Work-Life Issues

Employees are considered to be the most important assets of an organization and therefore when it comes to achieving a sustainable competitive advantage , keeping them satisfied is the most important task for the management . In this respect , quality of the working environment is the critical consideration . This is directly related to ensuring that employees are satisfied in contributing to enhancing the strategic focus of the organization . The level of satisfaction is once again related to motivational factors . Unless employees are motivated enough in performing the assigned duties and responsibilities , organizational productivity

as a whole will suffer . For this reason , the management has to invest a considerable level of resources in to ensure that employees are fully satisfied with their working conditions . This investment takes place in the form of human resource management which is the task of the human resource department . The task of human resource managers is to create the kind of organizational culture which creates happiness and wellbeing in employees as they spend their time and efforts in working for their organization

The human resource department has to identify the motivational factors that will create happiness and wellbeing in the employees . In to perform this task effectively , the human resource department has to adopt a long term view because the goals and objectives of performing this task is to create a particular framework of shared values , beliefs and attitudes . This is known as the organizational culture . When the organizational culture is such that employees feel motivated to do something extra for the good of the organization , then the management is assumed to have created a sustainable competitive advantage because competing organizations cannot copy cultural practices overnight . As mentioned before , creating a special kind of organizational culture is a long-term process and therefore , when the cultural characteristics contribute to employee satisfaction , the organization is in the enviable position of competing on a sustainable basis . It is therefore critical for human resource managers to identify what characteristics elicit strategically positive responses from the employees

Employees represent the intellectual capital of an organization and therefore organizations with high rates of turnover invariably lose their competitiveness . So it is of paramount importance for the management of an organization to create working conditions that will enhance retention rates to the maximum extent possible . The definition of the right working conditions depends on the ethical , social and spiritual needs of the employees . Although there is no single definition of what constitutes spirituality , there is widespread agreement on its scope being broader than that of religion . Religious considerations are only certain aspects of what comprise the framework of spirituality at work . In fact , evolving work practices in the West are increasingly pushing religious considerations to the backseat so that organizational issues as framed by modern management tools are gaining in importance However there is also widespread agreement on the needs of employees to experience a sense of spiritualism in performing their duties and responsibilities . Therefore the management has to create the kind of...