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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION  

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Work life balance describes the relationship between your work and the commitments in the rest of your life, and how they impact on one another. Employers, employees and government want to maximise participation in the workforce. However, in our demanding lives many people struggle to balance work and the responsibilities of caring for children, family members with a disability or elderly parents. For other workers it's often difficult to find time outside work for study, volunteering, taking care of their own health or participating in sport and recreation. There is no ideal work life balance; everyone is different and the 'right' balance may alter over time as families grow older and personal commitments change. Having options about how work is organised makes managing work and life demands possible by allowing employees to work in non-traditional work patterns and locations that better fit their personal commitments.

Overall quality of life improves and businesses also benefit from employees' higher morale and commitment. For employers the capacity to negotiate flexible work arrangements provides an antidote to loss of skills and experience and the high cost of recruitment and retention in a competitive labour market. Employers who provide flexible work options immediately gain a competitive edge in the labour market by becoming 'employers of choice. The concept of work-life balance, also referred to as ‘work-life conflict’ or ‘work-family conflict’, has received a great deal of attention from scholars in recent times. Whilst there have been various interpretations of the term, here we use the definition from the New Zealand Department of Labour website (2007) that describes it as “…effectively managing the juggling act between paid work and the other activities that are important to people”.

Work-life imbalance can appear in various forms from the inability to remove oneself psychologically from the demands of the job (Messersmith, 2007:430), to a blurring of the lines between work and home life (Boswell and Olson-Buchanan, 2007:593).Despite being a relatively new body of thought, the existence of academic studies on work-life balance is broad. Focuses range from political action (see Bryson, Warner-Smith, Brown and Fray, 2007) to the impact of technologies (see Boswell et. al. 2007) to its effect on worker’s attitudes (see McPherson, 2007). This saturation is hardly surprising given that, according to a report written on behalf of global research organisation ESOMAR, over two thirds of people across 23 different countries believe they lack work-life balance and nearly half felt personally affected by the imbalance (Echegaray, Cornish, and Donnelly, 2006:9).The research shall therefore  determine work-life balance and employee commitment

1.2  STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem confronting this research is to appraise work-life balance and employee commitment.The basis for the research stems from numerous complaint and  the inability of employees to maintain a balance between their official work and personal and family lives. It is also a significant dimension in human resources management to proffer solution to work-life balance and employee commitment.

1.3   RESEARCH QUESTIONS  

1  What is the nature of work-life balance and employee commitment

2  What is  the effect of work-life balance and employee commitment

1.4   OBJECTIVES OF  THE RESEARCH

1  To appraise work-life balance and employee commitment

2  To determine the effect of work-life balance and employee commitment

3 To proffer strategy to managing work-life balance and employee commitment.

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE  RESEARCH  

The research shall determine the nature of work-life balance and employee commitment and shall proffer a significant human resource management strategy to work-life balance and employee commitment. The research shall also serve as a veritable source of information  for issues on work-life balance and employee commitment

1.6   STATEMENT OF THE HYPOTHESIS

1 HO   There is a relationship between work-life balance and employee commitment

Hi There is no relationship between work-life balance and employee commitment

2  Ho    The level of work-life balance is high

    Hi     The level of work-life balance is low

3  Ho   The effect of work-life balance and employee commitment is low

    Hi    The effect of work-life balance and employee commitment is high.

1.7    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study proffers an appraisal of work-life balance and employee commitment and elucidate a significant human resource dimension strategy to managing work-life balance an employee commitment.

1.8    DEFINITION OF TERMS

Work-Life Balance: Work life balance describes the relationship between your work and the commitments in the rest of yourand how they impact on one another

Employee Commitment: Is the psychological attachment and the resulting loyalty of an employee to an organisation.

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