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ZENITH

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research

Vol.2 Issue 3, March 2012, ISSN 2231 5780

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WORK LIFE BALANCES A SOURCE OF JOB SATISFACTION -

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE VIEW OF WOMEN

EMPLOYEES IN THE SERVICE SECTOR.

V.VARATHARAJ*; S.VASANTHA**

*Assistant Professors, School of Management Studies,

VELS University, Chennai600117, Tamil Nadu, India.

**Associate Professors, School of Management Studies,

VELS University, Chennai600117, Tamil Nadu, India.

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to study the work life balance of working women in servicesector. The research was conducted among Women working in Service Sector with Reference to

Chennai city. Work life balance entails attaining equilibrium between professional work andother activities, so that it reduces friction between official and domestic life. Work life balanceenhances efficiency and thus, the productivity of an employee increases. It enhances satisfaction,

in both the professional and personal lives. The ultimate performance of any organization

depends on the performance of its employees, which in turn depends on numerous factors. Thesefactors can be related to work or family or both. The relationship between personal and

professional life can be achieved through emotional intelligence. Better emotion management isnecessary in order to accomplish day-to-day objectives of life. The findings of the study reveal

the majority of the women Employees feel comfortable in their work place irrespective of their

trivial personal and work place irritants. The Primary data was collected through questionnaire

survey and analyzed with the help of various statistical tools. This paper attempts to indentify

the various factor which helps to maintain work life balance among women employees in servicesector.

KEYWORDS: work life balance, personal life, professional life, work pressure, Emotional

balance, Job Satisfaction.

______________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION

Historically, women's employment participation has been more in the area of service sector.

Females with high levels of academic qualifications are also finding it difficult to make balance

between professional life and private life. It is important for every organization to take necessarysteps to maintain a healthy balance between work and their private lives so that both employees

and the company can be benefited in the long term.


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Work life and personal life are the two sides of the same coin. According to various work life

balance surveys, more than 60% of the respondent professionals surveyed said that are not ableto find a balance between their personal and professional lives. They have to make tough choices

even when their work and personal life is nowhere close to equilibrium. Traditionally creating

and managing a balance between the work-life was considered to be a woman's issue. Butincreasing work pressures, globalization and technological advancement have made it an issuewith both the gender, all professionals working across all levels and all industries throughout the

world. Achieving "work-life balance" is not as simple as it sounds.

Work life and personal life are inter-connected and interdependent. Spending more time in

office, dealing with clients and the pressures of job can affect the personal life, sometimesmaking it impossible to even complete the household chores. On the other hand, personal life can

also be demanding if you have a kid or aging parents, financial problems or even problems in the

life of a dear relative. It can lead to Absenteeism from work, creating stress and lack of

concentration at work. Work-personal life conflict occurs when the burden, obligations and

responsibilities of work and family roles become incompatible. Obligation of one can force anindividual to neglect the other. Work life balance can be understood as the balancing point on the

seesaw, one side of which is work, while the other side is domestic and personal life. Emotionalintelligence is required to maintain a balance between private and professional life. Emotional

intelligence is required in order to accomplish day-to-day objectives of life which is a challenge

to everyone to achieve it. It is the key to achieve the desired balance between work and life,which ultimately leads to success in the professional as well as personal life.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Burke (2002), observes that both women and men prefer working in organisations that

support work-life balance. Men appeared to benefit more than women .Men feel more satisfied

when they achieve more on the job even at the cost of ignoring the family. On the other hand,women stress that work and family are both equally important and both are the sources of their

satisfaction. For them the former is more important. When work does not permit women to take

care of their family, they feel unhappy, disappointed and frustrated. They draw tight boundaries

between work and family and they do not like one crossing the others.

Summer and Knight (2001), Securely attached individuals experienced positive spill overin both work and family .

Marcinkus etal. (2007), Work based support to women is positively associated with jobsatisfaction, organisational commitment and career accomplishment .

Valcour and Hunter (2005),The home working can lead to greater flexibility and

independence, but it can make people work for longer periods of time, including weekends and

evenings. Home environment also plays a very important role in the quality of life. Homeworking could be stressful, if young children have to be managed


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Clark (2000) defines balance as satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home

with a minimum of role conflict.

In the UK, Green (2001) among others, has shown that intensification of work has

reached a point where there is very little slack in the working day. Typical examples include thejobs of those working in call centers where incoming calls are placed in a queue and where there

is a pre-determined response time and pattern. The annual CIPD surveys have identified that one

of the areas where workers believe the organization is least likely to keep its promises concernsthe demands on their time. In the same surveys, subjective reports of effort show, typically, that

about 30 per cent say I am working as hard as I can and could not imagine being able to work

any harder. A further 45 per cent say I am working very hard and most of the rest say I am

working quite hard. Invariably, less than 5 per cent will admit to not working particularlyhard. In other words, people are feeling the pressure.

As Hochschild (1997) has noted, there is an inevitable temptation to use the promotion of

work-life balance policies to enhance commitment to the organization. If the pressure to attractmore women into work lessens, will the concern for work-life balance also diminish?A comparative analysis across European countries might help to shed some light on this issue.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To examine the job satisfaction of women employees in the service sector.2. To analyze the Challenges associated with managing balance between professional and

personal life.

3. To suggest strategies to maintain a healthy work life balanceNEED FOR THE STUDY

The objective of this research is to study the work life balance of working women in the servicesector. It has major influence on maintaining equilibrium between professional life and the

personal life responsibilities. The research was conducted among working Women in banks

educational institutions and governmental organizations in Chennai city. Work life balancereduces friction between official and domestic life. The concept of balancing work and life is

important in more than one way. There can be many factors affect the balance of work and life,

which may be social factors, psychological factors, Working Environment, Type of job, Jobsatisfaction, Family background, schedule at home and life stage. The employee who is able to

maintain balance between private and professional life can contribute more to success of theorganization.


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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

DATA COLLECTION

The research is based on both empirical and analytical study. The study uses both primary andsecondary data.

PRIMARY DATA

For the purpose of study, well structured questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect the

date

SAMPLE SIZE & TECHNIQUES

The sample size is 250. The respondents were chosen from the service sector such as Banks,

educational institutions and Governmental organizations. Convenience sampling technique has

been adopted to collect the data.

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

The various tools and techniques used to analyze the data were Chi-square test, correlation

Analysis and KruskalsWallis Test (K or H).

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS

TABLE 1.1JOB SATISFACTION OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES IN THE SERVICE

SECTORS

Opinions Happywith my

present

salary

Superior

Support

Improved Job

Satisfaction

Physically

stressed in

the job

Mentally

Pressurized in

the job

Strongly

agree

10 21 27 10 11

Agree 23 49 44 29 32

Neutral 37 26 23 27 21

Disagree 16 3 4 22 24

Strongly

disagree

14 1 2 12 12


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Total 100 100 100 100 100

*figures are in percentage Source: Primary Data Collected from survey

INFERENCE

Nearly 10% of the women Employees strongly agree that they are happy with theirpresent salary. 37 % of employees feel neutral towards opinion about present salary and 30% of

the Employees feel that they are not happy with their present job.

The above table shows that 49% of the employees agree that their superiors are more

helpful and cooperative and 4% of the Employees feel that their superiors are not more helpfuland cooperative.

Flexibility in their work, Friendly work atmosphere and all sorts of refreshments makeemployee enjoy at their work. The above table reveals that 27% of the women employees

strongly agree that, they Improved Job Satisfaction. 6% of the Employees feel not comfortable intheir work place.

The analysis shows that 10% of the women Employees strongly agree that they arephysically stressed in their job. and 22% of the Employees feels that they are not physically

stressed in their job.

From the above table it is understood that 32% of the women Employees strongly agree

that they undergo pressure in the job and 36% of the Employees feels that they are not mentally

pressurized in their job.

TABLE

2 MANAGING WORK LIFE BALANCE OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES INSERVICE SECTOR

Opinions Managingprivate life

Spend time

with family

Better Physical

and mental

Health

Balance between

Work and life

Strongly agree 46 18 30 22

Agree 25 43 36 40

Neutral 10 29 23 33

Disagree 15 9 11 5

Strongly disagree 4 1 0 0

Total 100 100 100 100


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*figures are in percentage Source: Primary Data Collected from survey

Women work force now constitutes a important percentage of the total work force in any

organization today. In the fast moving life, there are many pressures that women have to deal

with- running a home, doing daily household work like cooking/cleaning, raising children andhandle the tight deadlines at work. The above table reveals that 46% of them said they are able

manage the private life efficiently and only 4% of them said they find difficult to manage it.

The study shows that 43% of the respondents are agree that they are able spend their time

with family members after meeting official commitment and only 1% of them strongly disagree

the fact that they cannot spend sufficient time with family members.

The research reveals that 36% of the respondents agree that they are able to maintain betterphysical and mental health in spite of their Industry requirements.

Many organizations today have realized the significance of the employee-work-life

balance and its importance in the efficiency of the employees so that neither the work nor theemployee's personal life is affected. From the above table it is understood that 40% of the

women employees agrees that they are able to balance their duties and responsibilities both injob as well as families and 5% of the Employees feels that they are not able to balance their

duties and responsibilities both in job as well as families.

CHI-SQUARE TEST

Chi- square test is applied to find out marital status of women has any influence on position to

balance duties and responsibilities both in job in service sector as well as families.

Ho - Let the null hypothesis be there is no significant difference between marital status andposition to balance duties and responsibilities both in job in service sector as well as families.

Chi-square Test Calculated value Table Value Significance

1.94 1.96 Ho accepted

INFERENCE

Since the calculated value 1.94 is less than tabulated value 1.96 we accept the null hypothesis

hence there is no significant difference between marital status and position to balance duties andresponsibilities both in job as well as families.

RANK CORRELATION

Correlation analysis was done to analyze the relationship between duration of service andcomfort ability in their working place.


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R = 0.2

INFERENCE

Positive correlation exists between duration of service and comfort ability in their working place.It means that it supports the universal acceptance of comfortable working place will increase the

duration of the service in the Organization.

KRUSKALSWALLIS TEST (K OR H)

Ho There is no significant difference between Employees age and their physical and mental

pressure.

K = 12 / n(n+1) { (R1)2/n1 + (R2)2/n2 + (R3)2/n3 }3(n+1)

= 0.057 { 240.25 + 281.25 + 266.45 }45

= - 0.09

INFERENCE

Since calculated value 0.09 < tabulated value 9.2 we accept the null hypothesis. Hence there is

no significant difference between Employees age and their physical and mental pressure.

FINDINGS

The main findings of the study are

The research reveals that 46% of the women employees who work in the service sectorstrongly agree that they are able to manage the private life without affecting professional

life.

The study shows that 44% of the respondents agree that they are able to enjoy the job andfeel comfortable in their work place. This might be the reason for the growth of womenemployees in the working place in service sector.

It is found that nearly 10% of the employees agree that they are physically stressed intheir job. Nearly 11% of the Employees strongly agree that they are mentally pressurized

in their job.

The study highlights that nearly 23% of employees agrees that they are happy about thepresent salary

Majority 49% of the employees agree that their superiors are more helpful andcooperative which may be one of the reason for women employees to balance between

their private life and professional life


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From the analyze it is been found that 40% of the Women employees agree that they areable to balance their duties and responsibilities both in job as well as families.

The research shows that majority 46% of the women employees work in service sectorfor financial support and 2% for face challenges

SUGGESTIONS

Work-life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between Professional life

which includes career, challenges, pressure, achievement and ambition on one hand and privatelife which includes pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development

Specific Counselling programmes on Work Life Balance can be conducted. Employers can create awareness about the impact of work life balance at employees

personal and organisation life.

Well designed flexible working hours. An ideal work culture can be created to achieve work life balance Family welfare programmes and family counselling programmes can be conducted Employees social gathering programmes and public contact programmes will be the

better option to reduce the mental pressure in the work place as the study reveals more

mental pressure for the Women employees.

Regular exercises, mediation and other soft skill practices can improve the emotionalbalance of the employees.

Reward and recognition system should be fair and objectively to be adapted to each andevery employee in the Organization since the study shows majority of the respondents arenot comfortable with the present compensation system of their respective institution

where they employed.

CONCLUSION

Service sector is one of the fastest growing sector it provides opportunity for employment of

more number of women. The secret to work-life balance will vary depending on field of work,

family structure and financial position. personal life and professional work are two sides of coinit is difficult to separate and form a source of conflict. Companies must strive to develop a

special bond with its people, so that they will put in more into their jobs and contribute

positively. The philosophy of work life balance for the people/employee of the company is avery progressive and encouraging concept.


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BIBLOGRAPHY

1. Blaskovich, Sarah , Scaling life back to get more done. May 1, 2009 17712.

Finding Balance Between Making Money and Being Happy Kevin T. Smith Jun 22, 2008686

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4. Hochschild, J. (1997). The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home BecomesWork. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

5. Hochschild, A. and Machung, A. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Parents and theRevolution at Home. New York: Viking.

6. Jobs Bridge Think Again on Work-Life Balance ,May 6, 2009 9147. Johnson, Mike; Chadwick, Andrew Cover story Today's workplace is about flexibility.

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8. Morgan, M. Goldsmith, R. Gandossy, and M.Effron. New York: WileyH. 2003. Thechallenges of a global marketplace. In Human resources in the 21 st century, New York

9. R.J.Burke, Organizational values, job experiences and satisfaction among managerialand professional women and men: Advantage men?, Women in Management Review,

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12.Work-Life Balance Is Possible! Joie Charles Jun 6, 2008 65213.Women in the workplace in Japan: profiles of professionals. Wahlin, Willhemina

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