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Let us talk work life balance

Company’s Work-Life Policies for Employees
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Work - life policies enable employees to balance their work life with their personal life. Work - life policies enable work hours to be flexible, a leave of absence can be arranged, and the training /counseling can be given when there is a need to accomplish the jobs. A good example of a work - life policy would be the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). FMLA enables workers to combine their sick leave and their personal leave. The FMLA allows an employee to take a leave that could be for dependent care, for career development, for educational opportunities, or for domestic partner benefits (Lehman & Mitchell, 2001). There are benefits and challenges for the employees’ work-life policies:
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Benefits
The tangible gain. A company’s work-life policies will retain talent. When a flexible work schedule is arranged, part-time employment, job sharing, and telecommuting become possible for employees (Lehman & Mitchell, 2001). Also, employers can promote work-life balance by asking employees what they need, by supporting the telecommuting, by fostering creativity, and by encouraging efficiency (Hicks, 2018). Employers can also push employees to utilize technology to do their work intelligently and ingeniously. E.g., if you need to have meetings overseas, you might want to use the video conferencing instead. So you would be able to save traveling time and traveling expenses (Page, 2017).

The cultural gain. Studies shows that there is a shift of having a whole-life. The whole-life would include a person’s work life, home life, and community life as a whole. This cultural shift has redefined what it means to be successful to both men and women. It generally leads to the reduced amount of time in over-time working. Because of this, it also reduces turnover in jobs as well. In coordinating the way how a company functions, managers are required to manage employees’ absenteeism, to monitor employees’ work performances, and to give the proper supervisions. Work-life policies are often written by career- oriented professionals. And managers will be those who coordinate those work-life policies into a company’s work practices to make sure those policies are meeting their employees’ needs (Lehman & Mitchell, 2001). 
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Challenges
Work-life policies have challenges in areas of stigma, career backlash, and glass ceiling effect: 

Stigma. There are times then women/ men would like to be able to finish their works early so they can do some chores. Or they would like to reduce their work hours to be able to take care of aging parents. Yet, they could often face stigma even when they are following the company’s policies. Thus, there can be a need for employees to be able to stay away from their full-time work, to have a career break, and then be able to get back to their full time job if they want (Bernard, 2013). This applies especially to women. A woman being able to “continue working after having children” would mainly depend on if they are given a “flexible work option” (Hartleben, 2014, p.2). 

Career backlash. There is a growing backlash against the work-life that isn’t balanced. There are mothers who are becoming frustrated with how to balance their work life and their home life. They find it is hard for them to balance both work and personal lives. So they have criticized the term, “balance”. They prefer using the terms, “work-life harmony” or “work-life to be blended” (Smith, 2018, p. 3).

Glass ceiling effect. Women who are able to continue working as professionals or managers often require their spouses to take on family responsibilities. With good support, these women are able to have time to complete their job duties and this enables them to get advanced job positions as well as job promotions. Still, there is an invisible barrier that prevents women from having upper-level job promotions (Torres, n. d.).
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Conclusion
If I am an employee, I would prefer to work in a company that has a flexible work schedule. So I can work through job sharing or telecommuting. Doing so, it would enable me to take care of both my job and my family. In the other way, if I am an employer, I would realize that it would take time to make a cultural change. I would offer the work-life options to my employees to reduce the stress of time management as long as they are able to continue to strive for their best work performance. I would allow my staff to have the telecommuting for a couple of days in a week. So they are able to work from home through the use of the internet, email, and the telephone. In doing so, they should be able to better blend their work/family life. The more time they have, the more social interactions they are getting. It would boost their creativity, and it would advance their job performance (Taylor, n. d.). 



References
Bernard, T. (2013). The Unspoken Stigma of Workplace Flexibility. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/your-money/the-unspoken-stigma-of-workplace-flexibility.html
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Hartleben, C. (2014). Flexibility Stigma: The Unspoken Problem Facing Working Women and Men. Retrieved from: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/woman-advocate/practice/2014/flexibility-stigma-unspoken-problem-facing-working-women-men/
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Hicks, A. (2018). 10 Ways to Promote a Healthy Work-Life Balance. Retrieved from: https://www.zenefits.com/blog/10-ways-to-promote-a-healthy-work-life-balance/
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Lehman, A., & Mitchell, J. (2001). Work - Life Policies and Practices Survey Report: Department on the Status of Women. Retrieved from: https://sfgov.org/dosw/work-life-policies-an-practices-survey-report-- 
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Page, M. (2017). How to Achieve a Healthy Work Life Balance in 5 Steps? Retrieved from https://www.michaelpage.com.hk/advice/career-advice/work-life-balance/how-achieve-healthy-work-life-balance-5-steps
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Smith, J. (2013). 8 Ways to Achieve Better Work-Life Balance. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/04/18/8-ways-to-achieve-better-work-life-balance/#4b9837d3ab
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Smith, L. (2018). Why There’s a Growing Backlash Against the Reality of a Work-Life Balance. Retrieved from: https://finance.yahoo.co/amphtml/news/theres-growing-backlash-reality-work-life-balance-060029042.html
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Taylor, O. (n. d.). 4 Con and $ Pro Arguments On Work Life Balance. Retrieved from: https://www.lifehack.org/512438/4-con-and-4-pro-arguments-work-life-balance
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Torres, P. (n. d.). Work Life balance beyond the Glass Ceiling. Retrieved from: https://www.eurocadres.eu/work-life-balance-beond-the-glass-ceiling/

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