2013 International Conference on Machine Intelligence and
Research
A Fuzzy Logic Rule Based Forecasting Model: Work-
life Balance in IT among Software vs. Services
Industry on the view of Women Software Engineer
Shanthi Rajagopalan
Computer Science and Engineering
SCSVMV University
Enathur, Kanchipuram, India
Rsphd2013@outlook.com
Abstract- For any employee to work, flexi place be those
who can function independently and have demonstrated
dependability. Nowadays, the causes of employee
performance problems are attributable to the work
environment, not the employees. The only answer for this
would be "Fix the systems in which our employees work!"
The purpose of this study is to devise a generic fuzz logic
rule based forecasting model specific to employee work-life
balance and its effect on attrition and job dissatisfaction.
This helps to explore the views of women in IT on issues that
pertain to work-life balance among Software vs. Services
industry as process and policy differs from organization to
organization. This paper is focusing on constructing a
generic fuzzy logic rule based forecasting model which will
be used later to evaluate the survey data collected from
Women IT engineers from Software Vs. Services Industry in
Hyderabad..
Fuzzy logic offers noteworthy advantages over other
methods due to its ability to naturally represent qualitative
aspect of work-life balance survey data and apply flexible
inference rules thereby we can analyze the cause and effect
which helps IT organization can establish right policy and
process to deal with it.
Keywords - Organization, Software Engineering, Fuzzy Work
Life balance, Job dissatisfaction, Attrition, IT Professionals,
Retain, Fuzzy Logic
I. INTRODUCTION
Work – Life Balance [13] is a bewildering issue for IT
pioneers, supervisors and has likewise tempted the
consideration of analysts. Conglomerations need to
determine that they are not simply hearten however
command a functional and workable work-life offset
approach, profiting and helping both the conglomeration and
its workers. Conglomerations are not giving genuine chance
978-0-7695-5013-8/13 $31.00 © 2013 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICMIRA.2013.52
Research
and Advancement
Lakshmi Rajamani
Computer Science and Engineering
Osmania University College of Engineering
Hyderabad, India
lakshmiraja@yahoo.com
for representatives work-life parity are opening themselves
up to developing amounts of disappointed and inefficient
workers and thus expanded the weakening rates. Basically,
making a work-life strategy skeleton is not sufficient;
encouraging an organizational society that upholds the
utilization of accessible arrangements is likewise of
incredible significance. Further there is a need for
superintendents and workers much the same to find
adaptable and creative results that boost gainfulness without
impeding workers well – being, their family relationships
and different parts of life.
Software engineering projects [7] involve numerous
programming specialists; Management is demanded to
arrange the exercises and assets included in undertakings.
Productive administration of assets is basic in the execution
of any sort of programming tasks. Programming undertaking
administration is a key part of programming building.
Projects need to be administered on the grounds that expert
programming building is dependably subject to
organizational budget and schedule constraints. The
undertaking supervisor's work is to guarantee that the
programming task meets and conquers these imperatives and
conveying high caliber programming. Great administration
can't ensure venture victory. In any case, terrible
administration more often than not brings about task
inadequacy: the programming may be conveyed late, require
more than basically assessed, or neglect to meet the needs of
clients.
The success criteria for project management obviously
vary from project to project but, for most projects, important
goals are:
1. Deliver the software to the client at the concurred time.
2. Keep overall costs within budget.
3. Deliver software that meets the client’s desire.
4. Maintain a happy and well-functioning development
team with proper work-life balance to reduce the
attrition rate
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 Risk and individuals administration is the two vital
occupations for a task director. Hazard administration
includes reckoning dangers that may influence the activity
docket or the nature of the programming being created, then
after that initiating movement to stay away from these
dangers incorporating wearing down due to work-life
equalization.
Risk administration: Project directors need to evaluate the
dangers that may influence a venture, screen these dangers,
and initiate movement when issues roll out.
People administration: Project chiefs are answerable for
operating a group of individuals. They need to pick
individuals for their group and create routes of working that
accelerate successful group execution and determine the
group is having legitimate work-life parity.
We can think about a risk as one thing that we might like
to not have happen. Risks could be the project, the software
package that's being developed, or the organization. There
are, therefore, 3 connected classes of risk:
1. Project risks: Risks that affect the project schedule
or resources. An example of a project risk is the
loss of an experienced designer because of work-life
balance. Finding a replacement designer with
appropriate skills and experience may take a long
time and, consequently, the software design will
take longer to complete.
2. Product Risks: Risks that influence the quality or
execution of the programming being created. An
illustration of an item danger is the disappointment
of a bought segment to execute obviously. This may
influence the general execution of the framework
with the goal that it is slower than envisioned.
3. Business Risks: Risks that influence the
conglomeration advancing or getting the
programming. For instance, a contender presenting
another item is a business danger. The presentation
of an intense item may imply that the surmises
made about offers of existing programming items
may be unduly ideal.
If an experienced programmer leaves a project because of
work-life balance then this can be a project risk because,
even if they are immediately replaced, the schedule will be
affected. It inevitably takes time for a new project member to
understand the work that has been done, so they cannot be
immediately productive. Consequently, the delivery of the
system may be delayed. The loss of a team member can also
be a product risk because a replacement may not be as
experienced and so could make programming errors. Finally,
it can be a business risk because that programmer’s
experience may be crucial in winning new contracts
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Software applications of 10,000 function points (unit of
measure of the business functionality an information system
provides) cost around $2000 per function point from the start
of the requirements until delivery with the assumption of
experienced programmer in a project and daily scheduled
hours as 10 hours instead of regular hours 8 which is not
possible to accommodate by Women software engineers as
they have family responsibilities provided if they are married.
However, this is varying from organization to Organization
(Software vs. Services).
In case of an experienced programmer quits from the
project/organization because overtime more than 8 hours
which is impacting work-life balance which in turn having
impact to the project and the project will not be finished
within the estimated schedule, time and cost as onboarding a
new resource and ramp them up within a stipulated time
requires time and cost.
Though different methodology and software engineering
process (function point estimation, extreme programming) in
place, work-life balance is one of the project risk which
leads to increasing the attrition rate and it is still prevailing
in IT industry. This still requires continuous monitoring and
proactive steps to mitigate the risk as work-life balance is
one of the factors for attrition and it may vary from time to
time and organization to organization such as Software vs.
Services.
This article focuses on devising a generic fuzzy logic
rule based model for forecasting to study work-life balance
in IT on the view of Women IT engineer. There are 2 factors
which we are going to use in our study to devise Fuzzy logic
rule based forecasting model to study the work-life balance
and its effect on attrition as the attrition rate is varying from
year on year as well as the policy and process of work-life
balance varies from Software vs. Services IT industry
specific to women engineers. For an instance, flexi
arrangement might have been implemented in Software
companies but utilization of such benefit may not 2% as
deciding authority is Manager and moreover India is a
country where in people used to work in front of managers
otherwise effort will not be recognized. These cultural
differences are also playing a vital role. Below are the
factors to construct a fuzzy model.
x Work-life balance satisfaction among employees
from Software Vs. Services
x Longevity of stay Software Vs. Services
The present invention leverages the above mentioned 2
factors and devise generic Fuzzy logic rule based model to
forecast the employee satisfaction in terms of work-life
balance and its effect on attrition.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses
about literature review. Section 3 discusses about designing
Fuzzy logic rule to forecast employee satisfaction in terms of
work-life balance and turn over intention. Some specific
conclusions are summarized in Section 4.
 II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Deepak D Rangreji [8] led "A Study On Emotional
Intelligence And Work Life Balance Of Employees In The
Information Technology Industry In Bangalore, India" as a
feature of his MPhil (Computer Science paper) from Christ
University submitted on 2010 and the outcomes of restricted
ANOVA uncover that work identified variables meddling
with individual life and chance in position with the use of
work life parity is more for men than ladies IT workers.
There is a wrong observation that work – life parity systems
is implied just for ladies and not for men. Workers utilizing
such projects are seen as less conferred to their work and
conglomeration. Life comes to be all the more
comprehension and dynamite just when, both men and ladies
impart family obligations similarly. The point when an
individual revels in a sound particular life and when his
individual life is loaded with bliss and delight and free from
clashes, representatives will be in an improved position to
amass in their expert life. They can perform better, their
gainfulness and nature of work will enhance and they will be
more reliable to their conglomerations. Thus it is suggested
that bosses and conglomerations should not debilitate
representatives from utilizing the work – life equalization
projects. Conglomerations may as well urge representatives
to make utilization of the accessible work – life offset
projects and evacuate the fear that utilization of work – life
equalization systems will have a negative effect on a
representative's profession.
Joanna Hughes, Nikos Bozionelos [9], has led a study on
work-life equalize as a wellspring of work disappointment
and withdrawal demeanor against Bus industry. The
discoveries obviously showed that work-life parity issues
were of major concern to transport drivers. Besides, the
issues brought on by the failure to equalize work and non-
work life were recognized by the transport drivers as the
fundamental drivers of work disappointment, work turnover
and non-attendance in their occupation. Different
wellsprings of disappointment and withdrawal conducts,
incorporating medicine by the administration and pay,
developed as a great deal less genuine issues for these
drivers than work-life awkwardness.
Judy De Villiers and Elize Kotze [12] led a study on
Work-Life Balance: A Study in the Petroleum Industry and
their Findings are that the Dilemma Of work-life parity is
not simple to amend. Not just is it a single thought that
fluctuates as time passes and scenarios, it is altogether
affected by complex working environment issues, for
example administering change, supervisory aptitudes,
authority and organizational qualities.
Previous studies specific of work-life balance [8], [9] [12]
and [16] did not cover some of the following factors rather
research gaps against Women in IT specific to Software vs.
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Services Industry. Below are the options which are part of
work-life balance and there is no automated way of
forecasting employee satisfaction specific to work life
balance and their impact to attrition.
x Diversity
x Schedule compression
x Wellness policy
x Teleworking
x Childcare
x Financial planning
x Concierge services
x Software vs. Services Industry specific to Women
However, out study is going to construct a Fuzzy model to
predict employee satisfaction specific to work life balance
and their impact to attrition on the view of Women in IT
(Software vs. Services). In this paper, generic Fuzzy model is
going to be constructed which will be leveraged once data
survey is conducted with IT professionals and then evaluate
how this model helps in terms of forecasting.
III. BUILDING FUZZY LOGIC RULE BASED
FORECASTING MODEL
Representatives [10] have an expanded worry about
adjusting their work and particular lives (Grant-Vallone &
Donaldson, 2001) and even this definitely varies from
Software vs. Services IT industry. This is the after effect of a
world of work portrayed by change and expanded request on
time, vigor and work responsibility (Burk, 2000). Besides,
the concern is not restricted to a particular aggregation of
workers and the exploration studies has indicated that
representatives crosswise over distinctive organizational
levels and with diverse family structure are concerned with
accomplishing an improved equalize between work and life.
Problem Statement:
Attrition rates portray [3] the rate at which representatives
leave an organization. High weakening rates are an issue in
numerous commercial ventures, particularly in the IT
business. Representative turnover does not dependably give
a complete picture of an organization's status, and the case is
not greatly improved the situation when distinctive
organizations utilization diverse computations and recipes to
figure out steady loss. Major IT companies won’t reveal the
attrition rates to public as it is confidential and private data;
private data will not be shared with public as it will impact
the status of the company among other IT companies.
However, forecasting attrition rates using fuzzy method
would be beneficial to IT organizations for data analysis
purpose and standardize the process of forecasting depends
on various factors. In this paper, we are going to form a
generic Fuzzy Logic Rule based Model for Forecasting
based on work life balance and its impact to attrition and job
dissatisfaction.
Model Design
Forecasting [1] is the process of building statements
about events whose actual conclusions (typically) have not
yet been perceived. A common place example might be
estimation of some variable of interest at some specified
future date. Forecasting is a similar, but more general term.
The expressions "forecast" and "forecasting" are now and
again held for evaluations of qualities at certain particular
future times, while the expression "forecast" is utilized for
additional general gauges, for example the amount of times
surges will happen in excess of a long period. Hazard and
questionable matter are key to determining and expectation;
it is ordinarily recognized great practice to show the level of
doubt joining to conjectures. In any case, the information
must be exceptional in place for the estimate to be as precise
as would be prudent.
Fuzzy logic offers important advantages over other
methods due to its ability to naturally represent qualitative
aspect of work-life balance survey data and apply flexible
inference rules thereby we can analyze the cause and effect
which helps IT organization can establish right policy and
process to deal with it.
At Tata Consultancy Services [5] (TCS), 12.2% of the
workforce stop in FY12, lower from 14.4% a year prior.
While at It major Wipro, steady loss dunked to 17.6% in
FY12 (22.3% in FY11). Steady loss at second-bar Infosys
Ltd tumbled to 14.7 (17% in the past year) and at HCL
Technologies to 15% from 17%. Hexaware Technologies,
which accompanies a timetable year, saw 11% of its workers
putting in papers contrasted with 16.4% a year back. In the
event that we take a gander at the example, there is no
unwavering methodology to say if the wearing down rate is
normal, high or Low according to the It business gauges.
When developing a Fuzzy Logic Based Forecasting
model for Work life Balance and its impact to attrition, one
must first classify the factors that strongly influence job
dissatisfaction and attrition. Unfortunately, it is extremely
difficult, if not impossible, to accurately identify appropriate
quality factors. Furthermore, the degree of influence is
imprecise in nature. That is, although exact and discrete
metric data are used, inference rules used in drawing
conclusions may be fuzzy in nature. Suppose, for example,
that Human resource team reported an attrition rate 45%,
whereas typical attrition rate ranges from 3% to 17%. We
can argue that such attrition rate significantly exceeds the
reported average from IT industry, and experts will most
likely agree unanimously with the conclusion. However,
such assessment is fuzzy because the term “significantly”
cannot be objectively quantified. Moreover, if a HR team
reports attrition rate of 14%, experts are likely to differ in
their opinions as to whether or not the Attrition rate
exceeded the industrial norm and by how much it exceeded.
In other words, decision boundary is not well defined.
Due to its natural ability to model imprecise and fuzzy
aspect of data and rules, fuzzy logic is an attractive
alternative in situations where approximate reasoning is
called for. A prototype system can also be developed based
solely on domain knowledge without relying on extensive
training data. Furthermore, performance of the system can be
gradually tuned as more data become available
We selected (a) and (b) as the primary factor to design
Fuzzy Logic Rule Based Forecasting model.
x Work-life balance satisfaction among employees
from Software Vs. Services
x Longevity of stay Software Vs. Services
Suppose the data set [4] under investigation consists of
four dimensional data where the first two coordinates from
the input, and the third and 4th one is the output. The goal is
to design a classifier capable of forecasting the output given
new 2 dimensional inputs. So we have two input variables
and two output variable. We have to know the ranges for
both input and output.
Our task [4] is to generate a set of fuzzy rules from the
training input-output pairs and use these fuzzy rules to model
the system as per our need. We continue in the following
method. First, we divide the input and output spaces into
several fuzzy subsets and assign linguistic terms to them. Let
us assume that the domains of input variables: one and two
are divided into 3 regions and are assigned the following
linguistic terms: Low, Average, high. The domain of the
output variable, out is divided into 3 regions with linguistic
terms Low, Average and High assigned to them. Following,
we consign to each region a fuzzy membership function.
Different shapes of membership functions are possible, but
we use triangular shapes with height 1 at the center of the
region and 10% overlap between neighboring sets. The next
step is to generate fuzzy rules using the linguistic terms
assigned in the previous step.
Fuzzy Logic started [6] as the study of language in
arguments and persuasion, and it can be used to judge the
correctness of a chain of reasoning in a mathematical proof
for instance. The goal of the theory is to reduce principles of
reasoning to a code. The ’truth’ or ’falsity’ assigned to a
proposition is its truth-value. A suggestion in fuzzy logic
may be true or false, or an intermediate truth-value such as
maybe true. A form of knowledge representation suitable for
notions that cannot be defined precisely, but which depend
upon their contexts. Fuzzy logic provides an alternative way
to represent linguistic and subjective attributes of the real
world in computing.
We identified 2 factors to construct a Fuzzy Logic Rule
based model and the weightage of both factors are given
below. For convenience, we shall here restrict the possible
Truth-values are in effect to restricting a discrete the domain
{0, 0.5, and 1} for Low logic, Average/Moderate or rather
high, three-valued and true. In doing, so we are in effect
restricting the theory to multi-valued logic, or rather three
valued logic to be specific.
In training, one would subdivide the unit interval into
finer divisions, or work with a continuous truth-domain.

244
However, much of what follows is valid even in a specify conclusions drawn from assertions known or assumed
continuous domain as we shall see. to be true. One such rule of inference is modus ponens. It is
often presented in the form of an argument:

In words: If 1) P is known to be true 2) We assume

that P=> Q is true then 3) Q Must be true. Restricting for a
moment to two valued logic, we see from the truth table for
implication.
If we look at the above table, there is a factor called P => Q
“longevity of stay” which will be used for forecasting along
with other related factor “work life balance satisfaction”. As
there factors are mutually related and contributing for job
dissatisfaction and leading to turnover intention. Here, we
used the linguistic variables (High, Average/moderate, and
Low). High represents the impact is high (negative impact)
in terms of Work-life balance as well as longevity of stay

Whenever P ⇒ Q and P are true then thus is Q; by P true

we have a tendency to reflect solely the second row, going Q
true because the solely possibility. In such Associate in
nursing argument, the assertions on top of the road are the
premises, and therefore the assertion below the road the
conclusion. Notice the premises are assumed to be true, we
have a tendency to don't seem to be considering all potential
truth mixtures as we have a tendency to have done once
proving tautologies. Here is that the reasoning fuzzy rule
Below is the Fuzzy Logic Rule Based Model
used for coming up with the model for forecasting.
constructed based on the factor the factor (C1) and (C2) and
their corresponding cause and effect also represented. 1) If longevity is (0-1) years and WB is very bad then
most likely attrition will be High and job
dissatisfaction also will be high
2) If longevity is (1-3) years and WB is very bad then
most likely attrition will be high as Job
dissatisfaction is high because of Work life balance
3) If longevity is >3 years and WB is very bad then most
likely attrition will be High as job dissatisfaction will
be High due to bad work life balance
4) If longevity is (0-1) years and WB is very Good then
attrition most likely will be Average as job
dissatisfaction will be low due to WLB is very good
5) If longevity (1-3) years and WB is average then
This model can be leveraged once the survey data is
attrition most likely will be average and job
collected from Software vs. Service IT industry specific to
Work life balance and their impact to job dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction will Average
attrition specific to Women Software Engineer. Based on the 6) If longevity is >3 years and WB is Average then
data, we can find out the % of people falling under different
attrition most likely very low and Job dissatisfaction
rules and based on the weightage IT organization has to take
necessary steps to mitigate the risks in terms of work life would be average
balance and their impact to Job dissatisfaction and attrition. 7) If longevity is > 3 years and WB is Very good then

Inference Logic [6] provides principles of reasoning, attrition most likely Low and Job dissatisfaction will
by means of inference, the drawing of conclusions from be low
assertions. The verb ’to infer’ means to conclude from
evidence, deduce, or to have as a logical consequence (do not
confuse ’inference’ with ’interference’). Rules of inference

245
8) If longevity is (1-3) years and WB is very good then
attrition will be most likely average and job
dissatisfaction will be low
9) If longevity is (0-1) year and WB is average then
attrition most likely will be average and job
dissatisfaction will be average
Once the survey data is passed to this model, whoever is
falling under the Fuzzy Sets of Rule 1, Rule 2 and Rule 3
those people are the potential candidates may leave the
organization because of Work life Balance. IT organizations
have to focus on remediating those issues by bringing in new
strategies to address and retain potential talented women IT
software engineers.
Below scatter diagram represents the fuzzy sets of (E1,
E2) for the cause factor (C1, C2).
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this research work, we have constructed a
generic Fuzzy Logic Rule Based Forecasting Model to
forecast the employee satisfaction specific to work life
balance and their impact to Job dissatisfaction and attrition
as well. The resulting solution is linguistically inferred as a
set of possible rule bases.
As a next step, the author is working on leveraging
this model to substitute the survey data once collected from
“Women software engineers from both Software and
Services IT Industry situated in Hyderabad on the view of
Work-life Balance” to compare the pattern of data in terms
of similarity or issues among software vs. services industry
specific to work life balance issue and their potential impact
to job dissatisfaction and attrition.
246
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