Unit II Dual-career couples, work life

balance, down-sizing.
 Objectives
• Know about
– Dual-career couples, work life balance, down-sizing.
 Dual-career couples
• are families in which "both heads of household pursue careers
and at the same time maintain a family life together".
 Work–life balance
– is a concept including proper prioritizing between "work"
(career and ambition) and
"lifestyle“(health, pleasure, leisure,family and spiritual
development/meditation)
– “A form of inter role conflict in which the role pressures from the
work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some
respect.
• That is, participation in the work (family) role is made more
difficult by virtue of participation in the family (work) role
(Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 7).
Work-life Balance – Why are we talking about this??
– 60s-70s – WLB was mainly considered an issue for working mothers,
trying to balance the demands of their jobs with raising children

– 80s – Structural changes took place.

– For example, policies and procedures, along with benefits were added/changed to
support WLB. Maternity leave, EAP’s, flextime, etc. Also in the 80s, men began
concerns around their own work-life

– 90s – Really solidified WLB as an issue that was vital for everyone
(men, women, singles, couples, parents, non-parents, etc.)
– Also generational studies began to show how employees were making choices about
their jobs based on cultures of companies and their own work-life issues

– 21st Century – More challenging than ever – work load predicts other
stressors
INDIANA UNIVERSITY 10
 DOWNSIZING
Downsizing is reducing the number of employees on the operating payroll.
Businesses use several techniques in downsizing, including
• providing incentives to take early retirement and transfer to subsidiary companies,
but the most common technique is
• to simply terminate the employment of a certain number of people.
 Downsizing
• refers to the reduction of a company's labour force.
– Instead of firing workers, however, the employer shrinks the
payroll by permanently eliminating positions.
• This approach has gained popularity since the 1980s for
companies looking to cut costs during tough economic
times, or to improve efficiency and performance.
– Some employers may also try cutting employees' hours, or
instituting unpaid vacation days as less devastating
alternatives.
•Why?
– EFFICIENCY
– COST SAVINGS
– INCREASED PROFITS
 HOW TO EFFECT DOWNSIZING?
 What is the net employee requirement for the organization?
• Past, present and future.
 Is it Really Cost Effective?
• The result of downsizing is effective or not i.e. is the downsizing justified in respect
of benefits received.
 Do we have any other alternatives?
• There are various alternatives for downsizing, the organization can adopt any one
of them.
 Is your action going to hurt?
• The ill effects of the decision.
 Whom are you going to hurt and how?
• Employees, the investors as these news are not considered good for the stock
markets and the goodwill.
 HOW TO EFFECT DOWNSIZING?

 Is the Government, the NGOs and the legal environment happy with
your decision?
• This is the compliance side of downsizing, check the various rules,
policies.
 What is your course of action?
• This is related to HR policies, HR communications and the
representation part of the police adopted.
 What do you expect in future?
• The purpose of the policy so adopted.
 The HR POLICIES

 Forecasting the employee requirements

 Equip employees
 Transfers
 Motivate Employees for Intrapreneurship
 Cost saving Strategies
 Reduce the number of working hours
 Shared ownership