A STUDY ON WORK LIFE BALANCE OF NURSES IN KOVILPATTI TOWN Ms.M.Jensirani 1, Dr.A.Muthumani 2 1 Research Scholar (SRF), 2 Assistant Professor, PG & Research Department of Commerce, Sri SRNM College, Sattur, Tamil Nadu (India) ABSTRACT Career women are challenged by work and family commitment at the end of each day. Majority of women are working through-out week and majority of the nurses are struggling to achieve work life balance. Women reported that their life has become a juggling act as they have to shoulder multiple responsibilities at work and home. The hospital management needs to be conscious of this status of nurses and periodically review their status. They can create supportive environment to help these women achieve work life balance. This article fully based on the Primary and Secondary data. This article highlights the issues connected with work life balance of nurses. Keywords : Work Life Balance, Family Commitment, Responsibility. I. INTRODUCTION Work Life Balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between Work on one hand and life on the other. In the broader sense, the term includes life style balance. Globalization, downsizing and flexible work patterns have left many employees with a feeling of increasing work demands and pressure, and a daily struggle to manage their work and family responsibilities. Indian families are undergoing rapid changes due to the increased pace of urbanization & modernization. Indian women belonging to all classes have entered into paid occupation. Now, Indian women s exposure to educational opportunities is substantially increasing, especially in the urban setting. This has opened new vistas, increased awareness and raised aspirations of personal growth. Women are required to perform an accumulation of disparate roles simultaneously with its unique pressure. Multiple role-playing has been found to have both positive and negative effects on the mental health and physical health of professional women. In certain instances, women with multiple role are reported to have better physical and psychological health than women with less role. A working woman has two roles to play namely professional and personal role. This has significance in shaping the performance of an individual especially in Indian context. Role clash is also caused by the reverse relation that is personal level stress affecting job performance. Work life balance is a state where an individual manages real or potential conflict between different demands on their time and energy in a way that satisfies their needs for well-being and self-fulfillment. 114 P a g e
A person who enjoys the work and derives satisfaction alone can perform well and produce more. The achievement of tasks and goals leads for job satisfaction. The job satisfaction, achievement of goals and objectives, fulfillment of personal needs leads to well-being and happiness, which is the basic meaning of personal life. Indian health care sector is growing with a wide range of needs and expectations. Nurses occupy the largest employing group in health care industry. They are key players in meeting the patients needs. The job nature of a Nurse is basically that they have to work in shifts, work for longer shifts with a few breaks or without breaks. They have to work for varied people even for mentally retarded, criminals, stressed persons, etc. Besides nurses are facing problems from other health care workers like bullying, harassment, continuous unreasonable performance demands, improper or misleading communications, office politics and conflict among staff, etc., that creates a heavy pressure on a nursing professional and it may affect the family and work environment. This research reported here is aimed to provide insights into positive and negative aspects of Private Hospital Nurses in Kovilpatti Town. II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Traditionally the role of women was confined to cooking, cleaning, raising children, etc. They were looked upon as care giver or as home keeper and were denied access outside home. But now the story is different. They have an important role to play even outside the home. With the potential education and employment opportunities today, most homes have become dual earners because of increase in expenses and necessities. The expansion of higher education has also enhanced job prospects for women and there is a shift in the role models from stay-at-home mothers to successful professional women. Women achieved tremendous progress in every walk of life and made a mark wherever they are. But her role at home has not changed much. The wife still cooks, does household work, takes care of the family members, family commitments and runs the house. With increase in pressure at work place and important demands at home, the work life balance is at stake. They have chosen their career as per their wish and eligibility. One of the important careers among them is Nursing Professional. Health care industry is fully service oriented. In the competitive world, the demand of health care industry has also increased because of the huge population and change in life style of the people. Still the health care sector is in growing phase with certain limitations, which creates a heavy pressure on Nursing Professionals and it may affect their work life. The pressure from extended working hours, compulsory overtime, chances of getting deceased, increased stress level at their job leads to job dissatisfaction which ultimately end up with higher attrition rate and low morale. In this context, it would be more relevant to make an attempt to study the problem related to Work Life Balance of Nurses which may help the health care sector to drastically reduce the attrition rate and to provide high level of job satisfaction to the Nurses. III. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Ujvala Rajadhyaksha (2012) in her paper titled "Work-life balance in South East Asia: the Indian experience", has provided an in-depth country perspective on work-life balance issues in India. The findings of the study are that the commonly offered work-life interventions by Indian companies 115 P a g e
address issues of gender equality, flexibility, stress reduction, health awareness and childcare. The social implications of the study are that the organizational work-life interventions in India are varied and disparate and have focused mainly on the formal sector. There is no overarching government policy addressing work and family issues across different sectors. Research limitations/implications are that the sample of organizations in the study is purposive in nature and HR policies of smaller companies in the informal sector are not included. Future research needs to consider how India's unequal economic development across the organized and unorganized sectors may affect effectiveness of work-life interventions. Madhurima Das and K B Akhilesh (2012) have developed a multi-construct conceptual model to determine the work-life balance of Indian women, both in research and managerial careers. Their study strongly advocates building sectorial occupational specific models rather than generic gender centric models. Their study looked at the input-output framework and considered variables on a Likert scale. They have felt that there is a need to extend the study to include other variables, such as age, caretaking responsibilities, and so on for a better understanding of how the multi construct factor model of work-life balance will help to diagnose issues of work-life conflict. K. Santhana Lakshmi et al (2012) analyzed the WLB of female nurses in hospitals by conducting a comparative study of Government and Private hospitals in Chennai, India. It as found out that 53% of the women were struggling to achieve WLB. The objectives of the study were to identify the influence of work place environment and stress related issues on the emotional status of female nurses, to analyze the features of motivation initiatives adopted by the hospitals, and to examine the factors which determine the satisfaction of female nurses. The objectives set for the study required collection of primary data from the female nurses in Government and Private Hospital. Therefore a questionnaire was drafted, field tested and then finalized. The response was collected from the female nurses through a survey and this data was subjected to statistical analysis, using tools like Multiple Regression and t-test. However, the study considered women nurses working in two or three specific fields. Moreover, the study was conducted on a small scale, surveying only 400 employees from a Government and a Private Hospital. It was concluded that the WLB of both the Government and private nurses was a challenging one. There was a need for both hospitals to address the WLB related issues and support the female nurses to manage their WLB. IV. SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study emphasizes on the Work Life Balance of Nurses in Kovilpatti Town. The researcher has made a sincere attempt to determine the Work Life Balance of Nurses working in Private Hospital. The study is expected to identify the perceptional level of Work Life Balance of Nursing 116 P a g e
Professionals in Kovilpatti Town. This research is focused on analyzing the factors determining the work life balance. V.OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The following are the objectives 1. To study the demographic profile of the nurses. 2. To identify the problems of the respondents with regard to work life balance. 3. To suggest appropriate measure to improve the work life balance of employees based on the findings of the present study. VI. METHODOLOGY This study is based on both primary data and secondary data. The primary data will be collected through the questionnaire from Nurses working in Private Hospital at Kovilpatti Town. The secondary data will be collected from newspapers, books, journals, websites, research papers and other related projects. 5.1 Sample Design By considering the size of the population, the researcher has planned to adopt Convenient sampling method for this study. The survey will be conducted among 100 respondents from 20 Private Hospitals in Kovilpatti Town. VII. ANALYSIS & FINDINGS Demographic data such as age, marital status, type of family, educational qualification and etc., which represent specific geographic locations and are often associated with time. The following table 1.1 shows the demographic variable of the nurses. 1.1 Demographic variable of the Nurses S. No. Category Percentage 1. Age 20 30 yrs 41.67 30 40 yrs 37.50 40 50 yrs 16.67 50 and above 4.17 2. Marital Status Married 74.17 117 P a g e
Unmarried 25.00 Widow 0.83 3. Type of family Joint family 22.50 Nuclear Family 77.50 4. Work experience 20 and above years 4.17 15 20 years 12.50 10 15 years 16.67 5 10 years 36.67 Less than 5 years 30.00 5. Education Diploma 10.83 UG 78.33 PG 10.83 6. Night shift disturb your social life Agree 52.50 Disagree 47.50 7. Night shift affect your attitude Sometimes 41.67 Never 45.00 I don t know 13.33 The above table showed that 41.67 per cent of the nurses belong from 20 30 year of age category. Majority of 74.16 per cent of the respondents were married and 74.17 per cent of the nurses had nuclear family. Most of the nurses fall in 5 10 years working experience category. Majority of the nurses 78.33 per cent were UG qualified. More than fifty per cent of nurses social life disturbed due to their night shift duty. Moreover 41.67 118 P a g e
per cent of nurses accepted that night shift affects their attitude and personality. Nurses also reported that they were suffering from mood swing after their night shift 1.2 WORK LIFE BALANCE OF NURSES S. No. Statements Yes (%) No (%) 1. During working hours women feel more pressurized due to family responsibilities 68 32 2. Women s career development has slowed down due to family responsibilities 58 42 3. Job leaves less time for her kids 75 25 4. Job leaves less time for her husband 63 37 5. Nurses with small kids find it difficult to manage their house and office work 67 23 6. In case of conflict between household work and office work, preference is given to household work 44 56 7. Provision of childcare facilities at workplace will help nurses to do their work properly 81 19 8. Flexible work arrangements should be there for nurses 81 19 9. Post maternity leave should be given to nurses 94 6 68% of the nurses realized that they were more pressurized due to family responsibilities. 58% of nurses realized that their career development has slowed down due to family responsibilities. Majority of our respondents were of the view that their job leaves less time for their kids and husband. 67% of the nurses found it difficult to manage their household and office work. In case of conflict between household work and office work, 44% of nurses give preference to household work. 81% of nurses were in the favour of flexible work arrangements that should be provided to every working women to manage their household and office responsibilities. They also wanted the organization to provide them child care facilities. Further, 94% of nurses also wanted that post maternity leave should be given to them. VIII. SUGGESTIONS The balance between personal and professional life vary from person to person. The best individual work-life balance will vary over time. The work life balance strategies differ for single, married women and women with children. Based on the findings of the study the following suggestions are drawn. The hospitals are advised to establish a work life balance cell at their hospital in order to analyse the level of their employees expectations and perception on the work life balance concept. Then only they can ensure the well-being to their employees and try to maximize the employees satisfaction. Since the 119 P a g e
hospitals are facing high competition in the service industry, in order to increase the productivity and morale of the employees, the hospital authorities are advised to focus on the main key dimensions of work life balance. The hospital should go for childcare and also support the employees for non-work commitments. It would help the hospitals to retain the talented nurses at every level. Stress free environment can be created by giving minimum work load. Courses on effective stress management can be introduced by the hospitals. Typically they can create awareness and demonstrate technique to reduce the stress. Proper yoga and meditation training can be given to the employees to cope with stress. It is very necessary to understand that married women with children require more organizational support than the unmarried and married nurses with no children. So it is the prime responsibility of the employee to take care while designing the human resource policies so that they can best utilize the nurse s potential. IX CONCLUSION Women in India now participate in all activities such as education, sports, policies, media, art and culture, service sectors, science and technology and the like. Attitudinal changes towards women s role in the family due to good education, benefits of family planning and health care, child care and good job opportunities will surely help in the development of more confident and healthy women. Women s participation is important for their own personal advancement and improvement of status in society. From the study it was found that family friendly policies like parental leaves, job sharing arrangements, provision of child care facilities etc. should be provide in the organization so that women can be encouraged to prove their competence. Further, work flexibility and autonomy should also be given to nurses. More than 85% of working women agreed that post maternity leave and child care facilities at workplace should be given to them so that they don t have to face any problem in maintaining their household and professional roles. Moreover the organization should also make efforts for making the environment family friendly. It is very important to understand that married working women with children will be able to show best performance only if they have full organizational support. So, in order to best utilize the potential of nurses, it is essential for every clinic with utmost care. They should work on its work life balance policies which will help in reducing work life conflict and enable its nurses to become more effective in all roles especially the professional role. Hence our study could also act as a guide for HR practitioners in redesigning their policies in relation to work life balance thereby ensuring the well-being of all nurses. REFERENCE [1]. American Nurses Association ANA, http.//ana.nursingworld.org/mainmenu Categories /ThePracticeofProfessionalNursing.aspx. [2]. Annual Report, (2006-07). Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. [3]. Anonym, (2010). Work-life Balance in Organizations, GRIN Verlag, p 19. 120 P a g e
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