Impact of Work Life Imbalance

Impact of work life imbalance

Impact of work life imbalance on employees as an individual

Work life imbalance as G said is common in today's working environment due to globalization and improved technology.

Due to improved technology people can now work from anywhere and thus this caused people to bring their work home, thus employees are working in the office as well as at home. And they have very little time for their families this leads to work life imbalance.

Work life imbalance can affect the individual their personal life and the organization.

It affects men and women equally. Some of the affects of work life imbalance on the health of the employees are as follows:

Depression

Depression is a state of intense sadness or despair.

Many people identify the feeling of being depressed as "feeling sad for no reason", or "having no motivation to do anything".

At an advanced stage can impair the person form performing his or her routine tasks.

One suffering from depression may feel tired, sad, irritable, lazy, unmotivated, and apathetic.

In most cases it leads to negative thinking and in extreme cases it cal also lead to substance abuse.

The pattern of depression is different in diferent countries as it depends on the work culture. In some countries, such as Australia, one in four women and one in eight men suffer from depression.

It is noticed twice as many females as males report or receive treatment for it, on the other hand men are less prone to report and seek treatment for depression. It is the leading cause of disability followed by heart disease.

Some of the symptoms of depression are as follows:

Feelings of overwhelming sadness and/or fear, or the inability to feel emotion (a feeling of emptiness).

A decrease in the amount of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, daily activities.

Changing appetitee and marked weight gain or loss

Disturbed sleep patterns, such as insomnia, loss of sleep.

Fatiguee, mental or physical, also loss of energy.

Intense feelings of guiltt, helplessness, worthlessness.

Trouble concentrating, keeping focus or making decisions or a generalized slowing and obtunding of cognition, including memory.

Ð'* Anxiety

Anxiety is an unpleasant combination of emotions that includes fear, apprehension and worry, and is often accompanied by physical sensations such as palpitations, nausea, chest pain and/or shortness of breath.

An indiviual who faces anxiety is tensed and worried abt the future. Although anxiety is related to fear, it is not the same thing.

Fear is a direct. Most people will feel fear if someone points a loaded gun at them.

Anxiety, on the other hand, is often unfocused, vague, and hard to pin down to a specific cause. Stress at work can cause strained relationships which can cause anxiety.

The individual feels unable to cope with the pressures of work and life as the balance between work and family life is disturbed.

Ð'* A drop in work performance

When an individual works for long hours, it means that they have less time for their family and this causes personal relationships to strain.

This imbalance can lead to difficulties such as a reduced ability to concentrate make decisions and memory problems.

This leads to reduced work performance and the individuals find it difficult to concentrate between their work and personal lives.

Ð'* An increase in sick days or absenteeism

Increased work life imbalance leads to high stress which causes physical problems like fatigue, headaches; Gastrointestinal upsets, such as diarrhea or constipation this leads to increase in absenteeism.

Thus corporations lose a huge sum of money due to this issue. Thus as managers we must ensure that employees are not stressed out.

Ð'* Increased aggression

High work life imbalance causes increased aggression.

A stressed out person tends to be irritated very easily and this can cause problems in relations of the individual with the other employees.

If this situation persists then there is an atmosphere of conflict at the work place, this should be avoided.

Impact of work life imbalance on employers

Source (http://www.workstress.net/costs.htm)

Research and surveys show that the corporations lose out a lot of money if their employees have poor work life balance. As high stress levels cause increased absenteeism.

Increased stress levels amongst employees can result in lower productivity. In short high levels of stress hamper the smooth functioning of the organization. Let start with the research done in UK

Ð'* Research in UK shows that, 360 million working days were lost annually through sickness at a cost to organizations of Ð'Ј8 billion. In 2003 estimate was closer to Ð'Ј11.6 billion and in 2004 reached Ð'Ј12.25 billion.

This means that the productive hours of work

are lost due to work life imbalance and this causes financial losses to the organization.

Ð'* The International Labor Organization estimates that the cost of stress amounts to over 10% of Britain's Gross National Product

This gives an idea of how much money is lost due to work life imbalance

Ð'* Work-related stress costs society about Ð'Ј3.7 billion every year.

Again shows the amount of money lost