International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 7, July-2014 89

ISSN 2278-7763

Work-Life Balance in the IT Sector: A Case Study of Delhi*

Nidhi Tewathia
1
Research Scholar, Discipline of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi 110068,
India. Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Abstract: Excessive pressure leads to stress. Many of the stressful life events are related to the workplace. Employees who start to feel the
pressure to perform are likely to get caught in a downward spiral of increasing effort in order to meet rising expectations but no increase in
job satisfaction. Many organisations in Delhi are trying to promote Work Life Balance (WLB) through initiatives which include flex times,
part time work, provision of child care facilities etc. Yet, the respondents of this study have expressed their inability to balance professional
and personal life .Gender aspect has also been considered vis-à-vis the variables of the stucy. Primary survey was conducted with a sample
size of 150 IT employees of Delhi. The paper concludes by pointing out that WLB policies need to be implemented as much as possible in all
industries, and on a wider basis in organisations that are currently using them in order to sustain the business performance.

Keywords : Work, Work-Life Balance, Delhi, IT sector.

1 Introduction

T HE conventional wisdom indicates that a happy worker is isfaction. The internet and mobile phones have made it possi-

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is a better worker. But it seems that the employers find it ble for the organizations to keep in constant touch with the
difficult to understand this fact. We all experience pres- employees both during the day and at night. To a large extent
sure on a daily basis. We need it to motivate us and enable us in the IT sector, the employee is expected to be engaged on the
to perform at our best. However, when the pressure becomes job almost at all times. Consequently, there are growing re-
excessive, it leads to stress. Many of the stressful life events ports of stress and work imbalance [3]. The constant require-
are related to the workplace, e.g. lack of job security, changes ment to work at optimum performance takes its toll in job dis-
in working hours, changes in working conditions, layoffs, satisfaction, employee turnover, reduced efficiency, illness and
downsizing, organizational readjustments, etc. IT industry in even death in some cases. Absenteeism, alcoholism, bad or
India has long been exempted from labour regulations in or- snap decisions, indifference and apathy, lack of motivation or
der to facilitate its rapid growth and competency in the glob- creativity are all by-products of an over stressed workplace. So
al market. Although this is a sound argument in the wake of the distinctions between work-life and family-life have van-
our developing economy struggling to sustain and expand ished.
economic growth, yet it needs to be checked whether the
burden is not being borne by the industry’s labour force. The extended family, even in India, is slowly disappear-
ing [4]. Small nuclear families have come to stay, where both
The recent past is a witness to changes in work sched- the spouses go to work. In addition, there are an increasing
ules. A larger part of the IT sector is hence moving from a number of single parent households due to increase in divorc-
standard eight-hour a day regime to operating twenty four es [5]. Although this problem is not as serious in Delhi as in
hours a day for seven days of the week [1]. Many employees the West, yet, it could become a serious issue some time in the
need to work on Saturdays and Sundays too. Moreover, there future.
is a changing pattern in the working hours which is quite dif-
ferent from the standard one, which normally operates from 9 In spite of more women going out to work, there has
am to 5 pm. While some employees work in the standard time been little change in patterns of household responsibilities [6].
some others need to be available for work that normally starts Women undertake the majority share of domestic chores, and
early in the evening and continues well through the night. child rearing. It has been suggested that the observed gender
Sometimes they need to even work beyond the normal eight segregation at work may be voluntary as women seek non-
hours. Increasing workloads have pressurised employees to pecuniary benefits, such as flexible hours [7] due to family
demonstrate their commitment to work in more obvious ways responsibilities. Quite often the work intrudes on the family
[2]. Consequently, a larger part of them have tended to be pre- and social life, while at other times family pressures affect the
sent at their work place for longer periods of time, thereby work performance.
reducing the time for which they are available at home.
Jenkins (2000) observes that issues like child rearing, the
Employees who start to feel the pressure to perform are need to balance multiple roles etc. have consequences on
likely to get caught in a downward spiral of increasing effort health and family relationships. Securely attached individuals
in order to meet rising expectations but no increase in job sat- experienced positive spill-over in both work and family [9].
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International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 7, July-2014 90
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These are pointers that there are gender differences in coping year 2013. The respondents belong to Delhi and NCR. Varia-
with work family issues. Work based support to women is bles in the questionnaire were selected based on the studies
positively associated with job satisfaction, organisational published by Hyman et al [20, 21]. The questionnaire was dis-
commitment and career accomplishment [10]. tributed at work places and the responses of employees were
collected. The questionnaires were also sent via e-mail. Snow-
The work from home concept can lead to greater flexi- ball sampling technique is employed. Sample data has been
bility and independence, but it can make people work for classified into various socio-demographic categories such as-
longer periods of time, including weekends and evenings. gender, marital status, age-group and academic-professional
Home working could be stressful, if young children have to be categories such as- maximum attained qualifications and size
managed [11]. Men feel more satisfied when they achieve of the IT Company.
more on the job even at the cost of ignoring the family. On the
other hand, women emphasise that work and family are both Five factors which contribute to WLB are assessed.
equally important and both are the sources of their satisfac- While three of these are work related, two are family related
tion. For them the former is more important. When work does factors. Work based factors are, flex time, option to work part
not permit women to take care of their family, they feel un- time and freedom to work from home. The family related fac-
happy, disappointed and frustrated. They draw tight bounda- tors considered in this survey are, availability of child care
ries between work and family and they do not like one cross- facility and flexibility to take care of emergencies at home.
ing the other [12]. Three factors i.e. health, sleep and exhaustion were identified
and analysed in order to understand the adverse impact of
Valcour and Hunter (2005), say that new trends like tel- work. Four factors (Reduced time with the family, No clear
eworking attempt to address work-family issues. In India too leisure time, Recurring thoughts of work, decreased quality of
there is a rising trend towards tele-working [14]. The WLB family life) were identified and analysed to understand the
problem is fairly similar across countries [15]. Reviews also spill-over of work into family life. Chi-square test is undertak-
indicate that the perception of WLB is observed to be different en in order to indicate the association between the variables
across genders [16, 17]. and gender.

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According to Barden (2001), negative stress is becoming A major problem that occurs in collecting data related to
a major illness in the work environment, and it can debilitate WLB is the reluctance of the respondents. Lack of cooperation
employees and be costly to employers. Lucy Barnes Foster from the employees occurs due to company’s policy on the
(2002), a professional speaker on stress-management, sur- confidentiality of such data. Employees are also asked not to
veyed mid-level managers and found stress to be a major de- disclose any data related to their work experience and compa-
terminant in worker productivity. According to the study, the ny affairs and policies at the time of their recruitment. Lack of
primary areas affected by stress are employee morale, absen- stability and security of their employment tenure is another
teeism, and decision making abilities. By recognizing that a reason for the same.
problem exists and by addressing the issue, managers can re-
duce stressful activities and increase worker performance in 3. Results and Discussion
the business organization. The demographic profile of the sample is shown in Ta-
ble 1. The respondents were predominantly men. Of the sam-
Overall, management of stress has become an urgent ple, 30% of the respondents were less than 25 years, and 51%
business strategy for many companies. Many IT leaders agree of them were between 26–35 years of age. Marital status of an
with the view that labour regulations as such are not a requi- employee has an important bearing for a study on work-life
site for this industry because of its flexi-time work culture and balance because responses on few indicators like, stability of
globally standardised workplace. In fact, there has been a pro- work, etc. would be different from the married and unmarried
posal from the industry experts to allow them to formulate sections of the society. More respondents were married (58%)
and regulate their own employment and labour policies. This than unmarried. About 44% of the respondents were parents
paper brings out some of the issues related to WLB in the con- with one or more children.
text of IT employees working in Delhi. Such a study for Delhi
IT employees has not been done earlier. While most countries In this sample, 56% of IT employees were graduates and
in the developed world have put in place family friendly work 43% of the employees were post-graduates. The average age of
practices like WLB family friendly work arrangements an IT employee with an engineering background of entry in
(FFWA), alternative work arrangements (AWA), V-Time, Zero the workforce is 22 years. In the sample, 80% of the employees
hours contract, E-working, Tele-working, the same is yet to be worked in a large-scale IT firm, 17% in medium-scale IT firms
seen in good measure in Delhi. and only 2% in small-scale firms. It was found that 91% of the
employees had regular employment and only 9% had contrac-
tual employment.
2. Methodology and Database TABLE 1
A non-random and purposive sample of 150 IT employ-
ees has been collected on the basis of questionnaire regarding DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS
the issues related to WLB. The study is conducted during the

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International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 7, July-2014 91
ISSN 2278-7763
Variable Number Percentage list of work performance areas that might be affected by stress
Age and were asked to identify whether stress increased, de-
Less than 25 years 45 30 creased, or had no change on their work performance. Only
26–35 years 77 51 respondents who indicated stress negatively affected an area,
Above 36 years 28 19 were considered in these findings (refer Fig.1). Six such areas
Total 150 100 were identified (accuracy, productivity, alertness, creativity,
job satisfaction and decision-making abilities). Harrold and
Gender Wayland established that increasing stress and anxiety are
Male 98 65 having a negative influence on an individual's organizational
Female 52 35 efficiency and productivity.
Total 150 100
Marital status
Married 87 58 Effect of Stress at Work Place

Unmarried 63 42 68

Individuals (in%)
Total 150 100 58 61
45
38
Parent 34

Yes 66 44
No 84 56
Total 150 100

Accuracy

creativity

Productivity

Alertness
Decision-

satisfaction
abilities
making

Job
Factors contributing to WLB: About 83% of men and
95% of women perceived that WLB would improve if they Indicators
were able to work part time. Similar views were expressed in

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the case of freedom to work from home, namely 87% of men
and 84% of women favoured it (refer Table 2). More women Fig. 1: Effects of Work-place Stress
(89%) felt more strongly than men (75%) that there should be
an option to take care of emergencies at home, while 76% men About 54% of men and 43% of women felt that the work
and 92% women felt that child care facilities must be available affected their health. About 32% of men and 43% of women
as they believed that these will improve the WLB. felt that the work affected their sleep. About 52% of men and
34% of women reported exhaustion due to work (refer Table
3).
TABLE 2
TABLE 3
PERCEIVED IMPROVEMENT IN WLB
PERCEIVED ADVERSE IMPACT OF WORK
Variable Men Women χ2 Sig.
Flexible time Yes 96 48 2.74 ns Variable Men Women χ2 Sig.
No 2 4 Health Yes 53 23 1.36 ns
Option to work part Yes 81 49 3.93 p < 0.05* No 45 29
Time No 17 3 Sleep Yes 32 23 1.59 ns
Option to work from Yes 85 44 0.125 ns No 66 29
Home No 13 8 Exhaustion Yes 51 17 3.88 ns
Availability of child Yes 74 48 6.29 p < 0.05* No 47 35
Care facility No 24 4 Notes: ns – not significant
Flexibility to meet Yes 73 46 4.05 p < 0.05*
emergencies at home No 25 6
Notes: *Significant at 95% confidence level, degrees of The Chi square test indicates that there is no significant
freedom = 1. ns – not significant. association between these variables and gender.

Women, more than men see options such as part time Spill-over of work into family life: About 73% of men
work, availability of child care facility and flexibility to meet and 52% of women admit that they are not able to spend
emergencies at home, will improve their work life balance. enough time with their families due to work related activities
The Chi square test indicates that there is a significant associa- (refer Table 4). About 54% of men and 47% of women believe
tion between these variables and gender. that they have no clear leisure time since work overlaps into
this period. Moreover, 38% of men and 50% of women have
Adverse impact of Work: The respondents were given a
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International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 3, Issue 7, July-2014 92
ISSN 2278-7763
recurring thoughts of work, even after they leave their place of ployees. The results of the study are affected by these respons-
work. Surprisingly, 55% of men and only 50% of women feel es and are subject to varying in a bigger or different sample.
that work pressures have affected the quality of family life. These limitations need to be addressed in future studies. Fu-
ture research must focus on a wider sample in order to get
TABLE 4 more generalized results. Moreover, it must be directed at un-
derstanding individual differences so that employee specific
SPILL-OVER OF WORK INTO FAMILY LIFE initiatives to improve WLB could be initiated by organiza-
tions. Social and political debates notwithstanding, the prob-
Variable Men Women χ2 Sig. lem of stress in the workplace requires concrete responses
Reduced time with the Yes 72 28 5.85 ns from employers and policy makers. The paper concludes by
family No 26 24 pointing out that WLB policies need to be implemented as
much as possible in all industries, and on a wider basis in or-
No clear leisure time Yes 53 24 0.845 ns
ganisations that are currently using them in order to sustain
No 45 28
the business performance.
Recurring thoughts of Yes 37 26 2.089 ns
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