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Work-life Balance (work-life + balance)
Selected AbstractsWork-life balance: Doing it right and avoiding the pitfallsEMPLOYMENT RELATIONS TODAY, Issue 3 2006Jim Bird First page of article [source] Work-life balance is a cross-generational concern,and a key to retaining high performers at AccentureGLOBAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, Issue 6 2008Sharon Klun Members of Generations X and Y are even more insistent than baby boomers are about balancing their professional and personal lives,a potential retention issue exacerbated by the shrinking pool of skilled talent. Three case studies highlight Accenture's successful new work-life program, Future Leave, which enables high performers to take extended time off for personal reasons without derailing promising or established careers with the company. The author also highlights some differences between the challenges that female and male professionals anticipate they will face over the next several years and cautions that global companies will need to become more adept at tailoring work-life programs to meet a range of needs in their increasingly diverse global workforces. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Work-life balance: Expatriates reflect the international dimensionGLOBAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, Issue 6 2007Sue Shortland Studies by ORC Worldwide have found that long hours, travel, and other work-related factors intrude into personal lives and create stress for a significant portion of HR professionals and expatriates around the world. But while HR professionals believe work-life balance policies have benefited their organization and themselves, expatriates believe quite the opposite. Given the cost of expatriate assignments and the potential for work-life imbalance to erode employee commitment, organizations can do more to communicate and support work-life practices outside their home country, and to better prepare the expatriate and family for life in their new location. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Discourses of Work,Life Balance: Negotiating ,Genderblind' Terms in OrganizationsGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 2 2005Janet Smithson This article examines current debates about gender equality, work-life balance and flexible working. We contrast policymakers' and organizational discourses of flexible working and work,life balance with managers' and employees' talk about these issues within their organizations. We show how, despite the increasingly gender-neutral language of the official discourses, in the data studied participants consistently reformulate the debates around gendered explanations and assumptions. For example, a ,generic female parent' is constructed in relation to work,life balance and flexible working yet participants routinely maintain that gender makes no difference within their organization. We consider the effects of these accounts; specifically the effect on those who take up flexible working, and the perceived backlash against policies viewed as favouring women or parents. We argue that the location of work,life balance and flexibility debates within a gender-neutral context can in practice result in maintaining or encouraging gendered practices within organizations. Implications of this for organizations, for policymakers and for feminist researchers are discussed. [source] Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balanceHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002Alan Felstead Discussion of ,work-life balance' and ,family-friendly' employment is much in vogue among politicians and business leaders. Often, but not always, working at home is included within such practices. However, the concepts of work-life balance and family-friendly are commonly left ill-defined by researchers and policymakers alike. In this article we outline formal definitions of these terms, which place spatial issues - and hence working at home - at the heart of the debate. This leads us on to examine working at home through the theoretical lens offered by attempts to explain the rise of work-life balance arrangements. Twelve hypotheses emerge from the literature and are tested on the management data contained in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey or WERS98. Many of these hypotheses pass weak statistical tests but fail on stronger logistic regression tests. The article shows that the option to work at home is more likely to be available in the public sector, large establishments and work environments in which individuals are responsible for the quality of their own output. These workplaces are typically less unionised but not especially feminised. [source] New social risks in postindustrial society: Some evidence on responses to active labour market policies from EurobarometerINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Peter Taylor-Gooby One result of the complex economic and social changes currently impacting on state welfare is the emergence of what may be termed "new social risks" as part of the shift to a postindustrial society. These concern access to adequately paid employment, particularly for lower-skilled young people, in an increasingly flexible labour market, and managing work-life balance for women with family responsibilities engaged in full-time careers. They coexist with the old social risks that traditional welfare states developed to meet, which typically concern retirement from or interruption to paid work, in most cases for a male "breadwinner". New social risks offer policymakers the opportunity to transform vice into virtue by replacing costly passive benefits with policies which mobilize the workforce, arguably enhancing economic competitiveness, and reduce poverty among vulnerable groups. However, the political constituencies to support such policies are weak, since the risks affect people most strongly at particular life stages and among specific groups. This paper examines attitudes to new social risk labour market policies in four contrasting European countries. It shows that attitudes in this area are strongly embedded in overall beliefs about the appropriate scale, direction and role of state welfare interventions, so that the weakness of new social risk constituencies does not necessarily undermine the possibility of attracting support for such policies, provided they are developed in ways that do not contradict national traditions of welfare state values. [source] Seeking balance in graduate school: A realistic expectation or a dangerous dilemma?NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, Issue 115 2006Chris Peterson Brus DirectorArticle first published online: 25 SEP 200 With the significant increase in graduate students characterized as nontraditional, challenges associated with balance have become more prominent. The author explores issues of work-life balance, institutional ownership, and the chilly climate, each of which can contribute to negative academic outcomes. [source] Variation in part-time job quality within the nonprofit human service sectorNONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 4 2009Anna Haley-Lock This article extends the growing literature on the quality of part-time employment to the domain of nonprofit human services, specifically grassroots organizations in which paid work is itself a relatively new reality. It addresses three central questions: How do part-time and full-time workers differ in their personal and household characteristics? How do part-time jobs differ in access to employment benefits from their full-time counterparts; and finally, How does benefits access vary among part-time job titles? These lines of inquiry are examined using data from the populations of nonprofit domestic violence programs and their employees in a large midwestern metropolitan area. Analyses of worker-level data reveal that part-time workers in these settings disproportionately live with children, are in committed relationships, and report a strong preference for employment that facilitates work-life balance; they are also less likely to be primary household wage earners. Analyses at the level of jobs suggest that employment benefits extended to part-time jobs are minimal compared to their full-time equivalents, but there are also striking variations among different part-time titles. The results offer insights into the nature of part-time work in these nonprofit human service settings and potential challenges for effective management. [source] Meeting the challenges of an aging workforceAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 4 2008Michael Silverstein MD Abstract Background Demographic, labor market and economic forces are combining to produce increases in the number and percentage of U.S. workers 55 and older. In some ways these workers will be our most skilled and productive employees but in others the most vulnerable. Methods The literature on aging and work was reviewed, including demographic trends, physical and cognitive changes, safety and performance, work ability, and retirement patterns. Results and Conclusions Older workers have more serious, but less frequent, workplace injuries and illnesses than younger ones. There is evidence that many of these problems can be prevented and their consequences reduced by anticipating the physical and cognitive changes of age. Many employers are aware that such efforts are necessary, but most have not yet addressed them. There is a need for implementation and evaluative research of programs and policies with four dimensions: the work environment, work arrangements and work-life balance, health promotion and disease prevention, and social support. Employers who establish age-friendly workplaces that promote and support the work ability of employees as they age may gain in safety, productivity, competitiveness, and sustainable business practices. Am. J. Ind. Med. 51:269,280, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balanceHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002Alan Felstead Discussion of ,work-life balance' and ,family-friendly' employment is much in vogue among politicians and business leaders. Often, but not always, working at home is included within such practices. However, the concepts of work-life balance and family-friendly are commonly left ill-defined by researchers and policymakers alike. In this article we outline formal definitions of these terms, which place spatial issues - and hence working at home - at the heart of the debate. This leads us on to examine working at home through the theoretical lens offered by attempts to explain the rise of work-life balance arrangements. Twelve hypotheses emerge from the literature and are tested on the management data contained in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey or WERS98. Many of these hypotheses pass weak statistical tests but fail on stronger logistic regression tests. The article shows that the option to work at home is more likely to be available in the public sector, large establishments and work environments in which individuals are responsible for the quality of their own output. These workplaces are typically less unionised but not especially feminised. [source] | |||||||||||||