Capella University Work Life Balance For All Discussion

Please reply to this discussion post below 

(Chapter 9&10) Nigro, L., Nigro, F., and Kellough, J. (2014). The new public personnel administration. 7th. Independence, Kentucky. Cengage. 

(Chapter 4&5) Sifunda-Evelia, M. (2017). Human resource management practices: A biblical perspective. Singapore: Partridge.

Barbara Jackson 

TuesdayApr 12 at 10:32pm

Manage Discussion Entry

Work-Life Balance For All

Body
Fair and equal treatment is a constant issue that affects several aspects of our daily lives. Equality is often desired but is it truly ever gained in the workforce? With an ever-changing society, those societal changes will eventually bleed over into the workforce. Work-life balance for employees with children and families is often observed and respected due to social norms and laws prohibiting discrimination against those workers. Employees that do not have children are now expressing the need to be respected and afforded the same work-life balance as their counterparts that have families and children. There is a need to address the issues in today’s workforce, it is important in creating a homogenous working environment. According to Nigro & Kellough (2014 ), “building a family-friendly and flexible workplace promises to be ongoing challenges for public and non-public employees, and human resource specialists will be expected to play a major role in organizational efforts to meet this challenge”. (p 271)  These challenges have to be addressed to be relevant in today’s labor market.

Has the workforce become unintentionally biased and discriminatory towards non-family employees? The Bible says in James 5:1-5, “My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

Societal prejudice exists and has unintentionally caused possible emotional drain, work overload, and disenchantment with the job, for non-parent employees who have had to take up the slack for the parent employee. As reported by Flynn (2022), “societal prejudice your workplace prejudice is society is set up to reward members for getting married and having children there are tax breaks for children”. To attack some of the issues of fairness, like work hours’ flexibility, family-friendly benefits, and child care help that’s been put in place for the employees that need it, human resource practitioners have to come up with other motivating rewards for the non-parent employee.  It is important that human resource managers understand that what’s good for all one is not good for all when it comes to benefit packages, policies, and procedures reported by Nigro,& Kellough (2014). Blight, Bendat, Featherson & Fonner (2021), argued that “single and childfree employees have been shown to benefit from several forms of support (e.g., flexible work arrangements, supervisory support)”. (p. 41) Child-free adults are seeking the same privileges and exceptions as family-friendly employees are getting. (Leonard, 2022)  Enacting new programs like the “cafeteria plan” will give all employees the ability to use flextime as needed and the benefit is not one-directional. (McGarvey, 2022)  Another work-family balance issue that is often addressed by employers is on-site childcare benefits. Child care assistance is needed to enhance the work environment for all employees, as reported by Connelly, Degraft & Willis (2004), “employers offering direct child care benefits report positive impacts of child care programs on their workers’ performance, as well as reductions in turnover, absenteeism, and recruitment costs.” (p.760) The climate of the job is the responsibility of management and human resources, and inclusive benefits will be needed in today’s workforce environment. Proverbs 16:11 says,” Honest scales and balances belong to the Lord; all the weights in the bag are of his making”.

Biblical Integration 

This week’s video stated that Jesus loved everyone, no matter his or her situation, upbringing, or need, He just loved. Jesus’ worldview in cooperated all with fairness and nonjudgmental love. Employers and organizations have to be cautious and not produce a workforce environment with unfair practices, policies, or treatment of its staff. Ephesians 4:15-16 says, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”. Working together grows agency and remembering that each person need other to be build

Conclusion

Employee and employer relationships are important and human resource management need to consider that at all times. Effective relationships produce a cohesive workforce environment that all benefit from. According to Sifuna-Evelia (2017), “it is the duty of the employer to ensure healthy industrial relationships ranging from relations and staff welfare discipline management grievance handling process teamwork and equal opportunity to all.” (p. 53) Work-life balance for all employees regardless of the traditional family dynamics, should be respected by the employer, as a result, inclusive policies and procedures should be put in place to address the needs of the organization.