Analysing the work-life balance among employees in IT sector

Abstract

Work-Life balance involves prioritizing between work and our personal life. Complexities arise when there is no fixed definition of work-life balance. It differs from person to person irrespective of the type of work they perform. What appears a balance work & life to one may appear as stress to another. There is no scientific theory to prove that one of them is wrong. In fact, both may be right. As people’s life style varies, the concept of work-life balance also varies. Thus it is different for different countries, culture or place. But among a homogeneous set of people, there will be always work-life balance. No person can work all day in his life. He cannot live without work also. Thus emerges studies around work-life balance. Work-life balance policies help employees achieve a balance between their work and personal commitments that is right for them. However, such policy existence is not necessarily sufficient for these policies ‘to work’. It needs to be supported by the workplace culture that reflects the values, beliefs and norms of the whole of the organisation from the CEO to staff members. Our contemplative study involves studying work-life balance among IT sector in India. Information Technology is one of the fastest growing sectors in India and the major factor which influences this growth is the availability of skilled human resource in abundance in the nation. Most of the economic growth in the last decade can be attributed to the rise of IT companies in India. Major IT giants such as Infosys, Wipro, CTS, TCS, etc provide jobs to millions of people in our nation. In recent years, major increase in small IT companies mostly in metros also boosted up employment opportunities in this sector. Though the employees of the Information Technology are given huge monetary benefits, the amount of work extracted from them and the work pressure they face to meet the gruesome deadlines are always a contentious topic to discuss. Overwork also causes low creativity in work, stress-related absenteeism, appalling customer service, poor retention levels and unethical employee behavior. A recent article mentions a statistics which says that divorce is high among Indian techies. Studies have also been conducted with the result that stress level is highest among IT employees in India. One of the other important reasons include that IT companies employ people from all geographical regions with different cultures. So a study about major companies in any region is a good sample of including people from anywhere in India. Thus, we have specifically chosen Indian IT industry to conduct this study about Work-Life balance. Analyzing their working culture and their expectations will give some useful insights in developing and suggesting a better work life balance that the companies might adopt in future.