Online published on 28 February, 2020.
Work Life Balance (WLB) was not a great topic of discussion until recently, as there was an existence of typical psychological barrier in the society. The barrier has two different dimensions. Main dimension was obviously related to who are the earning members of the household and who will take care of the household. The male dominated society developed an atmosphere where male worked to earn money and the female members would take care of the household. But the situation has taken its own shape, with increasing pressure of globalized environment where both the members of the household are working to make their livelihood more meaningful. The traditional joint family system, which was pre-dominant in most of the developing countries including India, has also witnessed the sudden flux of working couple to maintain the increasing cost of living. Today, they are no more individual working members, rather working couples who are considered as a single unit and trying to improve the standard of living to a great extent. This increasing pressure of work and 24 x 7 working environment has enabled to develop a concept which most of the people termed it as WLB or Work Life Balance. Today, people are more focused on their career and because of this, sometimes, they are forced to concentrate on their jobs only, which sometimes create social disturbances. Hence the concept of Work life balance has its own nature of importance and has a strong linkage with the society as well as personal lives of individual members of the society. The major concern that may arise in this regard is obviously related to type of jobs that the individual members are doing or the sectors they belong to. In some of sectors thewages are solowthat itis difficultto survive ina very competitive working environment. The increasing pressure of unemployment has also created a burden not only for the economy but also for the prospective or existing entities of various organizations. This has probably for the first time has raised the concept of Work Life Balance, a new mechanism, that most of the prominent players in their respective sectors have started introducing for the f irst time. Today, employees are treated as an asset and they are basically the face of the company. Unless and until the employee group is not motivated enough, then surely it will dilute the entire process of development mechanism.
In today's society, Work life balance has become a buzz word, as from individuals to families and corporate to societies, everybody is talking about it. Organizations, either small or big conglomerates, aretrying theirbest tokeeptheir employeessatisfied and happy, ashappy workers are the productive workers of the organization. In the last four decades, there has been an increased focus on work life balance which can be due to change in the income and family structures like double income families, small and nuclear families, single parent and increased participation of women in the workforce.
The social support can be further linked to emotional and instrumental support that the human being is looking for. It has a direct response towards behaviour of employees who are directly involved in day to day household activities, such as relieving the employee of household tasks or otherwise accommodating the employee's work requirements. This allows the family member to ample opportunitiesto focus on his/her time and preserve energy forwork when itmight otherwise be scarce;suggesting that itpositively influencesthe individual's functioning at work. Theroleof workplace support is another dimension which can't be ignored. Each employee is working in a specific working environment and it is the duty and responsibility of the supervisors to correctly understand the specific balancing requirement between professional and family life and adequate modifications can be made to accommodate any particular employee to fulfil his or her family commitment. The group should be active enough in this regard so that the said mechanism should not disturb the work schedule of the organization but can provide sufficient value addition in terms of work life balance and employee motivation. This may have a long term impact where the satisfied employees may stay with the organization for a long period of time. To implement the work life balance programme the organizations need to think cautiously tounderstand the specific requirement of employees. Individual preferences may not be entertained but most of the employees may opt for some common benefits which the organization can provide easily without incurring much cost. Some of the benefits which the organization offers may be like job sharing, part time return to work option, flexitime, unpaid family leave, parental leave dependent care services, child care leave etc.
The effects of implementing organizational strategies with the help of work life balance practices have a positive impact on attitudes and perceptions like job satisfaction, job enrichment; organizational commitment, satisfactory employee retention rate etc. may help to build a strong organizational culture. But the costsassociated with itare very difficult to calculate as the actual benefits can never be estimated. Still the organizations should not compromise with it and take necessary steps to implement the same.
The present study entirely focuses on the hospital industries and the employees working in various privately run hospitals situated in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha. The aim of the study is to see and understand how the existing job norms may affect the work life balance of the married couples. The healthcare industries have its own sets of objectives to serve the people and being part of essential services, it has its own characteristics. Like different states of India, Odisha also suffers from lack of government initiatives related to providing healthcare services to each and every parts of the state. Some of the backward states still do not have the adequate healthcare facilities and at the most basic and primary services are available in those sectors. As healthcare sector is most important part of providing basic amenities to the people of Odisha, it needs serious attention from all the stakeholders. Although, the expansion of private sector hospitals are increasing the same may not be adequate for the people living below poverty line. It has been observed that most of the time these hospitals are operating in a place where people can avail the high cost healthcare systems and high concentration of the same in a specific locality thus increased the level of competition among the existing players increased the bargaining power of the employees working in those hospitals. This may be a trivial issue for the organizations as retaining manpower is a concern for them. Along with the normal HR policies, these organizations may think of implementing various other measures to boost up the morale of the employees.
