings some
negative effects for their own life which is the reason why the concept of “work-life balance”
becomes more important and attracts a lot of attention of business persons and socialists recently.
In general, work-life balance is the term referring to the prioritization in life such as health,
family, relationship, and work like career, working hours, ambition, etc. The relationship
between work and life is different from different people and it is not always an equal balance
because different individuals have different purposes in life. Some can go for their career
development and objectives, while other can more pursuit their happiness in taking care of their
families and beloved people. However, in order to ensure the most effective and suitable work-
life balance, people need to efficiently schedule an equal number of hours and attention for each
of their different works and personal activities, even it cannot be exactly equal. Especially for a
long term development of an organization, the work life balance is very important because it will
help to create positive attitudes for its employees, improve their performance and engagement
with the organization (Major, Klein, & Ehrhart, 2002). Vice versa, the imbalance in work life
25
will cause so many troubles in life and work satisfaction or lots of stress at work. Obviously,
employees really need money and financial factors as well as career ambition in their career life,
however, other social relationships, families and health are also very important are also very
important and employees will need to create the effective balance among these factors. But,
remaining the work life balance is not an easy task.
Most research contemplates have demonstrated that when there are cheerful homes, work place
conflict and stresses effortlessly becoming clash free and working environment turns into a
pleasant spot to be. Expanding weakening rates and expanding interest for work-life adjusts have
constrained associations to look past ordinary Human Resources mediations. Therefore,
initiatives, for example, adaptable working hours, elective work plans, leave arrangements and
advantages in terms of family duties and workers supporting programs have turned into the
majorities of the organization merit projects and compensation packages.
26
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HOW INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE

2. The Concepts of Work-life Balance…………………………………..……………………..6

3. Diverse Views on Work-life Balance…………………………………….………..…...…..12

4. Factors that affect Work-life Balance…………………………………….…………….…15

4.1. Individual factors…………………………………………………………………..…....15

4.1.1. Individual‟s emotional intelligence…………………………………………........15

4.1.2. Spiritual intelligence………………………………………………………....…..16

4.1.3. Personality & demographic factors………………………………………............17

4.2. Organizational factors…………………………………………………………….......…18

4.3. Social factors………………………………………………..………………….…..…...19

concentration at work. Secondly, it is believed that depression and pressure-related issues

balance, and clarifying how it becomes attractive today.

2. The Concepts of Work-life Balance:

it is explained as a fitting and satisfied level of participation or involvement among multiple

individual life and benefits of organizations.

2002[70]; Fleeson et al. 2002[71]).

Furthermore, because the meaning of work-life balance is influenced by milieu of the

Guest (2002) and Dex (2003):

accomplish their projects of assignments.

alternatively place family demands above those of work.

where you are spending that period of time.

3. Diverse Views on Work-life Balance:

relationship between work and personal life of an individuals.

adverse authors (Bruke and Greenglass, 1987; Voydanoff, 1987). It is a bidirectional

deportment in any situations.

reactive compensation refers to a circumstance in which unwanted experience in work pattern is

when they find a contradictory relationship between work and life.

4. Factors that affect Work-life Balance:

organizational and social factors.

4.1. Individual factors.

4.1.1. Individual‟s emotional intelligence

life balance management as well as effective responses to stressful situations.

4.1.2. Spiritual intelligence

take care of their families.

4.1.3. Personality & demographic factors

group is having Work life Balance greater than married group.

4.2. Organizational factors

policies and programs emphasizing on work life balance.

4.3. Social factors

theoretical literature, empirical literature is also intermixed to create practical assertions. In

employees to measure their work-life balance. It is surveyed a total of 31 employees, 4 of whom

namely cross-tab, regression and correlation analysis.

other activities (Emmons, 2000).

sense of work life balance for female workers.

adaptable working timetable scheduling. Therefore, effects of this investigation will be

productivity, accordingly helping association to build the adequacy and profitability.

remaining the work life balance is not an easy task.

constrained associations to look past ordinary Human Resources mediations. Therefore,

majorities of the organization merit projects and compensation packages.

Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(18):1377-1385. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3199

Journal of Human Resource Management, vol.23, no.5, pp1040-1056.

Journal of Hospitality Management, 29, 25-32.

Relations, 53, 747–770.

and fit”, Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 33(2).

Human Resource Development Review, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 387-419.

Strategies‟, Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management, vol.2, no.1, pp45-52.

Information Technology Professionals In Managing Role Conflict And Enhancing Quality Of

Publishing Platform For Management Research Degree Programme in International Business,

Diversity, workplace, cultural mentoring, organisation, Globalisation, retrieved: 9 July 2015,

among Academic Staff of University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. ResearchGate.

Management, 5(4), 331-342.

Emmons, R. A. (2000). Is spirituality an intelligence? Motivation, cognition, & the Psychology

Emmy, G. (2016). Spiritual intelligence: A unique key to work-life success. International