WORK LIFE BALANCE &

STRESS MANAGEMENT
In Human Resource Management
PROJECT REPORT

SUKANTA DAS
BBA(H)
24705011039

WORKLIFE BALANCE: INTRODUCTION

A comfortable state of equilibrium achieved between an employee's

primary priorities of their employment position and their private lifestyle.
Most psychologists would agree that the demands of an
employee's career should not overwhelm the individual's ability to enjoy a
satisfying personal life outside of the business environment.
Work-life balance is simply about finding the right balance between your
work and your life, about feeling comfortable with both work and family
commitments. Its about controlling when, where and how someone works.

Worklife balance is a concept including proper prioritizing between

"work" (career and ambition) and "lifestyle" (health, pleasure, leisure,
family and spiritual development/meditation). Related, though broader,
terms include "lifestyle calm balance" and "lifestyle choices"

People who aren't able to create a work-life balance can

suffer from stress, burnout, and physical ailments like heart
disease.

Importance of worklife balance:

As a professional have you ever

wondered if you are achieving a healthy work-life balance in your
organization. Tell-tale signs of poor work-life balance include high stress,
overtime, absence and staff turnover.
With the passage of time the relevance of work-life balance becomes very
important when family responsibilities increase, and care for children or
other dependents becomes a priority.
Balancing home life and work enables you to meet several of your basic
human needs. Lets face it, working fewer hours frees up time to focus on
other things such as your community, your health, your family, your
hobbies and so on. So, it may be timely to assess your work-life balance.

Growing Importance of Work-Life Balance:

The advancements in the way people access information,
communicate with one another, and complete tasks have allowed for
flexibility in the workplace but have also created a lack of distinction
between work and family.
If a person doesn't have a time to relax and recharge, their
ability to do their job decreases and their performance level suffers.
An employee that spends time with friends and family can
return to work refreshed and ready to do their job.

HOW TO BALANCE WORK / LIFE?

The Bank and private sector also now a

day offers a range of flexible working arrangements to help staff
achieve work/life balance. If you are thinking about work/life
balance then you might want to consider if the following options
would suit your circumstances and your job. Check your
eligibility and discuss the option with your colleagues.

Parental leave
Parental leave is a right for parents to take time
off work to look after a young child or make arrangements for the
childs welfare. Parents can use it to spend more time with children
and strike a better balance between their work and family
commitments. This right is also open to staff who adopt children.
Staff member is eligible only after one years continuous service in
the Bank.
Staff can take from one to six months of leave all at once or
month-by-month after having a child and up until the childs 5th
birthday, or within five years of adoption.
Prior approval by hierarchy is required.
Parental leave is a right and cannot be refused but may be
postponed by up to six months in agreement with the directorate.

 Staffs receive half their salary for the first month and a fixed
allocation for subsequent months.

Part-time work
For staff who would like to work part-time,
priorities other than work can assume more importance. Part-time
workers reduce their working week for various reasons including
attending to family (children and the elderly); pursuing personal
hobbies; voluntary work; studying; and many others. Staff wishing to
work part-time may benefit from this policy if their directorate gives
its approval, or they may apply for a part-time vacant post.
May work 20 or 30 hours on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
basis.
Need approval by hierarchy.
Authorisation to work part-time must be requested at least every
two years.

Staff may take leave for the serious illness or

incapacity of immediate family on the provision of a
medical certificate.
Family Leave

Immediate family defined as spouse, registered

non-marital partner, parent or child.

Every staff member has a right to Family Leave, which cannot

be refused or postponed.
Eligible after one years continuous service in the Bank.

 Duration: minimum of one month and a total of nine months

over the entire career of the staff member. Must be taken in
blocks of at least one month. Must be taken on a full-time
basis.

Teleworking
Individual staff members may be
authorized to carry out part of their activities from home on a
regular basis over time. Either the staff member or the Bank may
propose teleworking, and it can be accepted or refused by the
other party. Staff members do not have an automatic right to
telework.
Staff may work from home for a maximum of 2 days per
week
Need prior approval by hierarchy.

Unpaid leave
The Bank recognises that staff may at some
point wish to take a break from their career to address other
priorities. The authorisation may be for personal or professional
reasons. Staff remain bound by the EIBs Staff Regulations (see
Article 31) throughout their leave and must obtain the prior
permission of the Bank if they wish to take up professional
activities during their leave.

The staff member is eligible after at least three years

continuous service in the Bank (maternity leave, parental leave
and family leave count as continuous Bank service).

Duration: one month minimum and three years maximum,

beginning on 1st of the month, an extension may be requested
in writing at least three months before the end date.

Unpaid Leave is not a right, consultation with the directorate

is required. The Director of HR is responsible for authorising or
refusing Unpaid Leave requests.

Reintegration into staff members post for leave of six

months or less.

Time off to care for sick children

In the case of a sick child and on
presentation of a medical certificate staff may take time off to look
after the child. Time off is also authorised if a staff member is
called by the crche or school to fetch a sick child. The first day of
the certified period is credited in full and the rest of the time 50%.

Flexi-time
Staff may take up to a maximum of 4
half days a month (which can be taken any day during the working
week without being able to use 2 half days on the same day)
providing the normal functioning of work is assured.

How to maintain a Work Life Balance:

1. Choose the correct line of work:-

Your profile of work holds the most important

spotlight when it comes to maintaining the balance. If the work
that you do is what you love, making that balance is a way easier
job. Choose to do what interests you, triggers you intellectually
and where at the end of the day you come back and say "Though
it was exhausting, I made it through the day and am satisfied at
the end of the day". Every work comes with its set of difficulties,
deadlines and usual confusion. If you love what you do even all
these negativity will seem positive aspects of the bigger picture

2. Draw a line between professional and personal life:This is a very important thing that we either tend to
overlook or stretch. There is a very famous saying "Stretch the elastic only till the
extent the elasticity doesn't get lost". We realize that we have failed in this aspect
when either we have failed marriages or children whom we gave birth to but
emotionally are not ours. This tip requires cooperation from both the employee and
the employer's side. Maintain the demarcation and don't overlap. When it is work
time, work like crazy, but don't compromise on family time. Remember name,
money, fame and job are all temporary. The only thing constant in all these phases
is family and friends. If they get the time, love and attention you have lived a
content life. And for the employers, it is important that they respect this balance that
their employee tries to maintain

3. Keep a work diary:This gives you space to write down any concerns
related to work before you return home. At the end of each day at
work write down what went and what didn't go so well; any
concerns you have for the future. Any ideas you have.

4. Leave the rat race:You never came on this Earth to be a rat

anyways! There is a very thin line of difference between passion
and greed. The passion to learn more and be the best is different
from working like dogs to get the next promotion or a raise. If
there is passion and fire in what you do, your family will also
respect. If it is greed of money, power and position you will lose
them somewhere down the race and the rat will be left alone soon.
So be passionate but not greedy.

5. Have the proper mindset:Its all about the perspective. Sometimes just
a small change in the way you view things can make host of a
difference. Set your priorities in order. Aim for contentment rather
than filling the bank with mindless currency. Go for planned
holidays, give a gift to your wife/husband, go for a football game
with kids and at the same time put your heart and soul in work
during office hours.

6. Look at life beyond professional achievements:You strive for professional success where you
dedicate yourself to the job and at the end of the year your list of
achievements gives you a promotion or a hike. Have a list of
personal goals and keep striving to achieve them. Personal
competency with respect to your family and personal
enhancement is as important as professional competency. Keep
your loved ones as happy as you try to keep your boss.

7. Personal Experiences:All the personal experiences with the passage of

time lead us to improve ones living standard where we need to
setup every time our work / life balance, while nature already set it
up even from the beginning of life on this earth.

8. What Nature tells us?

As sun rises, the entire living creature on this earth
opens the eyes, take a deep breath and get ready for the survival.
At the evening time, sun try to cover its face behind the mountain
is sets a notion for the entire living creature, go back to your
home, that day ends. In the night time birds, animals, even plants
and stones (vibrating energy exits as life in them, according to

quantum physics) takes rest and go for restore their energies,

health by taking deep pause of conscious realm.

9. Human Living Style:A human (a social animal) on other hand, wonders

day and night for his/her ambition and enjoyment but not care
about the natural ways of living. Here persons need a work/life
balance which builds a system of prioritization for to parallel their
life pattern with nature.

10. Organized Time-Frame:When we organize work time-frame, we

need to take care about sort of work and capacity to do it, whereas
for life time-chart we have to care about all the aspects in our
personal lives. It will be different for singles, whereas it will be
different for the couples, similarly it will be further divided on age

parameters. If we will not manage a balanced time frame, its a

possibility to avoid spouse to talk at reaching at home, to ignore
children and sometimes couldnt control over attitude in
business/work meetings.

11. Importance of Work-Life Balance:To enjoy excellent health, a stress free

wealth and pleasant living all along our lives, we must care about
the importance of our work-life balance. If youre single your time
schedule will be different then a married one, so, you may spend
much time with your work but under the limits of your working
capacity. In the young age people have much energy then old age
to do a task, and people are supposed to do a lot due to less
family responsibilities. Sometimes, due to overwork one can adopt
an aggressive attitude which needs to be neutralized by personal
and leisure activities.

12. Time-management for Newlywed as well as couples:In similar manner, the couples and newlywed
people cant follow the time-schedule defined for the singles; they

have to organize their time according to their living. A spouse

mean equal partner of your personal life and definitely you have to
give a proper time to your mate, so the time management should
be accordingly. For the families with children work-life time
balance will different than single or newlywed peoples.

Matching customer and business needs:-

Organisations are under constant

pressure to produce goods and services, of the right quality and
the right price, as and when customers want them. This pressure
can often mean that new ways of working have to be found to
make the best use of staff and other resources. Flexible patterns of
work can help you to address these pressures by maximising the
available labour and improving customer service. Flexible working
can also help you to reduce absenteeism and increase
productivity, employee commitment and loyalty.

Need for work-life balance and flexible working:

The hours and times people work have always been

subject to change but the pace of this change is now
more rapid than ever because:
Customers expect to have goods and services
available outside traditional working hours
Organisations want to match their business needs
with the way their employees work
Individuals want to achieve a better balance
between work and home life.

THE EVOLVING NEEDS OF INDIAN WORKERS:The structure of Indian society has

changed significantly over the last half century. In 1968, 48 percent
of children were raised in households where the father worked fulltime, the mother was not in the labour force, and the parents were
married; by 2008, only 20 percent of children lived in such
households. The result: children are increasingly raised in households
in which all parents work in the labour market (for single-parent
households, this means that the one parent works; for two-parent
households, both parents work). For example, as shown in Figure
bellow, in 1968, 25 percent of children lived in households in which
all parents were working full-time; 40 years later, that percentage
had nearly doubled.

Flexibility in the Scheduling of Hours: One of the most important sources

of flexibility is the ability of workers to have some control over
when they work. Examples include flexibility in when a worker
arrives at or leaves work, the scheduling of breaks and
overtime, and compressed workweeks (such as when one works
more hours four days a week and a partial day one day a week).
As shown in Figure 2, below, data from the National Study of
Employers suggest that in 2007, 79 percent of employers
allowed at least some workers to periodically change their
starting and quitting times, within some range of hours. Fewer
employers (32 percent) allowed at least some workers to change
starting and quitting times on a daily basis.

 Flexible working: Introduction

There are many different forms of flexible working.
Flexible working can describe the place we work such as home
working or the kind of contract we are on such as a temporary
contract. Common kinds of flexible working include part-time
working, flexitime, and job sharing and shift-working.

What are the different kinds of flexible working?

A- Advantage
DDisadvantage

Stress : Introduction

Worklife balance is related to stress because

when one is not enjoying the work that he/she is in or is unable to strike
a balance between professional and personal life, the resultant output is
stress, depression, dissatisfaction, anger etc. Stress being the most
important one. So, what is Stress? Stress is response to a danger and
here danger means the inability or incapability of a person to strike a
balance between work and normal life and like already mentioned above
inability to strike a balance between personal and professional life. Below
we would like to have a brief look on the various sources, types, effects,
causes of stress and how to manage it.

SOURCES OF STRESS : We can experience stress from four basic sources:

1. The Environment - the environment can bombard you

with intense and competing demands to adjust. Examples of
environmental stressors include weather, noise, crowding,
pollution, traffic, unsafe and substandard housing, and crime.
2. Social Stressors - we can experience multiple stressors
arising from the demands of the different social roles we occupy,
such as parent, spouse, caregiver, and employee. Some examples
of social stressors include deadlines, financial problems, job
interviews, presentations, disagreements, demands for your time
and attention, loss of a loved one, divorce, and co-parenting.
3. Physiological - Situations and circumstances affecting
our body can be experienced as physiological stressors. Examples
of physiological stressors include rapid growth of adolescence,
menopause, illness, aging, giving birth, accidents, lack of exercise,
poor nutrition, and sleep disturbances.
4. Thoughts - Your brain interprets and perceives situations
as stressful, difficult, painful, or pleasant. Some situations in life

are stress provoking, but it is our thoughts that determine whether

they are a problem for us.

Types of Stress:Situations that are considered stress provoking

are known as stressors. Stress is not always a bad thing. Stress
is simply the body's response to changes that create taxing
demands. Many professionals suggest that there is a difference
between what we perceive as positive stress, and distress,
which refers to negative stress. In daily life, we often use the
term "stress" to describe negative situations. This leads many
people to believe that all stress is bad for you, which is not true.
Positive stress has the following characteristics:

Motivates, focuses energy

Is short-term
Is perceived as within our coping abilities
Feels exciting
Improves performance

In contrast, Negative stress has the following characteristics:

Causes anxiety or concern

Can be short or long-term
Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities
Feels unpleasant
Decreases performance
Can lead to mental and physical problems

 Effects of Stress:Stress is difficult for professionals to define because

it is a highly subjective phenomenon that differs for each of us. Things
that are distressful for some individuals can be pleasure for others. We
also respond to stress differently. Some people blush, some eat more
while others grow pale or eat less. There are numerous physical as well

as emotional responses as illustrated by the following list of common

signs and symptoms of stress.

Some Common Signs and Symptoms of Stress :

Frequent headaches, jaw clenching or pain

Gritting, grinding teeth
Stuttering or stammering
Tremors, trembling of lips, hands
Neck ache, back pain, muscle spasms
Light headedness, faintness, dizziness
Ringing in the ears
Frequent blushing, sweating
Dry mouth, problems swallowing
Cold or sweaty hands, feet
Frequent colds, infections
Rashes, itching, hives, "goose bumps"
Unexplained or frequent allergy attacks
Heartburn, stomach pain, nausea
Excess anxiety, worry, guilt, nervousness
Increased anger, frustration, hostility
Depression, frequent or intense mood swings
Increased or decreased appetite
Insomnia, nightmares, disturbing dreams
Difficulty concentrating, racing thoughts
Trouble learning new information
Forgetfulness, disorganization, confusion
Difficulty in making decisions

Problems with communication

Social withdrawal or isolation
Constant tiredness, weakness, fatigue
Frequent use of over-the-counter drugs
Weight gain or loss without diet
Increased smoking, alcohol, or drug use
Excessive gambling or impulse buying

What causes Stress?

Stressors are anything that cause or increase stress.
Below are a few examples:
1.

Academics - by far the biggest stressor for college students:

the pressure of not failing.

2.

Dating - relationship problems may add to the

pressure/stress of academics.
3.

Environment - certain environments can bring about stress

such as discussing/viewing heated topics, slow moving traffic,

trying to find a parking spot, etc.
4.

Extracurricular - some students may feel pressured to make

extracurricular activities a part of their daily routine to the point

where every hour of the day is accounted for.
5.

Peers - peer pressure is a major stressor, especially pressure

that is negatively influenced.

6.

Time Management - one of the biggest stressors is not

knowing how to plan and execute daily activities such as class,

work, study time, extracurricular activities, and time alone.

7.

Money - some student find themselves thinking more about

money than they do anything else. Money is a huge stressor that

college students face.

How does it affect you?

Stress may cause you to have physiological,
behavioral or even psychological effects.
Physiological - hormone release triggers your fight or
flight response. These hormones help you to either fight harder or
run faster. They increase heart rate, blood pressure, and sweating.
Stress has been tied to heart disease. Because of the increase in
heart rate and blood pressure, prolonged stress increases the
tension that is put on the arteries. It also affects your immune
system which is why cold and flu illness usually show up during
exams.

Behavioral - it may cause you to be jumpy, excitable,

or even irritable. The effects of stress may cause some people to
drink or smoke heavily, neglect exercise or proper nutrition, or
overuse either the television or the computer.

Psychological - the response to stress may decrease

your ability to work or interact effectively with other people, and
be less able to make good decisions. Stress has also been known

to play a part in anxiety and depression .

Dealing with the past:Stress is often about the problems we face day to day.
But some people's problems have a lot to do with what happened in
the past
For example...
Someone who was hit as a child might find themselves stuck in violent
relationships as an adult
Children who were sexually abused might have problems trusting
people when they grow up
Someone who was bullied at school might be bullied at work
sometimes it's obvious how bad experiences in the past can make life
difficult right now. But that connection isn't always easy for us to see
ourselves.

Managing Stress:In many situations, stressors are inevitable. You

can't avoid that job interview, and you can't prevent the loss of a
loved one that has a terminal illness. The following are 10 tips for
managing unavoidable stress. You could experiment with them and
figure out the ones that work best for you.

Plan by visualizing expected events:If you are stressed out because you have
a job interview or because you have to give a presentation, rehearse
it. Visualize it! Take time to run it through your mind over and over. By
doing so, you will familiarize yourself with the subject matter and
improve what you say. Most importantly, you will gain self-confidence.

Think positively:-

When faced with a difficult situation, take time

to put things into perspective. Ask yourself "What does this situation
mean in the grand scheme of things? Is it really such a big problem?"
It may be hard to know the answers to these questions unless you sit
alone in a silent room and go over the situation in your mind.

Imagine potential negative big events:If you might get laid off from work, try to
imagine what you could do about it. If your doctor tells you that you
have cancer, visualize how your life would change. The purpose here
is not to think negative thoughts, but try to have a back-up plan in
case things go differently than you expect.

Relax with deep breathing:This is a normal body reaction to stress: take a

deep breath. By repeatedly inhaling slowly through your nose, holding
the breath for a few seconds, then exhaling through your mouth, you
can counteract the fast, shallow breathing associated with stress.

Relax by clearing your mind:As you take a break in a quiet place, force your mind
to relax by focusing on one peaceful image or thought. You can also
fool your mind by thinking and visualizing your favourite moments,
such as a tranquil Caribbean vacation or fishing in a creek.

Relax your muscles:Stress causes the muscles to become tense. Tightening

and relaxing different muscle groups is one way of relaxing the muscles. As
you practice this exercise, concentrate as you tighten a muscle for few
seconds, then relax slowly and feel the difference.

Relax with stretching and exercising:Stretching the muscles is another normal way for
the body to react to stress. Stretching exercises can be done
anywhere and anytime. If possible, exercising is also a great way
to stretch the muscles while at the same time taking the mind off
the stressor.

 Relax with massage therapy :Stress can cause muscle knots in the
back, hands, and different muscle groups. A massage therapist
can help loosen this tension. Make sure to tell your massage
therapist which massaging strokes make you feel good.

Ask for help:Ask for help in doing things that might

overwhelm you. You will be surprised to find that most people
genuinely like to help out. Remember, chances are that some of
the people around you have had similar problems and might
have found a solution for a particular problem.

Find professional help if needed:Some people are stressed in situations that feel
normal to others, such as walking alone at night, flying, being in
rooms with lots of people, or giving a public speech. Avoiding these
situations may not be possible. In such situations, confronting
these fears and conquering them are good alternatives.
Professional help may be needed to control these stressors.