An Investigation on the Effects of Work-Life Balance on Employee Wellbeing

Research Problem
Due to expectations and organization has different that have led to work-life imbalance, the significance
of work-life balance (WLB) has increased over the past few decades. Finding a balance between times
spent working and time spent on non-work-related responsibilities, such as family, hobbies, and other
responsibilities, can be challenging for many people. The benefits of WLB on employee wellbeing,
including employee satisfaction, employee engagement, productivity, mental health, and physical
health, have been extensively documented in the literature. However, there is growing worry regarding
both the detrimental effects of WLB and how it affects the wellness of various employee kinds.

Aim Statement
This study aims to investigate the impact of work-life balance (WLB) on employee welfare in terms of
performance, mental health, and overall wellbeing.

Research Questions
The research questions are as follows:

1. What impression does WLB have of the welfare of the employee?

Literature Review
WLB and Employee wellbeing
As working days and expectations have expanded over the past few decades, furthering the imbalance
among work and leisure times, WLB is becoming increasingly important in the work. It defines WLB as
the capacity to successfully juggle the demands of job, family, and personal commitments. This is similar
to how Haar, (2014) describes it, except they emphasize that it depends on how well each people feel
that their many roles are matched. 1

WLB is important since it is directly related to good elements of life in generally, such as mental and
physical health and satisfaction with life, in addition to good kinds of work, such as job satisfaction and
job performance. According to Jenkins, WLB has advantages for both the person and the company.
According to Cahill et al. (2015), higher efficacy is a result of job satisfaction. Additionally, Blazovich et al.
(2014) add to this by pointing out that businesses who offer WLB experience improved financial results.
The definition of wellbeing varies from person to person. According to Zheng, wellness refers to a
person's positive self-perception. Being healthy, content, and at ease constitute wellbeing for the
majority of individuals.2 WLB is an essential component of staff wellbeing, and according to Haider et al.
(2018), it increases employee happiness, which in turn promotes performance improvements, more
productivity, and increased efficiency within the business. Employers must be aware of employee
behavior in order to foster wellbeing. However, Zheng et al. (2016) are of the opinion that an individual's
managing stress and optimistic outlook are more crucial to happiness than organizational initiatives. 3
1
https://www.top-employers.com/en/insights/culture/work-life-balance-well-being/
2
http://eprints.uad.ac.id/29354/
3
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346452295_A_Literature_Review_of_Workplace_Well-Being
Performance
Employee performance directly affects whether a company succeeds or fails because they are the heart
of any corporation. According to Australian HR Institute (2018), employee involvement is essential for
both an individual's success and the company's overall performance as a whole. Employee happiness is
essential for a profitable business, and Oladipo et al. (2018) believe that adopting a healthier life can
help. When employees are healthy, they often have more vitality, are happier, and are less likely to
leave their jobs. 4 A healthy lifestyle might include everything from feeling motivated at work, eating
wholesome food, experiencing less stress, or in this case, having the option of flexible scheduling.

Flexibility gives workers the freedom to choose when, where, and how much to work, which, according
to Oludayo et al. (2018), encourages more concentration and higher-quality work. This flexibility could
be advantageous in circumstances like a long journey to work, sick children, or a bad cold. Additionally,
it's possible that this will provide workers a sense of worth and trust within the company. Flexibility may,
however, result in a lack of unity among workers, which could foster a hostile work environment for
those who believe they put in more hours than others. Employees may begin to question their
coworkers, according to Boyle & Amick (2016), which raises the risk of low productivity. 5

Mental health
WLB has a beneficial impact on mental health, career happiness, and quality of life. Therefore, it may be
claimed that the introduction of a WLB plan would result in improvements in both health and work
productivity. The study by Oludayo et al. highlights four sites: flexible work solutions, leave program,
assistance benefits, and care agreements (2018). Last noted, however, also highlights less formal policies
like encouragement from supervisors and coworkers. Haider et al. (2018) continue this line of inquiry by
coming to the conclusion that increased psychological wellness is strongly correlated with contentment
with coworkers and managers.

Research Design
This study is based on the hypothetical "research onions" model suggested by Saunders, Lewis, and
Thornhill (2009), which is shown in Figure 1. It describes the method utilized for each onion level and
justifies its suitability for this study goal. 6

4
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.848778/full
5
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014920639902500305
6
https://research.com/research/types-of-research-design
 Figure 1: Research Onion

However, while the emphasis of this research is on qualitative approach, it can be further enhanced by
doing quantitative approach. For example, quantifiable metrics can be used to assess the discrepancy
between the actual and expected performances to test the theory that an analysis of how work-life
balance affects employees' wellbeing.

Research Philosophy
The term "research paradigm" describes a set of presumptions and attitudes towards the growth of
knowledge. Through the articulation of ontology, epistemological, and technique, it establishes the
framework for inquiry. Positivist approach, realism, interpretive, and pragmatism are its four main
paradigms. The interpretivist theory is used in this study because it examines how work-life balance
influences employees' happiness as a social phenomenon. The interpretivist school of thought
recognizes the existence of a variety of social reality that are intricately influenced by social settings and
lived emotions.

The positivist approach, which assumes that social reality is global, independent, and granular, is in
direct opposition to this ontological premise. Additionally, interpretivist research values and articulates
social reality from a variety of subjective epistemic views. Perceptions of social phenomena and people
are mostly qualitative and personal. They are ingrained in the social contexts of individuals and are not
amenable to abstraction. Accordingly, given the type and setting of this research, interpretivist
philosophy is appropriate for this research objective. By balancing the participants' various subjective
vantage points and experiences, interpretivist allows the author to obtain a thorough knowledge of the
subject.
Research Approach
The research paradigm outlined in Section 4.1 can be used to infer the two main research
methodologies, reasoning and inductive. Inductive approach accompanies interpretivist, where the
study begins with observing and data gathering with the objective of developing a theory, whereas
deductive approach is typically linked with pragmatism where the research begins with an established
model and collects information to investigate the hypothesis. A deductive approach is therefore suitable
for this descriptive study because it notices a cultural trend and integrates a variety of inferential
methods with the aim of trying to describe, decrypting, and comprehension a social construction issue
concerning the preconceptions of the cross-border worksite different cultures. The author is able to
create a hypothesis that analyzes many facts and subjective views of the phenomena through a sense-
making procedure and go from particular examples to broad abstractions by using the exploratory
approach.

Research Strategy
Research strategy is the choice of the researcher's preferred approach to data collection and
theorization, proposed research resolution, and study aim achievement. Experimentation, poll, test
case, active experimentation, grounded theory, ethnographic, and archive research are seven suggested
main research methods. This research employs grounded theory and is a qualitative study that examines
how work-life balance influences employees' wellbeing. Ground theory offers methodical instructions
for collecting, combining, evaluating, and interpreting qualitative information. It also identifies new
connections in the material that has been gathered. It is naturally adaptable and aids in developing a
broad theory that investigates and analyzes particular social phenomena that are based on participants'
views. Grounded theory is compatible with the interpretivist ideology and deductive methodology used
in the aforementioned interpretive study.

Research Choice
The employment of straightforward or varied combinations of qualitative and quantitative studies is
referred to as research choices. Three options are presented by the research onion: single technique,
mixed approach, and multiple method. When collecting only quantitative or qualitative data, the mono
technique is favored; when using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in the same study,
the mixed technique is preferred. This research uses a mono approach and primarily employs qualitative
methodologies. The analysis of 127 qualitative papers, 96 of which used the mono technique, conducted
which provides more evidence for its applicability.

Data findings
Data Collection
Data collection and analysis processes and procedures are the subject of research data. The information
can be either main or secondary. The data source, the research approach, the sampling methods, the
morals, and the constraints are all explained in this onion-like layer. Therefore, it is acknowledged as the
primary procedure that considerably adds to the overall relevance and dependability of the research. To
conduct this study, primary qualitative data were used. This is so that we may deliver incisive and
pertinent understanding on the issue, which depends on straight and current data.
In-Depth Structured Interview Technique
Considering its benefits, such as the freedom of presenting concerns and the more thorough data that
can be acquired by utilizing interviewers' communication skills, an interviewing is a better means of
gathering primary qualitative data. For this study, open-ended one-on-one interviews were used. In
Appendix A, a list of questionnaire items is provided. A qualitative study's ability to add context when
appropriate is essential to establishing why a certain phenomenon occurs.

Sampling
To maximize the validity and generalization of the research findings, adequate sample selection for the
interview is essential. All workers' well-being is the research's intended audience. Non-probability
selection is used by the writer. In contrast to randomly selected, the non-probability purposive sampling
relates to the researcher's choice of subjects depending on the researcher's subjective assessment.

Appendix A: Interview Question