A STUDY ON WORK LIFE BALANCE AMONG MANAGEMENT STAFFS AND NON MANAGEMENT STAFFS IN BHARAT PETROLEUM CORPORATION LTD, SOUTHERN REGION,CHENNAI

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To identify what aspects of work interferes with personal life.

2. To identify the factors that impact work-life balance.

3. To find out if there are differences across demographics and work-life balance

4. To identify the factors causing stress among labors and its management among the executives

5. To identify policies, practices and programs offered with reference to work-life balance

NEED FOR STUDY

Work-Life balance has been considered of crucial importance in many Public and Private Sector

Undertakings for establishing and sustaining a productive work culture. Several initiatives have

been taken up by the Government, many experts and industrialists and even employees in

organizations towards maintaining work life balance. Multiple roles performed by individuals

call for better integration between work and non-work issues. Even Jobs are no more cushy/easy

going, they are demanding. Similarly, individual cannot be effective at work if they are not able

to manage their personal lives. Finding time for socialization is no more a social obligation, but

also a real stress buster. There is evidence to show that the activities outside work positively

influence the productivity and creative potential of employees. Hence, it has been found that

work life balance (work life balance) is not only the source of care and concern, but also that it

was the major source of dissatisfaction for many 15 employees. The problem of work life

balance is clearly linked with withdrawal employees. The problem of work life balance is clearly

linked with withdrawal behavior, including employee turnover and some sort of indiscipline or

absenteeism. In the present global scenario every business organisations trying to maintain

specific standards and quality to attain reputation and recognition for their products along with

customer satisfaction in terms of quality of services, products, reasonable price and other offers

etc. To achieve the targets and to with stand in the global market the organisations were

expecting and demanding more work from their employees and also imposing to learn new skills

and latest technology. On the other hand employees are also demanding more from their

employers to improve their social life. They want more time, resources, and support from their

employers to enrich their life particularly other than at their work spot. In the process of attaining

preset targets, work schedules creates more burden, stress and strain to the employees to

imbalance their work and family life and even creates fear and frustration. Work Life-Balance

assumes greatest significance when the demands of one’s work and the life aspects seem equally

critical at the same point in time. But in a case, when either of these can be deprioritized (at least

for some period) finding the balance is not the real challenge. For example, take the initial years

of one’s work life. In most cases this is really in the 20’s when one’s family commitments are

not so pressing and one can afford to place work in overdrive if one chooses to. However, many

employees find this is a challenge after marriage or more so the birth of a child. Both demands

seem to be fair in their 16 perspective and hence it’s a challenge to balance at any time. A zero-

one solution (either work or home) though seemingly the simplest may not be the best and this is

where the need for life-balance comes in. Both Public and Private Sector undertakings generally

taking care of their employees by providing Work life provisions like promotions, rewards,

amenities, creating healthy work environment, monetary and non-monetary benefits at all levels

to increase their productivity and performance. Most of the studies have been carried out with a

focus on various issues and dimensions of personnel administration, HR policies and practices,

HR strategies, HR Innovatives etc. But there are very few studies with regard to Work life

Balance. As against this backdrop, zeal to know the facts, which contributed to the success of

some organizations located in Hyderabad and insisted their employees for a better work-life

apart from their productivity and performance inspired the researcher to take up the study on

“Work Life Balance in Selected units”.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Perry-Smith et al (2000) found that Software‟s developers are considered the key occupation to

examine in future studies of „knowledge workers‟. They are „vanguard‟ of emerging work

practices. Keeping in mind the long hours working culture and 24/7 support employees in the

industry are the ones which suffer the most from work-life conflict. It was found that interference

of work with personal life has a considerable impact on work-related attitude for this group of

workers. They state that work-life boundary variables affect trust in the organisation which plays

a mediational role in these variables, relationship to job satisfaction and organizational

commitment. Even though employees are unique in their direction, market oriented and not

likely to show attachment to a single organization. In such a case both employee and employer

can gain by helping each other by accommodating approach to non-work commitments which

may lead to greater organizational attachment.

Ray & Miller (1994),Thomas & Ganster(1995) and Warren & Johnson (1995) found that there is

an association between family-friendly work environmental and other factors of interest

including turnover, absenteeism, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Managers who

supported and encouraged employee‟s attempts to coordinate work and family demands reported

several positive outcomes. Such employees felt less work/family conflict and at the same time

reported less turnover, burnout, absenteeism and increased organizational commitment.,

Byrne (2005) has highlighted the concept of the work-life balance as a means of tackling the

problem of increasing amounts of stress in the work-place. Morris and Madsen (2007) have

shown the importance of work-life balance. By better understanding work-life theory, HR

professionals can contribute to the strategic development of policies, practices, programs and

interventions. Moore (2007) conducted a research to compare work-life balance issues workers

and managers of an MNC. It was concluded that many of the managers are not able to achive

work-life balance.

According to Okpara (2004) , job satisfaction can be predicted from personal variables, but not

all variables contributed to the same degree of satisfaction. The findings of this study did not

reveal clear gender differences in overall job satisfaction. Sex, age and Job satisfaction studies,

relating to sex and job satisfaction have reported inconsistent results. Studies indicating higher

job satisfaction among women argue that women, compared to men, have lower expectations of

the benefits they could receive from the labour market(Clarke,1997).On the other hand, other

studies have shown that professional men have more job satisfaction that professional women

( Chiu,1998). The reason may have equal expectations from their jobs but their expectorations

are belied. Research also shows that younger workers are consistently less satisfied with their

jobs than older workers (Hall, 1994; Schultz, 1973). Younger workers might have objectively

poorer jobs than older employees but they also have higher expectations for their jobs that may

lead to lower job satisfaction. (Hall,1994).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGN

Research design proposed for the study is ‘Descriptive’ type of research service. This type of research deals with quality of responses from the respondents, attitudes, interests, technical skills, experience, behavioral, beliefs and values, emotions, personality, self-concept etc.,

DATA SOURCE

Primary data was collected by questionnaire survey method based on a pilot study.

Secondary data was collected from journals and Research articles to support the research SAMPLING

The respondents were selected using convenience sampling from Bharat Petroleum Corporation

Ltd, Sourthern Region Office

SAMPLE SIZE

There are about 300 management and non- management staffs working depending on the

distribution of management and non-management staffs sample size will be chosen

TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION

Questionnaire will be used for data collection

FIRST REVIEW PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

HEBZIBA BEULA J

PR13MS1050

Under the guidance of

Mr. Brighton Anbu

Assistant Professor

in partial fulfillment of the requirements of quality assessment for the course

HALF END SEMESTER PROJECT

KARUNYA UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL

KARUNYA UNIVERSITY

[Declared as a Deemed University under sec.3 of the UGC Act, 1956]

23-February-2015