Work and non-work relation

Work-life balance has been a popular topic for employees across all age and occupations for years, representing a rising concern of contemporary human resource management and labor policies. This topic has attracted the attention from the millennium generation, who is stepping into the market and beginning to grow a career. Therefore considering the increasing demand, well-designed workforce planning with diverse scheduling options offered to employees appears to be extra credits for most companies. This research paper aims to communicate the positive effects of four-day workweek, and providing support for why employers should adopt this schedule for employees and themselves through 1) introducing background and history of four-day workweek as a work schedule option and 2) demonstrating benefits of four-day workweek from both employer and employees’ perspectives.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans report some tension between their work and home lives. Today’s highly publicized work/life balance conflicts are multiple, and their nature differs significantly depending on the jobs individuals have and on their family situations. Tensions between work and family life clearly have implications for the well-being of individuals and their children and ramifications for society in general. Yet because the personal needs, desires, motivations, and economic circumstances of Americans are so varied, there appears to be no single way to resolve these tensions, no universal best practices with regard to work/life balance. For example,

     One of the more interesting aspects that Peiss mentions about the change in the demographics of the labor force directly relates to the way leisure time is spent. Peiss mentions many statistics that show how the working woman was quickly refusing household work and moving to the factory or office position. More specifically, a study of 370 working mothers showed 70 percent of them to be employed in domestic and personal service while the vast majority of their daughters worked in stores, offices, and factories (Cheap Amusements, 39). The significance of this change lies in the resulting change in attitude about leisure time. Now, a clearer distinction between time spent at work and

When employed labor is involved, productivity in terms of time becomes important, because the employer generally pays the worker in terms of time. For many jobs, then a shift from task-orientation to timed labor occurs, as the laborer’s time becomes the employer’s money. Thus, a separation between work and leisure occurs, as

It is imperative that the employee can balance his/her working life against his/her personal life. With sufficient time off and rest periods, employees will feel “looked after” and be motivated to put in more effort. There will be a reduction of mistakes because the employee has had adequate rest which results in a more positive working environment. Employers who introduce such practices in the work place in order to help employees achieve a better and satisfactory work/life balance can expect to see an increase in motivation, enhanced performance/productivity and greater staff loyalty. By implementing a positive work/life balance, companies are successful, secure a good reputation and promote positive employee relations. The Working Time Regulations 1998 stipulates that employers should provide employees with the following basic rights:

Everyone has been told from one time or another – don’t bring your personal life to work, and vice-versa. Easier said than done. In our current economy, families are having to work harder, and longer thus leaving less time for family and creating stress and anxiety. One thing that has statistically shown why people are stressed at work and home – the instability of work-life balance. This paper exemplifies the barriers and measures one can take to secure the balance.

In a 2002 survey conducted by TrueCareers job site, seventy percent of 1,500 workers revealed that they have poor balance between their work and their personal lives. These results come to no surprise to any workers who devote all of themselves to the public, while abandoning themselves and their families. At work, employees are playing the roles of what others expect them to be, but when they are away from work, who are they really? When one stops to think about it, there are so many ways to turn one 's hectic work days into therapeutic and fun-filled days by simply discovering one 's interests and making them a priority. After-work activities to choose from vary according to one 's personality type, interests, and mood. For instance, some people enjoy the outdoors, while others prefer the indoors; some people like to always stay busy while others may want a breather every now and then. People with various preferences may choose a number of approaches to relaxation and renewal as listed below: Activities for people who love recreation and fitness (the kinesthetic type) 1. Playing with children or pets outside (helps to bring out one 's "inner child") 2. Exercising by going to the gym, walking, cycling, playing tennis, swimming, or bowling 3. Gardening (Planting or tending to flowers and crops) Activities for people who love meditation or reflection 1. Writing a poem, a short story, or a passage in one 's journal (releases one 's feelings and keeps things in

It is noted that employees spend a large amount of their time at work. Work is becoming more than just a 9-5, but a place work longevity friendships are created. Also created is what the article termed as workaholism, reporting that workaholism not only cause a great deal of stress but can also cause mental fatigue and physical somatic systems. All of these aliments can hinder spiritualty – which can lead to absence, low performance, and a financial hit for the company. The financial components include medical expenses, loss of productivity, health insurance.

c) Schor feels that work and leisure are inversely proportional. People are occupied with long work hours and household chores. The residual time left is considered as leisure.

Josef Pieper, a catholic philosopher, considers work and leisure as two aspects of human living that are both of equal importance for an individual’s living. He refers to work as ‘ratio’ and appreciates the essence of work in realizing human ideas and concepts. Leisure is termed as ‘intellectus’ and it is time taken by an individual to contemplate and nourish his spiritual being. Work is different from leisure in various ways. Firstly, work is meant to attain measurable objectives, that is, its results are materialistic whereas leisure is used to generate ideas and concepts that are abstract in nature.

According to Newman, Garth, and Milkovich, spillover theory is the theory where workers are thought to participate in leisure activities that have characteristics similar to their job-related activities and tasks (Singh & Selvarajan 2013). Respectively, those theories are similar and different depend on the situation. For instance, spillover theory can be a reflection of the positive correlations between types of activities engaged in at work. Also, there are positive correlations between subjective reactions to work and to leisure and family life. More importantly, there are exceptions to the spillover concern in retrospective to physical

A variety of evidence and data was collected inn support of this hypothesis. To start off with, the paper defines ‘routine activities’ as activities at home, in jobs away from

·     Balance - "Management's recognition of the importance of personal and family life remains the top driver of employee loyalty. Employees who spend a moderate amount of time each week attending to personal matters while at work have a higher level of commitment to their employer than those who spend no time." (America @ Work 1999," Aon Consulting, Chicago, Illinois; 312.701.4844) Employers who provide a work/life/family balance

There are two kinds of people in the work force. There are laborers and there are workers. The difference between these two types of people is that a worker enjoys his or her job while a laborer does not. To the laborer, his or her life is almost equivalent to a wage slave. For those laborers, there only escape is leisure time. This is essentially the opposite of their lives, a time where there is freedom and compulsion. To the worker, leisure time consist of enough rest so that they can do their jobs effectively. In the two ways that these two types of people enjoy their free time, how do we know which person spends their time better? I believe that a worker often spends his of her leisure time more productively than

Unfortunately, the same situation most likely applies for many people. Yes, many do spend most of their time at work but assuredly if they were to reevaluate their time spent, they most definitely may find some of their extra time that could be spent on leisure.