Abstract

To remain viable, businesses must stay competitive in the global marketplace of today, and to be competitive, businesses must maximize all their resources. Employees are a major resource of a business, and it is imperative that a business maximize the productivity of its employees to stay competitive. Employees who are stressed from demands and issues of family and life outside of work do not make productive employees. Work-life balance practices have been adopted by businesses to provide some relief for employees from this stress with the assumption is that these policies will decrease the stress of the employee making the employee more productive and increase the productivity of the business overall. Research has shown that these policies helped the workers in some circumstances, but recent research is showing little to no correlation between adapting these policies and the overall productivity of the business unless the business is a large in size, has a manufacturing focus, or is mainly involved in electronic commerce. The major factor that is showing the most correlation to increased productivity is high-involvement management, or transformational leadership, which incorporates work-life balance practices when needed on an individual basis. The research suggests that a business should put more emphasis on hiring and training good, high-involvement managers and having work-life practices in place for the managers to use rather than just adapting general work-life balance practices.

Keywords: Work-life balance; Productivity; Family-friendly policies; Family-supportive policies; Work-family policies; Teleworking; Flexible schedule; Job-sharing; Employee fatigue