Work pressure - the root of the problem If you were a traditional employee, the work clearly begins and

ends during the office hours. The new age knowledge work demands stretch of work beyond the normal office hours. Putting forth the normal issues related to work overload, David Posen suggests that external demands from bosses/clients/coworkers, corporate culture, deadlines, internal drive to do more and fear of negative effects like bad performance review demands employees to do more than what is normally expected. The increasing emphases on team work especially in new age industries like IT imply that an employee stays with the team and participate even if his presence is not essential. Interestingly one IT professional noted that though he completed most of his work, the projectleader and other coworkers made sarcastic commentswhen he had to leave for home around 7 in the eveningwhile the official requirement of working was only till 5in the evening. Clearly we should also understand thatthe remaining team members and managers involvedwere spending their time till late night in the office. Mostly professionals blame the external factors likeclient requirements and deadlines for extended officehours. Increasing competition in various sectorsespecially service demands more outputs in lesser time.Essentially it boils down to increased working hours forthe employees. The inability of professionals to say 'NO'while approached for taking up more responsibilitiesalso leads to increased workload. Many perceive thatshowing reluctance to take up responsibilities/ notstaying late in the office may lead to negative impact inperformance appraisal and career progress. Adding tothis, self driven individuals who are highly career orientedor perfectionists spend most of the time worrying aboutwork quality or quantity. When quizzed about regularlong working hours one junior professional replied "Ihave an ambition to work in US within 2 years. And forachieving this, I know I have to put in extra efforts".Another employee jokingly commented "I don't havean A/C or computer in my place of stay and in this hotclimate it is better to be in office during night hours."The trend of spending more time in the office for a validreason or otherwise slowly builds up addiction to workand detachment from normal social life. All thesefactors in total or specifically create the over emphasisof work life in an individuals available time. In a modern work environment, the technologyrelated factors like time spend on responding to emails,bombardment of information and lack of physicalactivity as much of the time is spend on a computerwork station also leads to work pressure

and associatedstress. Poor culture of the organization that is reflected

through internal politics, lack of support, lack of competence of supervisors/senior management and too much time spend on non core activities also lead to lack of time and work stress. Impact of increased work pressure - work-life balance On of the direct impact of the work pressure would be the negative effect on the work-life balance. Work - Life balance is generally understood by experts as the satisfaction and happiness both at home and work life without much conflict between each other. Apart from the home or family factor, research also looks at the time spend on non work activities in general. Clearly the increased work pressure might cause spending less time at home or non work related activities causing personal and social sufferings at those fronts. Research studies have found that most of the new age professionals especially knowledge workers spend more time at work and it directly impacts on the health of individuals and family life. Lesser time is devoted to personal health and leisurely activities. On the family front the time spent with family is also decreasing. The reasons for work-life imbalance apart from the external factor of work pressure may be due to the workaholic behavior or inability to compartmentalize work and non work activities. Individual may build up characteristics that make them not to free themselves from putting more and more at work causing sufferings at other fronts. Apart from this the work life and family life boundary gets blurred as individuals do not stop thinking about work at home. Many bring office issues at home and remain stressed. Sleep and time spent with family members/friends are compromised for spending time on doing extra work. Professionals may take time to finish pending work at home even when the time spent at home is less. The growing influence of technology in life has resulted in fact that people no longer remain disconnected. A week-end or evening after work is not left alone by emails/official communications.

Costs of work-life imbalance The effect of work-life imbalance covers three majorspheres individual, family and the social circle. Clearlythe increasing work load takes it toll on the health of theindividual. Less time is spent on physical exercise andleisurely activities causing health related issues likeobesity, increasing blood pressure and associateddetrimental effects. Lack of sleep due to work stresscan have a negative impact on productivity. Researchhas shown that work-life imbalance can cause lesserjob satisfaction, organizational commitment, andintention to remain. At an individual level the thoughtsof spending less time with family/friends and lack ofinvolvement in family/ social activities can also lead totension and symptoms of withdrawal from work. At thefamily level, the guilt of less time spent with familyrelated issues can add to the work stress. The problemis doubled if both the husband and wife are working.Making compromise usually falls with the woman ofthe house. For example in a family where both thehusband and wife is working in a software firm, the wifenotes"if he was not working in the same industry therewas no way where he could have understood me working15-17 hours. We really don't know how to manage aftera child". Many new age professionals feel that extended workhours is taking a toll on the social network. Lack of timeleads to missing key social functions and leisurely timespent with friends and relatives. One house owner in alocality near to one of the technoparks commented "weprefer to give our houses on rent to softwareprofessional couples. They use the house only forsleeping and the houses will remain just like it is notoccupied".One manager who works with a largemultinational firm says that he works atleast 15 hours aday and Sundays are generally spent sleeping ormaximum an outing with the family. If email and mobilephone does not exist, there was no way to get in touchwith even close friends and relatives. The above shown work life balance quiz wasadministered to two samples. The first sample consistedof a 19-member top management team of a

major ITfirm in Kerala. The results in the chart (Figure 1) clearlyshow that the majority was facing issues with work/lifebalance. 63% of the respondents faced trouble inbalancing work and non-work activities. The study revealed that the work life imbalance at the top management level is in dangerous level. Most of the employees at this level are working here after a long stint in US companies and they bring in with them the culture of overworking due to the demands of the environment. Here also they mainly deal with the US clients and this call for same kind of effort due to strict timelines they have to follow. Once this becomes the rule juniors are also not spared and slowly they will become prey to the culture of overworking. The same quiz was administered to a sample of 59 Homeopathy Medical Officers (HMO). As expected most them had a better work/life balance compared to IT business professionals. However interestingly we found that lady HMOs were having more trouble in managing work/life balance. Out of 42% who showed out of balance (Figure 2), around 95% were women doctors are suffering from acute level of work life imbalance. Cultural factors also play an important role. In Indian society, managing home and children and other home chores are still the duty of women. This puts an extra pressure on women professional like doctors, engineers, architects and other professionals. Managing self Though lot of external factors can contribute to the work-life imbalance, clearly defined work scheduling and ability to compartmentalize work and non work related activities can help an individual. The first thing to do is to become aware of the problem. Then the employee has to take a decision himself what is enough for him in terms of money, success and satisfaction. Then one has to fix boundaries and limits and adopt a pattern that is justifiable based on each ones energy level. The following are broad suggestions based on work-life balance studies and experience of the authors. Avoid bringing work to home - Try to finish job

activities at home itself. Although some aspects of work life would be interesting to share with family or friends, try to avoid discussing core work related issues and brooding over them at home. Try to spend time for physical exercise. Create schedules for work related activities - Take enough time for each activity and reduce postponing of critical activities. Pending work gets the mind preoccupied and tensed. Many feel that left over work can be taken home. Organize the work desk and coordinate with the work related employees. Try to organize emails and other communications It may be helpful if a fixed time of a day is spent on replying to emails and other communication. Take short breaks during work time - This will help us to re charge our batteries. Change completely when at home - Spend more time with family members and discuss more issues related to home and social life. It is important that time is spent on leisurely activities and have a very different family/social life apart from professional concerns.

Role of HR

HR department can play a crucial role in implementing policies and practices that aids reduce work stress and work-life imbalance. Few initiatives that HR can bring forth are listed below. Reduce unnecessary burden of fixed timings at work - If some of the work can be done even at home during office hours, enable the professionals to do so. For example giving flexibility for employees to join teleconferencing from home is a possibility. Implement flexi timings - Focus on the work output rather than the time spent in the office. Reduce bureaucracy - Unnecessary time spent on procedural issues like approvals should be reduced. Allow women employees to work from home especially during pregnancy and immediately after childbirth. Child care facilities - As child birth and child care is seen as a major reason why women quit jobs, providing the best facilities at work can help retain them. Facilitating fun and relaxation - Parties and fun at work place can provide some relief to the professionals. Also leave option for traveling with family and compulsory offs after fixed time of continuous work should be implemented. Providing health facilities at work place - Many large organizations have health club facilities in the work place. However it is important that individuals are encouraged to use them. Provision for taking breaks during work hours. Building a culture of ownership - Getting the work done through constant coercion and bossing should be avoided and discouraged. Providing facilities that aid travel related to work, education of children, relocation related to work etc. Clearly the stress at work and time spent on bureaucratic procedures at work place can be reduced to aid productivity of time crunched professionals.

In conclusion, we note that the issues related to work life imbalance is prone to grow in the Indian scenario. As our businesses try to be more competitive, the pressure on the professionals will keep increasing. It is imperative and high time that we spend enough efforts on understanding how to balance work and non work activities. The search for success without caring for personal health and family happiness may sound doom in the near future. The solution lies with sound planning at individual level and initiatives from the organizations to aid productivity of the new age employees.
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