Work Life Balance

IN IT INDUSTRY

Pratik Dubey [pratikdubey0@yahoo.com]

What is it?
A satisfactory level of involvement

multiple roles in a persons life the proper prioritizing between "work" (career and ambition) on one hand and "life" (family, pleasure, leisure and spiritual development) on the other. "lifestyle balance" and "life balance It does NOT mean equal balance in units of time between work and life. A balance between work and life is supposed to exist when there is proper functioning at work and Personal Life.

between the

IT Industry
Information Technology Industry is fast growing sector long working hours and work overload are typical of the IT

industry Most of the IT firms have a five-day week After the 2001-02 slumps, companies that downsized, did not always hire more people after business picked up. Being called to work on weekends and 14-hour working days have become synonymous with the sector. IT executives suffer from deep feelings of inferiority owing to factors such as working during nights and not really using their soft skills. The skewed work-life balance affects their health and family life.

IT Industry
When compared to the manufacturing sector, I.T. Industry includes

all knowledge based activities. Both men and women are attracted by this rising sector for the lucrative pay. But this Job requires profound contribution at job environment psychological attachment of mind good physical fitness Pressure to complete the task in time due to cut throat competitions Work for both Indian and foreign companies/clients/projects which need different work climate, timings etc., which leads to work life imbalance in this sector Work life balance of the women employees is really a challenge

Present Scenarios

Solution

Problem

Problems
Overtime
Depression
Work Timing

Frustration
Night Shifts Personal issues

Eyesight Problems Workload

Work-life conflict in IT industry

Project deadlines: variability of workflow
You look at releases going out into the marketplace when we would have people who were working 24 hours at times, wrongly. Similarly in some of the shared service centres, people are closing the books at the end of the month, they might work for 18 hours at a stretch.

Rapid response to client system emergencies

In IT companies [as customers], theyre demanding and expect top notch service and whenever theres a problem theyll ring, say quarter past six.

Work-life conflict in IT industry

Evening and weekend working as part of financial

cycle
People who are leading sales revenue in IT, you essentially have no life for the last month of any quarter and you have absolutely no life for the last six weeks of your financial year.

Ongoing need to maintain relevance of skills:

Conference and seminar attendance Theres definitely pressure because everythings changing so fast, things that I learned in college will pretty much have no relevance any more you know. Theres a pressure to keep -up your skill level

How to Balance Work and Life?

Job Environme nt

Support System

Health Care

Child Care

Work Life Balance

Working Hours

Benefits

Relocation

Solutions?

Innovative Approach by Microsoft

work while you travel to office

IBMs New Mantra: Work from home

The software firm provides three options to work

from home which include flexible scheduling, teleworking and part-time basis. o Flexible scheduling is when an employee has the option of working from home for a few of his business hours on a recurring basis.

IBMs New Mantra: Work from home

Tele-working lets one to choose a schedule of days to

work from home. Part-time is when an employee clocks in only a few hours for work. Cisco (a Networking equipment maker) says employee location is increasingly losing meaning in an interconnected world. It creates an office with email and intranet-enabled smart phones, provides Cisco Virtual Office equipment, laptops and data cards for employees who do not wish to be within the office walls.

A Work-Life Balance Initiative by Infosys

A online Portal : Which give employees a platform to ask questions

and discuss their views with others about their experiences as working parents. The network is designed to provide

parenting counseling demystify work life balance policies

The portal also provides useful information about

schools, day care facilities and doctors etc

A Work-Life Balance Initiative by Infosys

Mr. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor of Infosys

says: The initiative is to ensure that parents amongst Infoscians are in a position to contribute effectively to the growth of Infosys by helping them strike the best balance between work and life. This portal is Launched in India and will soon be expanded to the US, UK and Australia.

A Work-Life Balance Initiative by HCL

"In our company there's diversity based on age,

gender, culture and geographies. It then becomes important to take democracy into account," says Srimathi Shivashankar, associate vice-president, diversity and sustainability, at HCL Tech. Consider the concept of a peer coach to advice on issues ranging from managing angry bosses to tackling family feuds, and employees can approach one anytime.

A Work-Life Balance Initiative by HCL

The company has also outsourced its counseling

process to trained counselors, who are available 24X7 over the phone. Another interesting initiative is the WLB (work-life balance) Chat that is conducted every alternate Friday on the company intranet where anyone can come forward and deliberate on unofficial topics and exchange ideas.

E.g.: What are some of the household activities that women should outsource?

Benefits:
Flexi timings for job hours Rotation in shift timings Free Health Checkup

Benefits
24/7 operations

Young, smart and talented workforce

World-class, state-of-the-art facilities World-class training to learn new skills, new

knowledge and enable high performance Building global careers much faster than most other industries Employee satisfaction

Benefits

Striking the right balance amongst the personal life, professional life and social life is essential

Thank You