Work-life Balance: Is There a Serious Interest from the Side of Employers - Assignment Example

Carmichael et al. (2008) note, however, that WLB continues to be missing or weak for several sectors, such as the informal carer sector. It is found that more employers apply WLB through flexible work, because of political, economic, and social factors, although substantive effects for gender equality are not yet met. More employers are developing work-life initiatives, because of international organizations’ directives.

Within the European Union, WLB initiatives centralize in the ‘reconciliation of work and family that impact EU and nation-state level, such as the EU directives on parental leave and part-time work and the EU Council of Ministers’ declaration of 29 June 2000, which stresses the growth of paternity leave (Gregory and Milner 2009: 122). Furthermore, the EU has emphasized gender equality (particularly through its Framework Strategy for Gender Equality and through the creation of ‘gender mainstreaming in policy design and evaluation) and has also significantly involved different stakeholders and influenced national legislation and collective agreements that are related to WLB (Gregory and Milner 2009: 122).

For instance, because of the EU, trade union involvement in the carrying out of WLB policies has changed from “hard law to soft law” and greater implementation of these policies (Gregory and Milner 2009: 122). Hence, international laws and organizations have a huge impact on compelling employers to advance WLB efforts in the workplace. Flexible work is one of the predominant practices of WLB. In a comparative study, Ollier-Malaterre (2009) states: “As many as 70% of American and 67% of British employers state that flexible hours are available for employees.” (164). This article shows that depending on the culture, laws, and human resources (HR) frameworks and practices, many employers in the UK improve work-life balance through flexible work time.

In the UK, traditional spheres that divide work and personal lives continue to exist, although recently, the Labour government played a larger role in promoting WLB among employers (Ollier-Malaterre 2009: 167). National laws and changing cultural views on WLB contribute to more employers seeing the importance of WLB to their employees and manifesting that through providing the option for flexible work. Maruyama, Hopkinson, and James, (2009) conducted a multivariate analysis of work-the life balance effects of a telework program.

Findings showed that time flexibility variables are important and had positive effects on work and family matters. Industrial relations and unions’ viewpoints toward work-life practices can affect the application of WLB among employers. British and American unions have progressively become implicated in work-life (Ollier-Malaterre 2009: 168). Trade unions have become more involved in the introduction and execution of WLB measures, which indicates an evolution of their role from managing wage and wage-related bargaining to providing information and application of WLB policies (Gregory and Milner 2009: 127). It also shows modernization efforts through WLB development in the public sector and a supplementary “modernization of modes of action, with a shift from distributive to integrative bargaining” (Cressey 2002).