This document discusses work-life balance and employee retention. It notes that work-life balance policies are important for both employees and employers. For employees, work-life balance leads to lower stress, better health, and a stable personal life. For employers, it results in higher productivity, lower absenteeism and turnover, and an engaged workforce. The document recommends several work-life balance policies and practices that organizations can adopt, including flexible work arrangements, family leave, childcare support, and stress management programs. It emphasizes the importance of balancing personal and professional commitments for employees' goals and organizations' success.

1. Prof. Jayashree Sadri and Prof. Sorab Sadri

2.  Employees are considered to be the source of
strength and competitive advantage for an
organization. Successful organizations
realize employee retention and talent
management are integral to sustaining their
leadership and growth in the market place.

3.  In India, despite salary increases averaging
more than 15% annually in some industries,
annual turnover rates among young
professionals are in an average to 15% to 30%
and go as high as 50%.
 The explosive combination of ballooning
salaries and rising attrition signals a tight
market for talent that could constrain India‟s
growth in the future.

4.  Many factors that affect turnover rates are
beyond an employer‟s control. But of the
factors that an employer can control, four
emerged as most important: namely:
1. Performance management practices
2. Professional development practices
3. Quality of supervision
4. Company‟s brand name

5.  In turn, these four factors drive two key employee
attitudes – an employee‟s satisfaction with , and
pride in the organization.
 When satisfaction and pride are at high levels,
employees are likely to stay.
 The best companies drive employee satisfaction
and pride by providing management support,
training and professional opportunities early on.
 Employers should target high-potential employees
extremely early in their tenure and create
accelerated development plans for them.

6.  Employee development plans alone are insufficient.
Young, high potential employees demand active
management support.
 No matter what the environment, employees care
about nonmonetary rewards – pride, satisfaction,
the support of the management team.
 Any company interested in accessing the labor
force needs to pay attention to these factors.

7.  To counterfeit attrition, most companies
usually turn to increasing the compensation
for employees to retain them and become the
best paymasters.
 Even the big paymasters fail to understand
that higher salaries can only “delay” the
attrition.

8.  Employees seek opportunities that allow them to
use and develop their skills and together with their
educational knowledge, yearn for converting them
into competencies.
 Leaving employees want more meaning in their
work . They often indicate that they want to use
their qualities and skills in challenging teamwork
led by capable leaders

9.  The Mentor plays a very vital role of handholding in
the initial stage of an enterprise.
 He is the guardian angel to whom an employee can
turn to when in distress.
 The Mentor provides business guidance and shares
his/her experience and skills with the employee.
 The Mentor and the Mentee have to mutually agree
on the time the Mentor will spend with the Mentee.

10. 1. Management policies
2. Job role
3. Compensation
4. Boss
5. Career growth
6. Working conditions
7. Work timings
8. Communication

11.  Key employee retention is critical to the long
term health and success of business. In such
a situation “workforce engagement” or
“employee engagement” is the new mantra to
cut down attrition or retain talent in the
organization.
 Businesses with highly engaged workforces
enjoy a tremendous advantage over their
competitors.

12.  To prosper in this new world, high priority
must be given to increased productivity,
through enlightened and effective people
management.
 Smart companies are proactively addressing
this crisis by changing their own job
environment and doing more to engage their
employees.

13.  An engaged employee is one who is willing
and able to contribute to company success.
 Put another way, engagement is the extent to
which employees put discretionary effort into
their work, beyond the required minimum to
get the job done, in the form of extra time,
brainpower or energy.

14.  Employee engagement is the level of
commitment and involvement an employee
has towards their organization and its values.
 An engaged employee is aware of business
context and works with colleagues to improve
performance within the job for the benefit of
the organization.

15.  The organization must work to develop and
nurture engagement, which requires a two
way relationship between the employer and
the employee.
 Employee engagement is a barometer that
determines the association of a person with
the organization.

16.  In these days of intensive focus on customer
satisfaction, Employee Engagement programs
and offering are designed as a key element
on their journey to “Customer Service through
Operational Excellence”.

17.  As engagement rises, we see two important
outcomes:
 1. a decline in the likelihood of leaving the
company.
 2. a stronger orientation around meeting
customer needs.

18. 1. Committed employees perform better.
2. Corporate culture characterized teamwork,
pleasant working conditions.
3. Considerate treatment of employees.
4. Growth opportunities.
5. Skill enhancement and abundant training
opportunities.
6. Flexible working opportunities.

19.  Besides all these, a considerable shift in
leaders‟ and managers‟ approach to
employees is required.
 Leadership and management practices appear
to be critical to a psychologically healthy
workplace and directly lead to measurable
and meaningful outcomes in terms of
retention, satisfaction, perceptions of
stress/workload and employee engagement.

20.  Leadership succession
 Training/development(leadership)
 Employee engagement
 Succession planning
 Compensation competitiveness
 Performance management
 Controlling attrition
 Ageing workforce issues
 Workforce planning
 Career development
 Work-Life Balance

21.  Having a „fully engaged‟ employee is a win-
win situation. Those employees stay longer
and contribute in a more meaningful way.
 A highly engaged workforce will be a healthy
sign for the organizations at micro level and
for the country at macro level.

22. Work-Life Balance

23.  After Industrial Revolution people started working in
factories.
 Information Revolution and 24 x 7 work in the wake of global
competition and global production networks are increasingly
blurring the distinction between home and work.
 Modern technologies facilitated women to join the workforce
in large proportion.
 Rise of feminism apart, with dual earner families, nuclear
families and single parents becoming virtually the norm
especially in metros, concerns of WLB assumed urgency and
new impetus from all quarters- governments, employers and
individuals.

24.  Work provides meaning to life. It also provides
livelihood. However, life is not just meant for work
alone. Its purpose and functionalities are much
wider in scope. People work for life but they do
not live for work alone.
 The relationship between work and life has
acquired an important place in the modern society
where people give equal importance to their work
and life values.

25.  The issue can be addressed at the macro level
through legislation, at the national level by the
government, by policy at the employer level and
also through communication and facilitation by the
immediate supervisors and making choices and
decisions at individual level and creating
common/shared/pooled services at the community
level by civil society institutions.

26.  The demographic shifts and increasing tendency
for greater participation of women, who comprise
almost half the workforce have resulted in a
paradigm shift in redesign of workplace.
 Government policies seek to protect the workers
from overwork and abuse, ban women workers
from night work in certain occupations, at least till
recently, reduce the weights to be handled by
women, provide maternity and paternity leave and
other facilities for child and elder care.

27.  More and more companies have started regarding
themselves as a great place to work if they took
care of some of the responsibilities of workers with
family responsibilities and created family friendly
policies and practices.
 Ranking of best places to work and best HR
practices is contingent also upon how sensitive the
employers are towards work, life and family
concerns.
 Paying attention to WLB, most employers now
realize, makes business sense and fundamental to
overall competitiveness.

28.  WLBPs are those institutionalized structural and procedural
arrangements as well as formal and informal practices that
enable individuals to easily manage the conflicting worlds of
work and family lives.
 Some common statutory policies are maternity benefits, and
discretionary policies are flexi-time, telecommuting and job
sharing.
 Employee assistance programs like counseling and stress
management also fall under WLBPs.
 All these can be classified under policies, benefits and
services.

29.  Policies cover the formal and informal ways that
employees‟ work and leave schedules are handled,
including part-time work, job sharing, flexi time
and parental/family leave.
 Benefits cover forms of compensation that protect
against loss of earnings, payment of medical
expenses and vacation or all of these.
 Services include on-site or near-site childcare
centers, counseling and eldercare programs

30.  Toll of the person‟s health both physiologically and
psychologically leading to :Heart ailments, cardiovascular
problems, sleep disorders, depression, irritability, insecurity,
poor concentration and even nervous breakdowns.
 Lack of concentration leading to low productivity, lesser
quality of work, conflicts at workplace.
 Disrupted family life.
 Strained social life
 Financial problems due to ill health, poor management of
personal finance issues.

31.  Need to manage increased expectations of employees without
compromising on business needs.
 Face problems like : Absenteeism, less productivity, low
quality of work, employee turnover, failure to attract and
retain best talent.
 Management time increasingly spent on :counseling,
motivation, conflict management, etc.
 More investment on additional resources.

32.  Time management through task prioritization and activity
planning.
 Negotiate and use facilities like : work-sharing, job rotation,
delegation, flexi timing, telecommuting, work from home,
childcare and eldercare assistance.
 Indulging in some creative hobby, voluntary service which
helps in de-stress.
 Seeking information and help required from management
from time to time.

33.  Regular and direct communication with workers to make
them understand business priorities and encourage them to
be equally clear about their personal priorities.
 Help employees in their pursuit of balancing personal
commitments and organizational duties by providing them
necessary support and resources as far as feasible.
 Proper training/education on topics like Time Management,
Stress Management, Health and Hygiene etc.

34.  Today, WLBPs have become an integral part of high
commitment work systems and not merely a
response to address increasing problems including
stress, absenteeism and turnover which have
emerged due to increased percentage of women in
the workforce.
 The trend shows growing recognition for the need
to support not only those with visible family needs
and responsibilities (working mothers) but all
employees at different stages of life, who
experience work-life stress regardless of their
family status.

35.  Flexible work arrangements
 Stress management programs
 Part – time arrangements
 Work from home (telecommuting)
 Maternity/paternity leaves
 Life insurance coverage's
 Reimbursement of medical expenses
 Child care facilities
 Forced family vacation

36.  Organizations need to identify WLB as a major constituent of
HR Policy. They have to clearly state their WLB philosophy,
policy and practices.
 Work –life and personal-life are two sides of the same coin.
Striking a balance between work and life is critical for an
employee to achieve his personal and professional goals.
 At the same time its impact is very significant for the
organizations since the employee‟s attitude, loyalty to the
organization and productivity are directly dependent on how
well he balances his time between these two lives.

37. THANK YOU