Week 9 - Organisations and Life Flashcards
(19 cards)
What is a Definition of “work-life balance” (WLB) ? + reference.
WLB - Concerned with ensuring that “workers can satisfactorily combine paid work with private life”.
(Warhurst et al. 2008).
When did WLB begin to emerge + why? + reference.
Emerged in 1980s - Balancing paid employment and family and other caring responsibilities through ‘work-family reconciliation policies’.
(Gregory 2016).
- Due to significant rise of women entering the workforce.
How is WLB beneficial to workers AND companies?
Beneficial for workers:
- Satisfaction (for a number of reasons).
Beneficial for Companies:
- Retention.
- Improved productivity, moral, etc.
- Skills preservation.
What are some of the assumptions of WLB? + drawbacks/ questions of each assumption + references.
- Work and life are clearly separable entities, there is little overlap or mutual interference.
? - After the working day is over; are you not concerned with work? (Elkhof et al. 2007). - Employers support WLB - firms from Fortune 100 list all support WLB (Hoffman & Cowan 2008).
? - To a degree. - Work is duty, life after work is a reward and freedom.
? - What about domestic labour (day-to-day jobs)? Who does it? Is it fair? - Workers want to and can work less.
? - What about career implications? Can they afford it?
Contradictions of the assumptions of WLB ( - WLB can be achieved, up to the worker, employers support WLB, work is duty) + references?
- Explicit and implicit pressure to work overtime (de Man et al. 2008; Sturges and Guest 2004) - Support from Elon Musk who believes in extreme work ethic - even sleeping at work.
- Strategies of blurring work and non-work time; intrusions into home and ‘free time’ (Fleming 2014; Fleming and Spicer 2004).
- Work intrudes into life through communication technologies (Wajcman 2008; Wajcman and Rose 2011) – expected to answer emails outside of working hours.
What did Sturges and Guest (2004) find when conducting research on the early careers of graduate employees? + overall conclusive quote from Sturges and Guest (2004).
Sturges & Guest (2004) - Research of early career graduate employees.
Key preference of graduate employees = “not living to work” (having a WLB).
However, as working hours (and overtime) increase with tenure, it became more difficult to have a WLB - Does career success mean working long hours + overtime?
“I don’ think there is any realistic chance of the company recognising that some people are working massively long hours. I think it will be a source of frustration to a lot of people” (Sturgess & Guest 2004).
What are some of the issues with trying to achieve a WLB + references?
- Work intensification means longer working hours (Green 2003).
- ‘Time squeezed middle classes’ - many people need to work more to earn a living (Warren 2015).
- Unpredictability, uncertainty, non-standard work, unsocial hours - difficult to plan balance (Bruin & Dupuis 2004).
- Lack of social “coordination” - finding balance between social, work, and private life (Bitman 2016).
What are the difficulties for ‘non-standard workers’ in achieving a WLB + quote from interviewee about difficulty achieving WLB? + reference.
Non-standard workers (part-time, 0-hours, gig work).
- Periods of overwork and underemployment.
- Have to available at employer’s demands.
‘Oh God. My social life and my home life is… like holiday time when all my friends have their time off, that’s when I need to work the most because I need to save the money for the weeks when its quieter, when I have one shift a week or whatever. So it stuffs up my private life and it stuffs up my family life.’
(Interviewee from De Bruin and Dupuis 2004).
What does Jeff Bezos propose rather than Work-Life Balance? + critical perspective on this theory (2 critiques).
Jeff Bezos proposes a ‘Work-Life Harmony’ whereby work and private life ‘energise each other’.
- “If I am happy at work, I come home more energized. If I am happy at home, I come into work more energized.”
Critique: 1 - Critical perspectives would suggest this is still ‘Colonisation of Life’ as work practices are internalised.
2 - Difficulty controlling work-life schedule (0-hours, gig, agency work) and work is more stressful for some people.
- Complete opposite to Elon Musk - Extreme work ethic.
What is Colonisation of Life + reference?
Colonisation of Life
- Employees internalise work practices and private life become ‘work-like’ - ‘extra organisational sphere of human communication and sense-making’.
E.g. INTERNAL PRESSURE
to maximise efficiency and productivity in private life (planning sleep and relaxation to maximise efficiency at work).
- Spreads through resources such as lifestyle magazines, self-help books.
(Hancock & Tyler 2004).
What is ‘Encroachment’ of Life compared to ‘Colonisation’.
Encroachment blurs the boundary between work and private life but not as far as private life becoming ‘work-like’.
E.g. Receiving and replying to email outside of work hours.
- EXTERNAL pressure and expectation to reply to emails or other work tasks outside of working hours.
What is the idea of Biocracy and examples within the workplace? + reference.
Biocracy = ‘Instrumentalization of life attributes that were previously considered exogenous, irrelevant or detrimental to formal organisational productivity’ by company management (Fleming 2014).
Organisational practices increasingly incorporate “life” into work process.
E.g.
1. Work-hard, have fun culture.
- Gym facilities and entertainment facilities.
(Fleming 2014).
What are the implications of Biocracy? + reference.
- ‘The idea of biocracy alerts us to the possible extension of organisational regulation rather than its repose’ - This means rather than a reduction in organisational regulation and a growth of WLB, organisations are instead making work-lives more involved with private life (providing entertainment, gyms, promoting work-hard and have fun culture - things that would have been separate from work-life).
- The danger of work “consuming” our lives - life away from the office can become difficult to enjoy.
What is the Social Reproduction perspective of Life and Organisations? + key theorists’ quote?
Social Reproduction Perspective:
- Our lives are constituted in relations to work in the first place.
- Exploration of “reproduction” of life in relation to relations of production.
Grounded in Marxism - “The conditions of production are at the same time the conditions of reproduction” (Marx 1990).
What is Reproduction in terms of organisational studies? + reference.
Reproduction = All the things we do to reproduce ourselves as humans, and to reproduce our labour power (Fraser 2016).
- E.g. Giving birth, raising children, housing, eating, clothing, education, etc.
How does Work (production) require Life (reproduction)? + reference.
- Production requires Reproduction - ‘Without biological reproduction, there would be no workers’ (Skeggs 2014).
- Does ‘private’ or ‘domestic’ life actually exist in isolation of imperatives of production.
- What we consider to be ‘private’ or ‘domestic’ life is influenced by relations of production.
What does Glucksman (2006) say about Reproduction of Production?
‘Personal’ or ‘domestic’ or ‘family life’ in industrial society has always been influenced by demands of production (Glucksman 2006).
Domestic work is still predominantly performed by women (Glucksman 2006; Skeggs 2014).
What does Skeggs (2016) suggest about a ‘Crisis of Care’ with Neoliberal Capitalism? + other reference.
- In Neoliberal Capitalism = Reduction of welfare arrangements (provided by Gov. such as free childcare) + recruitment of women into the workforce increased.
Therefore, greater pressure on families to either:
1. Work “Double-Shift” (work and childcare) (Hochschild 1989).
- Pay for childcare as reduction in Gov. funded childcare and therefore childcare has been commodified by the private sector.
Overall Conclusion Point for Exam.
- WLB achievable?
- Difficulties in achieving WLB?
- Blurred lines of work and private life?
The idea of Work/Life Balance relies on “work” and “life” as separate.
- However many things we do in our private life still serve the goals of production (e.g. colonisation of work beliefs into private life).
Difficult to achieve depending on type of employment (part-time, gig, etc.) and balancing with domestic labour (childcare, house work, etc.).
Furthermore, expectations that more work = more success is pushed by many influential figures such as Elon Musk. Some people don’t want work-life balance (happy with work and life as one).
Overall, “balance” is very difficult to achieve for many workers in different job types, with different responsibilities, etc.
