Employee Perception Of Organizational Support Towards Work-Life Balance At The Gulf African Bank (Kenya)

Abstract

The challenge of balancing work and family demands is of concern to individuals and organizations. In recent years, global competition, downsizing, and technology that keep workers constantly connected to work have intensified employees‘ work demands (Cappelli, 1991; Valcour& Hunter, 2005). Organizations now offer family-friendly programs in response to a changing work force (Loysk, 1996). The last few decades have seen rapid and unprecedented changes. Changes in the composition of the workforce, together with a growing population of workers in nontraditional family roles, have focused attention on the conflict employees experience when looking to balance the demands of work and home (Greenhaus &Parasuraman, 1986).The purpose of the study was to examine how employees perceive their organization‘s family-friendly policies as they relate to achieving a positive work-life balance. The study used descriptive research design. The target population was all the employees of Gulf African Bank, who are 820 in total. Stratified random sampling technique was used as it ensured that all the departments were represented. The target population was stratified into the 3 management levels: senior, middle and lower management levels, and non- managerial employees. Random sampling was used within each stratum to reduce bias. The study used primary data that was collected using semi-structured questionnaires. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected in this research. The targeted sample size was 164 participants. Those filled and returned questionnaires were 150 respondents making a response rate of 91.5%The response rate for this study was excellent and therefore enough for data analysis and interpretation. The study showed that respondents‘ organization has family supportive supervisor. The respondents‘ organization gives emotional support to employees and supervisors set example themselves on how to integrate work and family. The study shows those respondents‘ organization offer flexible work arrangements to help employees balance work and family demands. The study further showed that telecommunicating in an organization improves productivity for the organization. The organization allows employees to choose when and for how long they engage in work-related tasks and also allows differing starting and finishing schedules for each day as well as allows for variation of the length of the week worked. The study recommends that organizations should embrace family supportive programs that will allow employees to live their normal lives when not at work. These will in turn increase work productivity. Organizations should not be very strict on work timelines but offer working arrangements based on flexibility and availability of the employee. Flexible working hours offers a competitive advantage to an organization.