Assessing The Relationship Between Work Life Balance And Employee Job Satisfaction

Abstract

In the field organization behaviour and human resources, job satisfaction is regarded as among the utmost research critical issues. An absence of job satisfaction can lead to poor motivation, absenteeism, stress and also high employee turnover. Employees who are not satisfied with their job would eventually leave the organization, reduce in productivity and eventually cause loses to the employer. A well balance between family and job will escalate job satisfaction thus decrease the organization cost and improving employee’s performance. This study aims at identifying the association between work-life balance practices and employee job satisfaction. A total of 150 questionnaires were distributed among factory and manufacturing workers in Pahang. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The finding shown significant association between work life balance and job satisfaction among factory and manufacturing employee worker. The study contributes to study related human resource management as well as practitioner.

Keywords: Job Satisfactionwork-life balancemanufacturing

Introduction

Employee’s job satisfaction is defined as the tendency of workers liking their current working and position. The fact that whether their respond is positive or negative are based on their working environment and company attitudes (Saeed & Farooqi, 2014). It is also defined as any combination of psychological and environment circumstance which direct a person honestly expressing their satisfaction (Hoppock, 1935). It also as an orientation of emotions that employee possess toward role they are performing at the workplace. Job satisfaction also could contribute to the organization in increasing employee’s commitment and motivation (Vroom, 1964). Majority of the employees choose career opportunities, learning and development as the main reason to stay in an organization and subsequently contribute toward job satisfaction (Wayman, 2010).

On the contrary, employees will not feel satisfied when working condition is uncomfortable, unsafe and lack of cooperation from colleagues. An absence of job satisfaction can lead to poor motivation, absenteeism, stress and also high employee turnover (Erez, 2010).

A productivity of organization can increase and enhance when worker is satisfied and have a positive attitude and a satisfied worker also can bring a high value of work. In order to become a good and progressive organization, the employer is supposed to measure employee satisfaction index and if necessary, exercise possible corrective measures to address employees’ grievances.

Lazar et al. (2010) defined work life balance as the eminence association between remunerated work and unpaid duties and this is essential to sustain in this competitive business world. In addition, Carlson et al. (2009) characterized work life balance as an achievement of life related needs that are organized and common between an individual and their activity fittings in the work and family regions.

A well balance between family and job will induce satisfaction, thus decreasing organization expenses and improving performance of employee (Gruneberg, 1979; Herzberg et al. 1978; Judge et al., 2001; Schultz, 1973; Spector, 1997). The work life balance also has association on employee assertiveness, manners, wellbeing as well as efficient in work (Eby et al., 2005).

As a progressive country, every organization must ensure the company well-being is well taken care off since it is contributed to increase in the economy index. The measurement on how rapid or how well the country growth will be based on the industry growth. It will also induce national and international investor to invest their money and make all investment worth their money (Hayes, 2015). Manufacturing industry has a great opportunity to be the key factor of economic growth index of the country. There has been a well-built plan to enhance economic growth that has been proven for hundreds of years to creating a high class and quality as expected to increase the national power and also will increase the national wealth percentage (Kossek & Thompson, 2016). The development in manufacturing sector had brought rapid changes in environment and also arise various issues and problems for employees in manufacturing sector.

Problem Statement

The Malaysia workforce went through a great change because of globalization and recession in worldwide. The highly competitive market today has made the company undergo strong competition between other industry selling similar product and service. Hence, to remain competitive in the industry, the company will minimize company expenses, exercise retrenchment and increased employee workload (O'Connell et al., 2010).

Additionally, Mijiyawa (2015) found that, employee in factory or manufacturing sector particularly an administrative staff and middle management are facing a lot of responsibility. Mokthsim and Salleh (2014) contended that some of the staff needs to work overtime due to shortage of employees and some manufacturing company do not want to hire more employees in order to reduce the company expenses and to save cost. This will give negative impact to the staff as the heavy workload will make them unable to balance between the work and their personal life. Consequently, employees will feel unsatisfied, reduce motivation to work, poor individual and company performance and eventually reduce the productivity of the company. The other negative impacts are decrease of morale on their job and life. Some of them encounter family issue and time management issue. The increase of employee workload will also cause anxiety and stress (Wayman, 2010; Zareen et al., 2013).

Research Questions

Is there any association between work-life balance and employee job satisfaction?

Conceptual Framework

Figure 01 shows the framework of the study where the work life balance and employee job satisfaction served as an independent and dependent variable respectively.

See Full Size >

Purpose of the Study

This paper aim at ascertaining the relationship between independent variable (work-life balance) and dependent variable (employees’ job satisfaction) in factory and manufacturing companies in Pahang.

Research Methods

The questionnaires were distributed to manufacturing workers in Pahang. According to Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Pahang (PKNP) there about 25 factories especially in Kuantan and Gebeng area. They were chosen because they are said to be personally experience with occupational and daily life stressor. This study employed non-probability sampling technique is where element do not have any probabilities attached to their chosen as sample subject (Sekaran & Bougie, 2003). The selection among factory worker and the administrative staffs participating on the study will be based on their willingness to participate. A total of 200 questionnaires was disseminated to respondents but only 150 questionnaires are usable making the respond rate of 75%.

Findings

As shown in Table 01 , demographic profile shows that 40.7 percent of respondents were male and 59.3 percent of respondents were female. Most of the respondents involved aged between 18 and 29 years and 58.7 percent of them were married and only 41.3 percent of the respondents being single. For working experience, 30.7 percent of them have less than 2 years’ working experience, 29.3 percent have 2 – 5 years’ experience, 13.3 percent have 6 – 10 years’ experience and 26.7 percent have 10 years and above experience. In terms of total monthly salary, only 0.7 percent has an income of more than RM5000 per month while the majority has an income between RM1100 and RM2999 per month.

Table 02 demonstrated the reliability analysis where the value of 0.866 is an indication that the questions are reliable. Cronbach’s alpha is a degree of internal regularity to recognize how firmly related an arrangement of things is a gathering (Cronbach, 1951). In Cronbach’s alpha, the nearest Cronbach’s to 1.0, the higher the consistency of dependability.

Table 03 illustrated on the correlation analyse. It was found that employee who has a balance between their work and personal life will resulted to job satisfaction.

Conclusion

From the finding, it can be concluded that the correlation analysis of the variable has a significant association between all variables. The hypothesis therefore was accepted. Similar finding can be found in previous research by Lu et al. (2011) and Thomas and Gangster (1995). Previous research also show work life balance will give effect on employee satisfaction among worker. Employee also have been struggling with work-life balance issues and the employer is supposed to have specific policies practice aimed in creating an environment conducive to archive work-life balance among employees (Balouch & Hassan, 2014). Employee today is expecting their organization to support them in managing their work and personal life and help them in reducing employees’ stress (Kanwar et al., 2009).

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