Literature Review Worklife balance is a key challenge facing organizations in the 21st century.

The presence of work life as a concept has its origin in 1980s when mounting pressures between work and family life began to be recognized. Work-life Balance, also referred to as family friendly work arrangements (FFWA), and, in international literature, as alternative work arrangements (AWA). Failing to address problems of imbalance between work and other life aspects has also been identified as resulting in detrimental social and economic consequences (OECD, 2008). Work-life balance, as an inclusive term, has also become a commonly used descriptor amongst academic researchers in the area, being the subject of recent international, multidisciplinary conferences and commonly appearing in the titles of books and journal articles (e.g., Crooker, Smith and Tabak 2002; Glubczynski, Kossek and Lambert 2003; De Bruin and Dupuis 2004; Lambert and Haley-Lock 2004; Dexand Bond 2005). Although work can encompass paid and unpaid labour, most work-family conflict research focuses on paid employment, and family is typically defined as "two or more individuals occupying interdependent roles with the purpose of accomplishing shared goals" (Marlene A. Dixon , Jennifer E. Bruening, 2005) .

Evolutio\ of Work life balance

Sr .No

Year

Study/ Researcher

Work-life concept

Explanation

1985

Greenhaus Beutell

and Workfamily conflict

Conflict occurred when work interfered with

(unidirectional approach)

family

1988

Chow Berheide

and The model

separate-spheres Segregated approach to work and family

1992

Frone

Bi-directional conceptualization WFC of

1999

Barnett

The overlapping spheres Work and family are two model spheres that overlap

considerably.

2002

Werbel & Walter Workfamily facilitation

Work

and

family

are and

interdependent complementary

2006

Greenhaus Powell

and

Extent

to

which

experiences in one role increase performance and Work-Family enrichment positive affect in another role.

(Gutek, 1991)Conducted a study using two separate samples of employed people with families, a systematically selected sample of psychologists and a volunteer sample of managers. The findings indicated that the two types of perceived work family conflict (work interference with family and family interference with work) were clearly separable and relatively independent of each other. The people perceived less family interference with work than work interference with family. Outcomes from workto-family and family-to-work interaction include both positives such as job satisfaction, job performance, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction; and negatives such as conflict, poor health, stress, and job or family exit (T. Alexandra Beauregard , Lesley C. Henry, 2009) further asserted that workfamily conflict can also lead to a lack of advancement, job turnover, and change of occupation. Work family conflict consists of two separate, though related, concepts: work conflict or interference with family, and family conflict or interference with work (Greenhaus, 2006). Work-life conflict has been an integral part of the overall work-life balance literature and several meta-analyses have explored the antecedents and consequences of this construct (Ozeki & Byron, 1999,2005) More business people in India declare that their work-life balance has improved, according to the Regus Work-Life Balance Index. Despite working harder than ever before, people are enjoying their jobs more, and the majority feels that they have enough time to spend at home or on personal pursuits. The Index calibrates job satisfaction indicators and respondents' views on their overall work-life balance with data on real-life practice such as working hours and commuting from a global survey of over 16,000 professionals in more than 80 countries. It registered a 15% rise in Indian work-life balance between 2010 and 2012. Definitions: Work-life balance is defined on the New Zealand Department of Labour work-life balance website as being about effectively managing the juggling act between paid work and the other activities that are important to people. The concept of work-life balance also includes the priority that work takes over family, working long hours, and work intensification. Work intensification, defined by (ell, 2006) as the increasing effort that employees put into the time that they are working or the amount of work done in a day, the pace of work and its depletion of energy for activities outside of work, is also an issue affecting work-life balance.

Public submissions to the Department of Labour (2004a) and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (2002) study identified increased intensification of work, partly due to reduced staffing as a major issue for work-life balance, along with long hours and working non-standard hours. Issues related to Work Life balance:(Supriya, 2010) has contributed in finding the factors which are affected by work life imbalance and there are, Five factors that are considered to contribute to work life balance are assessed. While three of these are work related, two are family related factors. Work based factors are, flex time, option to work part time and freedom to work from home. The family related factors considered in this survey are, availability of child care facility and flexibility to take care of emergencies at home.

Increasing workloads have pressurized employees to demonstrate their commitment to work in more obvious ways (Ishaya,N and R.Ayman, 2008).The internet and mobile phones have made it possible for the organizations to keep in constant touch with the employees both during the day and at night (H, 2003). Family life is also becoming more complex. The extended family, even in India, is slowly disappearing (Patel, 2005). Small nuclear families have come to stay, where both the spouses go to work. In addition, there are an increasing number of single parent households due to increase in divorces (Amato, 2003). Quite often the work intrudes on the family and social life, while at other times family pressures affect the work performance (Fu, 2001) . (Hyman, 2003) Observed that organizational pressures, combined with lack of work centrality, result in work intruding into non-work areas of employees lives. (Fisher,K,and M.Layte, 2002-2003) Consider three distinct sets of measures of worklife balance, viz. proportion of free time, the overlap of work and other dimensions of life, and the time spent with other people. Several reviews have highlighted other issues such as age, gender, life-cycle stage, ethnicity, citizenship, and childcare arrangements which also merit attention (Wallace,Cand C. Cousins.2004, 2004). Key findings are: More than half of workers enjoy work more (80%) and are satisfied with the amount of time they spend at home or on personal pursuits (59%), a vast majority of workers (84%) state that they achieve more at work than in 2010 confirming the connection between a good work-life balance and productivity, and mo re than half (57%) of respondents say that businesses have tried to shorten employee commute times acknowledging the strain a lengthy journey in and out of work can have. A good work-life balance is essential for staff to live a healthy and happy life, but this index breaks new ground in showing that it is also necessary for business growth. This survey finally provides firm

evidence connecting productivity with a better, more flexible lifestyle and sounds a call for all businesses to urgently look at their own working practices.

Madhusudan Thakur, Regional Vice President - South Asia, (2010) Regus comments: "The launch of our new Work-Life balance Index brings the encouraging news that worker in India state that their work-life harmony is improving and confirms reports that Indian businesses are addressing the issue. After a phase of extremely rapid growth and associated stress, it is not surprising that workers report feeling happier now. For example, businesses will now have stabilized and will be better able to plan ahead for additional staff instead of relying on existing teams. The survey also importantly confirms that happier employees are also more productive with a convincing majority of respondents declaring that they are achieving more than in 2010. As the job market becomes more dynamic, businesses wanting to retain and hire top talent cannot afford to ignore the value that a reputation for affording a good worklife balance can bring. In addition to this, businesses have become increasingly results-oriented during the global downturn and are everywhere seen to be opting for less traditional working practices and instead choosing to increase efficiency by giving workers more flexibility. One such measure that is becoming increasingly popular is helping workers to reduce tiring and unproductive commute time through the introduction of more flexible working practices.

(Eby,L.T.Casper,W.J,Lockwood,A,Bordeaux,C&Brinley, 2005) studied the purported link between work-life balance practices and organizational effectiveness. The majority of studies investigated that the outcomes of work-life practices do not measure work-life conflict and thus cannot support this proposed mediated relationship & the work-life balance practices do not necessarily influence levels of employee work-life inconsistency, but instead improve organizational performance via other routes, such as reduced overheads in the case of employees working from home, improved productivity among employees working at their peak hours, or social exchange processes arising from perceptions of organizational support. (Secret M, 2006) concluded that while permitting administrative employees to bring their children to work with satisfactory childcare arrangements, company representatives reported that the work-life balance practices have helped to maintain employee productivity. Whether these measures enable workers to travel out of peak time, to work from locations closer to home or to spend more time with their families there is no doubt that empowering workers to work their way is being

acknowledged as an ever more important factor in promoting productivity and well-being." (Chittaranjan Tembhekar, 2012).

(Eby, 2005)investigated a range of socio-demographic characteristics of samples, including sex, marital status, child characteristics, race, hours worked, education and occupation and found that much relevant information regarding samples is mislaid from descriptions of work-family research, highlighting the difficulty in evaluating whether existing research is likely to generalize to workers who are diverse in terms of family configuration or industry. (Deares, 2008)concluded that family-supportive organization perceptions and reduced Work life Conflict (WLC) are the two key mechanisms that account for the impact of work-life balance practices on employee and organizational outcomes. (Duxbury, 1994) Examined the impact of gender and life cycle stage on three components of work family conflict (i.e. role overload, interference from work to family and interference from family to work). The results indicated significant differences for gender and life cycle. Women reported experiencing significantly greater role overload than men. Again women were found to experience greater work to family interference than men. The similar was concluded by; (Loscocoo, 1997)found that there was gender asymmetry in the permeability of the boundaries between work and family lives. Family intruded more on work among women and work intruded more on family among men. (Aryee, 1999b)found that gender was negatively related to family work conflict, suggesting that men did not experience as much family work conflict as women.

(Adams, 1996) Developed and tested a model of the relationship between work and family. The results suggested that higher levels of family emotional and instrumental support were associated with lower levels of family interfering with work. (Frone, 1997)reported that family related support (spouse & other family members) may reduce family to work conflict by reducing family distress and parental overload. (Mayo, 5th October 2008)focused on the effects of three forms of managerial work demands time spent at work, travel and number of subordinates, on the involvement of both partners in household labour activities. They also tested the interactive effects of two organizational practices, time flexibility and task autonomy, with three forms of managerial workloads, to predict the division of household labour between spouses. It was found that as time demands increased, managers with low time flexibility contributed less than their spouses in household work than managers with high time

flexibility. Further it was also found that as travel demands increased, managers with low task autonomy were less engaged than their spouses in household work than managers with high task autonomy. Thus, it appeared that high control over time and tasks can help achieve a good work family balance among managers.

(Macky.K& Boxall, 2008) reported that employees working longer hours are slightly more likely to report a greater imbalance in the work life relationship. The five high involvement variables (i.e. power to make decision and act autonomously, information provision, rewards, knowledge of the job and team working) were found to be negatively correlated to work life imbalance.

Further, (Crosbie, 2004) studied working from home and work life balance. Data was collected through interviews and focus group discussions. 70% of those who took part were females. All of them carried out paid work at home for 20 hours or more per week. The study concluded that home working was not panacea for modern working life. Personality skills and aspirations should be given careful consideration by those who are thinking of working from home. Those who have tendency to work long hours outside the home might find that home life is even further marginalized by work life.

(Choo, 2001) studied the sources and types of work family conflict among 102 married Singapore women entrepreneurs. The antecedents studied included work hours, work schedule inflexibility, work stressors, number and age of children and family support. The outcomes studied included job satisfaction, life satisfaction and marital satisfaction. Results indicated that number of hours worked, work stressors (role conflict and worries about financial health of business) and work schedule Inflexibility was positively related to work-family conflict. Spouse emotional and attitude support was found to have a significant negative relation with work family conflict. The outcome variables job satisfaction, marital satisfaction and life satisfaction were found to be negatively correlated to workfamily conflict.

A study conducted by (Kalaiselvi Kandampalayam Thulasimani,Muruganandam Duraisamy,Sakthi Suganya Rathinasabapathi , 2010) in a garment unit have listed done certain benefits from his research. The Benefits of work life balance for both organization and individual are: (i) To the organization:

 measured increases in individual productivity, accountability and commitment better team work and communication improved morale (ii) To the individual: more value and balance in daily life better understanding of individuals work increased productivity improved relationship both on and off the job

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