CHAPTER FIVE: WORK-LIFE BALANCE (WLB)
5.4 Elements of balance: satisfaction and involvement
5.5.4 Equilibrium paradigm
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His article was based on the tourism, retailing and finance industries in the UK, noted for working long hours and the roles that managers play in promoting WLB practices in the organisations. The definition by the Department of Trade and Industry was basically focused on working patterns and flexibility so that employees can harmonise their work-life roles. The scholar (Maxwell, 2005) reported various EU legislations backing WLB in Europe as well as government legislations by Great Britain. This means that the government in Europe and Britain regulate time and period of work in those nations so that workers can find a working rhythm at work and at home.
But the present study is based on professional level employees at a municipality in the South African public sector where the employees in this category are noted for working long hours towards making efficient service delivery. Some of these employees work during weekends to ensure that services rendered by the municipality are delivered to the communities when people are at home. Their offices also require them to attend meetings with politicians and community leaders whenever they are needed. The question therefore is, with this kind of ad hoc arrangement of working patterns, are the professional level employees in the municipality able to achieve WLB? Moreover, is the definition by the UK Department of Trade and Industry relevant and able to be practiced in the municipality? Also, are the employees able to cope with the obvious insufficiency of time at work and at home?
In the context of the foregoing, time could be termed a ‘stressor’ which could impair ability to achieve WLB. The task of calculating the number of hours to allocate to different demands in the work and family domains is in itself a stressor. For instance, about a third of the day (8 hours) is officially spent at work, depending on the workplace. An individual is then left with about sixteen hours to distribute between sleep, personal development, and family and community life. Therefore, ascertaining WLB based on the premise of time may be daunting.
This study notes the significance that time and its management may have on an individual employee’s balance but does not examine WLB from the time paradigm. This study explores the relationship that WLB has with a SOC; by determining if individual employees at a municipality in the South African public sector were satisfied with their work and family situations. WLB in this study is based on the satisfaction paradigm.
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balance as: A satisfying, healthy and productive life that includes work, play, and love …”
(Kofodimos, 1993, p. 13). Similarly, Kirchmeyer (2008) sees balanced living as: an achievement of satisfaction in every area of life, the attainment of which depends on individual endowments like time, vitality, and a sense of obligation to ensure equal distribution through all areas of life. Clark (2000, p. 349) likewise refers to WLB as: “Satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum role conflict”.
There are common factors across the definitions by Kofodimos (1993), Kirchmeyer (2000) and Clark (2000). One of the denominators is the idea of equilibrium or near-equilibrium among work and family functions and experiences respectively (Greenhaus et al., 2003). Also intrinsic to these definitions are two constituents, namely inputs and results. Inputs describe the individual’s endowments (Kirchmeyer, 2000) used up in performing every duty. The inputs include time and energy which are available to an individual in limited measures. From these definitions, the ability to equally distribute time and energy across role performance leads to the achievement of balance.
Deductively therefore, being balanced means to face every function at work or at home by giving corresponding care, time, sense of obligation and participation. Greenhaus et al. (2003) confirms that giving commensurate time, care, obligation and participation should highlight a positive balance while not giving commensurate time, care, obligation and participation implied negative balance. Inputs highlight the degree to which a person is engaged in performing a function - manifested through mental participation and time dedicated to every function (Greenhaus et al., 2003).
Another constituent of balance denoted the result of performing work and home functions. The result which is often found in the explanations of WLB is fulfilment (Clark, 2000; Kirchmeyer, 2000; Kofodimos, 1993). A negative balance highlighted a commensurately less degree of fulfilment deriving from any one role while positive balance highlighted a commensurately higher degree of fulfilment derived from performing work and home functions (Greenhaus et al., 2003).
The scholars (Clark, 2000; Kirchmeyer, 2000; Kofodimos, 1993) considered vital issues like time, involvement, sense of obligation and care in the performance of work and family roles but makes no linkage with the resources available. They overlooked the ‘how’ of getting to do
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all the required things (care, participate, and give a sense of obligation). ‘How’ a person gets to achieve WLB becomes an empirical question that needs investigation.
Greenhaus et al. (2003, p. 513) further clearly supported the equilibrium paradigm by defining WLB as: “The extent to which an individual is equally engaged in – and equally satisfied with – his or her work role and family role”. They clarified that functional commitment can be expanded into three factors, namely:
1. Time balance - representing equivalent extent of time given to employment and domestic functions.
2. Fulfilment balance - representing equivalent degree of fulfilment derived from performing employment and domestic functions.
3. Involvement balance - which signifies equivalent degree of mental participation at work and home.
Every one of these factors of WLB may signify positive or negative balance based upon degrees of participation and time or fulfilment, and if they are correspondingly high or low.
The writers are of the opinion that WLB is a continuum that is held at two end-points; to the one end an all-encompassing level of imbalance favouring a given role (say work) via a measure of balance along the continuum to another all-encompassing level of imbalance in the other role (say work). They view balance as being autonomous of a person’s wishes or beliefs, therefore they are of the belief that a person that prefers to perform one function to another is comparatively un-balanced though the way he/she shares his/her obligation to work and home aligns with the expectations (desires) of the person or his/her beliefs (Greenhaus et al., 2003).
This researcher is in agreement with Caproni (1997) opinion that such a balance which is measured off the continuum (Greenhaus et al., 2003) is unrealistic and unattainable. It has the capacity to send people on an errand ‘to look for what is not missing’. All things in life are not equal and this scholar perceives that the point of balance on the continuum may not be realistic.
Life is unpredictable and often throws problems on individuals which sometimes are too big for a person to control, thereby deleting plans made even before they are executed (Caproni, 1997). Demographics change, time changes, environment changes, therefore studies in the area of WLB should be dynamic and not static. According to Darcy, McCarthy, Hill and Grady (2012), studies have not succeeded in sufficiently investigating how WLB matters develop during a person’s working period in life leading to the addressing of WLB issues from a ‘one size fits all’ perspective.
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Another challenge posed by defining WLB from the equilibrium paradigm, especially the definition by Greenhaus et al. (2003) is equality of time involvement. It is common knowledge that there are twenty four (24) hours in a day and the official number of acceptable hours of work is eight (8) hours in a working day. This leaves sixteen (16) hours to a person out of which he/she may need a maximum of eight (8) hours to rest. It therefore implies that an individual has a maximum number of eight (8) hours to share between families, friends, community and primarily him/herself. This implies that there is no way a person can equally distribute his/her time daily between work and family
Caproni (1997) contention against the concept of WLB on the premise that most of the discussions on WLB by both scholars and business media practitioners are based on reasoning and language that are rooted on the bureaucratic organisational practices, is noteworthy. She criticised the word ‘efficiency’, citing her experiences on the journey to achieve a balance.
She stated that all her efforts to achieve efficiency yielded other negative results that were not intended, which included a spill over (Kofodimos, 1993) to various areas of her life that did not need efficiency. She emphasised that her efficiency created more problems in those areas.
She also rationalised that keeping life’s important priorities increased problems, and suggested that family salience increased work salience (Caproni, 1997) because there are no clear-cut lines of division between work and family salience, which accedes to the ranking of one above the other. In her article, Caproni (1997, p. 50) reported that “trying harder, smarter, and faster to balance my life (e.g. learn more time-saving techniques, work harder on my hierarchy of values, make more trade-offs, find a few extra hours in the day) may have been contributing to the problem rather than solving it.”
She concludes that the issue was not imbedded within her, but in the way that WLB is conceptualised. Therefore, if the achievement of WLB is unrealistic due to life’s dynamics, human dynamics and volatility of life (Caproni, 1997), then it will be hectic and tedious to try achieve WLB. Further research should be based on what can be done to stabilise the person in the middle of work and life situations so that whether changes are favourable or unfavourable, they are able to maintain balance. Balance should signify stability maintained by the individual on a consistent and continuous basis in the face of work and family stressors. Caproni’s argument is one of the main reasons why the present study is looking at the use of WLBS to increase a person’s SOC in the face of work-life stressors towards achieving WLB at a municipality in the South African public sector.
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The gaps in the literature have given rise to the present study’s purpose in exploring the relationship between WLB (achievement of satisfaction with work and family situations) and SOC.