Work-Life Balance's Effect On Women Employees At Accenture Australia: A Case Study Essay.

Discuss about the Effect of Work-Life-Balance on women employees.

Work life balance is considered as a vital component not even in professional business practice but also in personal business practice. This research represents the work life balance by taking it as central issues that affect well being, as family and work are vital components of everyone’s life. Due to increase competition people are bringing more stress in their life as they do not understand that how to manage work life balance. It is a concept that involves effective prioritizing between "work"(career and ambition) and lifestyle (health and family).

It is the research which is made on the case study of Accenture Australia. It is the company that provides technology services. This company was founded in Australia in 2000 and now company has more than 3,700 employees. The discussion will be made regarding work life balance on women employees. The research will define the problem statement, conceptual framework and methodology which will be helpful to understand the concept of the research. It is vital for the researcher to have the proper plan to identify the importance of the research in efficient way. The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework through examining the effect of work in attaining work life balance among employees of the Accenture Company. The Gantt chart will be made to make better understanding about activities.

Working women has to face issues of over burdened as they have to manage responsibilities not only of home but also work station. According to the traditional gender division of labour, it has been found that women bearing a huge burden of unpaid work in the family. The responsibilities of family care primarily fall on women, hence potentially having an influence upon their capability to maintain the balance between work and family life; therefore limiting their labour market participation. According to Kaur, (2017), work life issues take place when employees particularly women are not able to maintain their personal responsibilities and their work commitment. Work life issue is considered as the key cause of departure of employees from organizations that is why it is necessary for the companies to have the effective policies so that the organizations can retain them in significant manner. Shen, Chanda, D'netto&Monga, (2009), stated that work life balance has surfaced as strategic concerns for human resource management and considered as the major aspects for the employee retention strategies of an organization.

Research Aim and Objectives

It has been analyzed that the expression Work-Life Balance (WLB) was initiated in the year of 1970 to define the balance between personal life and professional life. Accenture is a management consultancy company that provides consulting, digital, technology, operations services and consulting. It has been found that women employees in Accenture are high but due to overload of work women employees of the company are not able to maintain their personal and professional life. It is being the major concern of switching the job which brings the employee turnover (Accenture, 2014). It has been found from the article of Goodman, (2012), that 54% of the business leaders of the company think that human machine collaboration is required to their strategic priorities because there is heavy workload in the company that increase the pressure on the life of women. Along with that 67% of the workersbelieve that it is vital to improve skills to work beside machines and intelligent systems. According to Beauregard & Henry, (2009), the main issues of company regarding work life balance is improper training methods, lack of effective strategy of working and inefficient approach to accomplish the work. Accenture is unable to attract and retain valued employees which show that the company need to keep focus towards increasing organizational awareness and action in order to making effective human resource policies that address WLB. There should be proper strategies as it has been found from the reviews of the employees of the company that there are not flexible work arrangements, telecommuting, job sharing employments and leave options like parental leave and family leave that increase the major concern for the women employees to manage their work life balance.

Justification of the project

The study will contribute to the proof on the basis of knowledge by evaluating WLB policies in the context of women employees of the Accenture Company Australia. The issue of work life balance regarding women employees are increased day by day as the responsibilities of the women is high in comparison of men. It has been found from the article of Kumari, (2017), that the working hours in Accenture company is not fixed and as per project employees of the company either men or women have to give proper attention towards accomplishment of the project. This kind of attitude brings difficulties in the life of women as they are not only responsible for work obligations as they have other responsibilities of family. This research study will provide the useful information about what are the major concerns of the work life balance and how can it can be reduced. The finding of this research will be able to define the importance of work life balance and the major issues that are facing by working women in multinational companies due to improper strategy of working style. Along with that the research will be able to establish the awareness of the employees of the existence of work life balances (Mishra &Bhatnagar, 2010).

Justification of the Project

Potential research output

This research will be helpful to provide proper insights regarding the issues in women’s work life balance. It is vital for the company to keep focus on the employee turnover and organizational culture and this research will contribute in making effective organizational culture not only in specific company but also in number of companies that study this research. Along with that the working group members recognized various processes that are vital to evaluate in sharing experiences of the research topic. A holistic approach will be considered to researchoutputs seeking to confine output beyond papers and patents. The potential outcome of this research is to maintain the balance between life and work equally where it sustains the employer to amplify the retention of the employee. There are some major factors that should be considered and this research will elaborate in the context of time bind, flexibility, job autonomy, b satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Conceptual framework

According toNayeem&Tripathy, (2012), at the time of 1960s and 1970s, it has been considered that work life balance is the major concern for working women because they have a number of responsibilities of their home if they are married. It has been found that the work life balance was coined in 1986 in term to the harmful choices that many Australians were making in regards to the workplace as they chosen to neglect friend, fun time and family in the chase of corporate goals. Accenture Company of Australia has no policies regarding time scale that being the major concern of affecting individual’s families and health. Kumari, (2017), criticized that work life balance is not just about searching “physical time” to complete all that requires to be done. It has been found that the total life planning is the latest and innovation loom to work life advantages that facilitates employees to get aware about the vital factors of their personal as well as professional lives. The major aim of them is to motivate at their lives as a wide and consider relationship and physical well being.

There are various risks associated with work life issues such as increased employee absenteeism, increased staff turnover, reduced workforce diversity, increased recruitment costs and bring more difficulties regarding attracting employees. These issues in the company of Accenture can bring the negative influence that may lead the process of it in adverse situation. It has been found as per the survey in Australia that employees who have proper work life balance structure are more productive and perform in well efficient manner. Conceptually, it shows that the involvement of psychological would have noteworthy impact for various levels of work to family and family to work interference. That there are different role responsibilities of women and men which they demonstrate different inter role issues. For instance, men show greater inference from work to family on the other hand women reveals more interference from family to work. Beauregard & Henry, (2009), proved that the number of report of women regarding work life balance in Australia Company is more.

Potential Research Output

It has been analyzed that the work life conflicts has negative influence on employee job performance, working conditions and job satisfaction. The women’ level of involvement in job, work overload and work role conflict are recognized as the approach of work demands, while the family participation and family conflict are considered as the demands of home. It has been found that it is has to make balance between work life and personal life as huge female participation in the workforce. More than 63% Australian Mothers of children involved in the paid workforce which was held in 2008. It has been found that the participation of workforce enhanced the amount of time of women which they dedicate to earning an income and impacted the time they use outside the home through making more social opportunities for women (Peters, Dulk&Lippe, 2009). However, the work in the home can be the burdened for the women but it does not impact on the female workforce participation. Accenture Company face the issue regarding maintaining the work life balance as there are number of reviews of employees who complaint that they are not getting enough time to spend with their family due to urgent call of management regarding accomplishment of the project. Women employees of this company face the issues as they have huge workload which brings the conflicts in their personal life (Mescher, Benschop&Doorewaard, 2010).

.The present research is centred on evaluating the importance of the work life balance in Accenture Company. It can be critiqued that the organization has number of activities which are related to the performance. The narrow conceptualization of work life balance defines the person as being torn between the demands of work and family (Baral&Bhargava, 2010). This is being the major concern of losing touch with the quintessence of being human. It is apparent that the human life is not about the requirement rather it is about the choice and by recognizes that person should pursue their own needs.

In the above conceptual framework, the bonding between work demand and home demand has been discussed. As per the above framework, work life balance can be utilized to evaluate the organizational environment. It is vital for the organization to keep focus on the internal environment for making effective working environment because it strengths the resources of the organization. Women employees of the company are facing various challenges regarding managing the work life balance which stress them to manage things in an efficient manner (Gröpel&Kuhl, 2009). This evaluation can be utilized at the time of chasing the strategy of the organization in the allocation of the resources. Furthermore, the work life balance frameworks can be utilized for the analysis the demands of the home as well as job demand. As per the job demand, company can face number of issues related to work life balance because Accenture Company does not have proper control over the system of its strategy (Losoncz&Bortolotto, 2009). Women employee performance has been found to be unconstructively linked with work life balance. The more responsibility of women employee brings the high imbalance between work life and personal life. Darcy, McCarthy, Hill, & Grady, (2012), examined that apparent role stress on tasks and flexibility of timings on work family balance concern. It is vital for the company to maintain the perfect balance as employees with efficient job flexibility in timings and unnecessary work load can lead the employees to work life conflict issues. The variable of work life balance has been discussed above in conceptual frame work that defines the issues due to work life imbalance.

Conceptual Framework

It has been examined byDeery&Jago, (2009), that the impacts of such variables have on family domains. The family related variables are family involvement and due to lack involvement of women employee due to work pressure can bring the issues of family conflicts and decrease the productivity of them in the organization. It has been found that there are some studies that have confirmed that the presences of the social support are liable to reduce the negative results of work regarding the stressors and work life conflict. It is analyzed that with the effective support of co-workers is high than the job satisfaction as well as employee commitment is increased that lead the company in the zone of better work and maintain the work life balance.

Research approach

Research approach is crucial in order to define the opted research methods and designs as there are two kinds of research such as inductive research and deductive research. Inductive approach is taken to implement the research as it facilitates researcher to attain the subjective knowledge regarding the topic. Along with that it facilitates in to increase the reliability and validity of the outcomes of the research (LI, ZHU, XU & JI, 2014).

Research design

There are three sorts of research design such as exploratory, descriptive and casual research design. For this research paper, the combination of exploratory and descriptive research method is used to collect the data. Exploratory research design is being chosen because through this researcher would be able to collect the data regarding the topic in more efficient manner while with the use of descriptive research design facilitates researcher to understand the characteristics of individual and group (Shen, Chanda, D'netto&Monga, 2009).

Research strategy

There are different kinds of research strategy which can be used in the research to evaluate the data. In the context of this research study, case study has been opted by which the researcher can gather the information regarding the topic. Three case study of women work life balance will be considered under this research. This would be helpful for the researcher to gather information regarding the topic in less time and cost.

Data collection

Data collection is the method that refers the accumulation of the data in more systematic way by using number of sources to meet the research objectives. There are two kinds of data collection sources such as primary and secondary sources. For this research study, the secondary research approach is being considered because it assist researcher to gather the information in more reliable way. This method involves the books, cases study, journal articles, news paper, government reports and online sources (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013).

Sampling method

There are number of sampling techniques that can be used by the researcher to gather information in more reliable manner in which the non-probability sampling is being chosen. It would be helpful for the researcher to evaluate the case studies on subjective judgement. It enables the researcher to attain identify the members of the population.

Data analysis tool

It is vital for the research to analyze the data in more significant manner after collecting them. There are number of analysis method such as thematic analysis method, content analysis method, disclosure analysis and conversational analysis. Content analysis will be taken to analyze the data of the research as it facilitates researcher to recognize the relevant data. It is the systematic process that involves themes and categories initially developed.

Ethical consideration

Ethical consideration helps researcher to adopt effective strategy in order to accomplish the research in more significance manner. Researcher has to face the issue of ethical consideration in the context of plagiarism as researcher use secondary data collection method. However, the appropriate action took by researcher by giving in-text citation in each paragraph with relevant sources that increase the effectiveness of the research.

Study lessons are planned in significantly manner in which the five chapter of the research will be discussed. First chapter will entail the introduction part in which background of the study and the problem statement of the research study will be defined. The second chapter will cover the literature review which covers the basic theories in relation to the research tope. The third chapter is research methodology which covers the research approach, designs methods and strategy to collect the data regarding the topic. The fourth chapter will evaluate the data by taking consideration of content analysis method and the last chapter will be conclusion and recommendations in which the researcher will provide the summary of the research and recommend improving the research for further research.

In the limelight of above discussion, it can be summarized that work life conflicts has negative influence on employee job performance, working conditions and job satisfaction. Work life balance is essential factor for maintaining the employee performance towards increasing the revenue of the company. The research has covered the aim and objectives and conceptual framework that facilitated readers to understand the entire concept of the research. Research methodology section has been described in which secondary sources have been considered to gather the information regarding the research topic.

References

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