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Achieving Work-Life Balance
Guest Editors
School of Management, Marketing and International Business, Australian National University, Canberra ACT, Australia
School of Psychology, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt QLD, Australia
ISBN 978-0-9775242-2-8 ii + 110 pages softcover May 2008
Work-family balance is emerging as a key strategic element in the human resource management (HRM) policies of successful organisations for attracting and retaining talented staff and for demonstrating the bottom-line impact of HRM programs for work-family balance, addressing gender imbalance and emerging skills shortages.
Organisational stakeholders are increasingly interested in introducing work-family balance policies in their organisations. Evidence now links work-family imbalance to reduced health and well-being among individuals and families. Family-friendly policies in the workplace are linked to improved organisational outcomes in employee turnover and organisational citizenship behaviour. Work-family balance has become an important part of developing of new HRM policies, programs, or systems.
Opening the issue, Professor Steven AY Poelmans (IESE Business School, Barcelona) is asked:
- What is the definition of work-life balance? For whom? How is it measured?
- How important is the development of a direct measure of work-life balance that is responsive to (a) within organisational changes in employee perceptions of work-life balance; and (b) cross-organisational benchmarking of work-life balance?
- Is work-life balance just the latest ‘fad' of human resource policies? Is work-life balance actually a realistic goal that can be achieved?
- Do we have evidence that organisations that are more family friendly attract and retain more talented employees?
- What are some difficulties experienced in using Family Responsible Employer Index (FREI) developed by the International Centre for Work and Family (ICWF) for cross-organisational benchmarking of work-life balance?
- How do you assess employees' perceptions of balance?
- Which of these initiatives have been most productive in helping organisations to create family-responsible environment?
- What is the current state of theory development in work-family balance arena?
- Is top management commitment to culture change a pre-requisite for achieving sustainable work-life balance?
- What is the role of family-supportive programs in an environment of ever increasing competition?
- Is there a convincing business case for introducing work-life balance in organisations? Are organisations that provide for greater work-life balance for its employees more productive and more profitable in the long-run?
- What are the most important things that organisations (CEOs, HR managers) need to do to ensure that a change program introducing work-life balance in their organisations succeeds?
The research presented in six articles in this special issue of the Journal of Management and Organisation (ISBN 978-0-9775242-2-8) contributes useful information to both practitioners engaged in implementing work-family balance initiatives and to work-family balance researchers engaged in extending the frontiers of knowledge within this dynamic topic.
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