Work Life Balance Case Study

Problem Statement Juggling the demands of work and family has become a daunting task for many people in the workforce today. Despite advancing technology, the hours required at the office coupled with the expectation to be continuously available, in addition to raising families and personal responsibilities, has become overwhelming. The trend to work more hours is ubiquitous as employees try to keep up with increasing job demands, as evidenced by the rise in the percentage of professionals working more than 50 hours per week (Correll, Kelly, O’Connor & Williams, 2014). This dilemma, dubbed work-life balance in 1986, has become the hot topic for many employers, HR departments, as well as for academia’s employment research and articles

“Approximately 43 percent of the U.S. full-time workforce now has flexibility in their daily arrival and departure times” (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 222). A study conducted by Nord, Fox, Phoenix and Viano (2002), cited benefits such as: increased opportunity for family enjoyment by shifting work to non-traditional hours, ability to fulfill personal responsibilities such as children’s carpool, doctor’s appointments, and scheduling of deliveries and service repair, to name a few. Most employees believe these programs increased their work productivity, and most businesses found these programs decrease expenses through reduced overtime, increased productivity and reduced absenteeism (Robbins & Judge, 2009). An unfortunate aspect regarding flextime is that not all jobs allow for this flexibility within normal working

Not all employees work well in unsupervised situations. Nord et al. (2002), maintain that special care needs to be given in selecting, training and motivating employees working from home. Items these authors address include the fact that employees that work from home often never feel part of the team because of reduced communal activity with co-workers. Additionally, adequate budgets for equipment and technical assistance are not always properly appropriated for, leaving the telecommuting employee unable to effectively fulfill their