International Journal of Human Resource

Management and Research (IJHRMR)

ISSN (P): 2249-6874; ISSN (E): 2249-7986
Vol. 9, Issue 2, Apr 2019, 53-58
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK-LIFE BALANCE

AND JOB PERFORMANCE OF EMPLOYEES

A. SHAMIM BANU1 & G. SUNDHARAVADIVEL2

1
Research Scholar, Department of Adult& Continuing Education, School of Social Sciences,
University of Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
2
Professor, Department of Adult& Continuing Education, School of Social Sciences,
University of Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
ABSTRACT

Work-life balance is an emerging contemporary issue that everyone is struggling to achieve between the work
sphere and the family sphere. Despite its importance, private organizations employ several work-life balance, promoting
practices to enhance the employee job performance as well as organizational performance. However, there are lacunas
in empirical studies undertaken in private organizations regarding the relationship between work-life balance and job
performance. This study was conducted in order to fulfil these empirical knowledge gaps. Hence, the objective of this
study is to test the relationship between work-life balance and job performance. In order to achieve the objectives,

Original Article
primary data were collected from 100 employees of selected private companies in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and the
structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data. The data were analysed by using univariate and bivariate
analyses. The findings of the study revealed that work-life balance has a positive and significant relationship with job
performance in overall. The current study is considered to be vital in understanding the empirical knowledge regarding
the relationship between work-life balance and job performance.

KEYWORDS: Employee, Job Performance, Work-Life Balance & Relationship

Received: Jan 11, 2019; Accepted: Feb 01, 2019; Published: Feb 13, 2019; Paper Id.: IJHRMRAPR20196

INTRODUCTION

In the current competitive business world, organizations paying a great attention on improving the
organizational sustainability to gain the competitive advantage. Fundamentally, sustainability deals with three
types of performance dimensions such as economic (financial), social and environmental performance, which are
necessary for the environment as well as organizations (Elkington, 1997). In an organizational context, employees
are viewed as the significant actors in determining the sustainability of the organization (Jabbour et al. 2010;
Jabbour& Santos 2008a; Jabbour& Santos 2008b; Brio, Fernandez &Junquera2007.

Hence, organizations increasingly required to focus on human resource management (HRM) to enhance
the organizational sustainability. Because, achieving organizational sustainability becomes unrealistic without the
employee participation and commitment. Hence, recent days, organizations continuously focus on implementing
the several high performance HR practices and strategies to improve the employee job performance, such as
training, performance appraisal, compensation, career development, team working and etc. Among the HRM
practices, improving work-life balance considered as the one of the major high performance HRM practices which
highly contribute to enhance the employee performance (Hyde et al. 2013). According to Cieriet al. (2002) work-

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54 A. Shamim Banu & G. Sundharavadivel

life balance is the maintenance of a balance between responsibilities at work and at home. In this context, several
researchers argued that, improving work-life balance of employee, highly contributes to improve the employee’s
satisfaction, commitment and engagement (Allen & Armstrong 2006; Konrad & Mangel 2000; Peetz et al. 2003.

Further, improving work-life balance also contributes to reduce the absenteeism and turnover of employees.
Work-life balance is about creating and maintaining supportive and healthy work environments, which will enable
employees to have balance between work and personal responsibilities and thus strengthen employee loyalty and
productivity. For example, empirical findings indicate that employees who feel good and experience limited stress at work
and at home are more likely to feel satisfied with their work (Wright & Cropanzano, 2000), to be committed to the
organization (Mathieu &Zajac 1990), and to engage in supportive behaviours toward the organization (Rosen et al. 2010).
Recent days, employee’s serious concern about their work-life balance before accepting the job offer beyond the salary and
other fringe benefits.

However, there is only little research that has been focused on the relationship between work-life balance and job
performance. But there is a gap in the empirical knowledge in the relationship between work-life balance and job
performance of private sector employees. Achieving work-life balance in the fast pace of working systems and creating a
balance between professional and personal life is a challenge for an individual (Sivatte et al. 2015). Considering above
evidences, the researcher of this study would like to conduct a research in order to fulfil the empirical knowledge gaps in
connection with the relationship between work-life balance and job performance. Hence, the objective of this study is to
explore the relationship between work-life balance and employee job performance among the private sector employees in
Chennai.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Organizations should focus on improving the organizational performance to gain the competitive advantage.
People factor plays an energetic role in improving and sustaining the organization’s performance. In this context, Arulrajah
and Opatha, (2012) argued that an organization’s performance directly depends on the individuals it employs. Because,
employees of the organization are considered as the major stakeholders in determining the performance of the organization.
Hence, organizations are increasingly required to focus on improving the job performance of employees to enhance the
organization performance. Given the present situation the organizations have to find out ways and techniques to improve
the job performance of employees. In this sense, many researchers have generally agreed on the important role of work-life
in improving the job performance of employee (Naithani 2010; Gomez et al. 2010; Kim 2014; Karatepe 2013).

Further, Naithani (2010) stated that work-life balance of an individual employee when viewed collectively for the
total workforce of an organization results into a colossal impact on the qualitative and quantitative organizational
performance. Several researchers revealed that work-life balance in the workplace has become a more important issue as it
tends to exhibit positive results such as low turnover, work engagement, organizational citizenship behaviour, in-role
performance, increased employee productivity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment (Konrad & Mangel 2000;
Lambert 2000; Nawab& Iqbal 2013; Wang &Walumbwa 2007) which turns lead to enhance the job performance of the
employee. Hence, organizations should give more priority to enhance the work-life balance of employees to enrich the
employee job performance. Wheatly (2012) indicate that, work-life balance of employees providing the win-win outcomes
from both employers and employees. Further, Grady et al. (2008) argued that, work-life balance is vital for individual’s
wellbeing, organizations performance and a functioning society. In addition to that, Naithani (2010) has stated that the

Impact Factor (JCC): 7.2092 NAAS Rating: 3.38

A Relationship between Work-Life Balance and Job Performance of Employees 55

organization which neglects issues related to employee work-life balance will end up with lower employee productivity
and in turn will find it more difficult to improve the employee job performance.

According to the above literature, this review establishes that work-life has a positive relationship with job
performance. Therefore, this review proposes a hypothesis:

Figure 1

Hypothesis: There is a positive relationship between work-life balance and job performance, hence, based on the
review, this paper proposes a conceptual model that shows the relationship between work life balance and job performance

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The empirical data for the current study were collected from selected private sectors in Chennai district. The total
sample for the study was 100 employees of selected private organizations in Chennai to conduct this research by using a
disproportionate stratified sampling method, because to assure representation of employees belonging to different grades in
the organisation. This study depends on primary data. The data of this study were collected from the respondents through
structured questionnaire. The questionnaire contained questions relating to work-life balance and job performance.

The researchers used an instrument adapted from past review works of Banu and Duraipandiyan (2014). This
instrument can be used to measure work-life balance in an organization that consists of eleven question items in five Point
Likert-scales. This instrument had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89 which is higher than 0.70. Hence, this instrument had a good
reliability. To measure the job performance, fourteen question items were used from past research works of Koopmans et
al. (2011). The instrument had a good degree of reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87.

RESULT OF THE STUDY

Profile of the Respondents in the Survey

• The gender distribution of the respondents is 57.2 percent males and 42.8 percent females

• In terms of a job position of the respondents, 12.7 % of them were managers, 15.7 % of them were assistant
managers, 33.1 % of them were executives, and 10.8 % of them were trainees.

• The results revealed that the respondents are young, with 49.4 percent between 18 and 28 years.

• In terms of educational background of the respondents, 75.9% of them were post graduates, 21.3% of them were
graduates and 2.8% of them were diploma holders.

• In terms of the civil status of the respondents, 54.2 of them were single and 42.8 were married.

• The results also revealed that 34.9 percent respondents have the work experience below 5 years, 41.6 percent of
the respondents have work experience between 6 and 10 years and 23.5 percent of the respondents have the
experience above 11 years.

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56 A. Shamim Banu & G. Sundharavadivel

Correlation Analysis

Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the variables (Jahangir & Begum, 2008).
According to Sekaran (2000), the correlation coefficient value (r) range from 0.10 to 0.29 is considered weak, from 0.30 to
0.49 is considered medium and from 0.50 to 1.0 is considered strong. However, according to Field (2005), correlation
coefficient should not go beyond 0.8 to avoid multi-collinearity. The correlation matrix shows that multi-collinearity does
not threaten the validity of the data. Table 1 presents the correlations and descriptive statistics for all variables tested in the
study.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix

Variables Means SD 1
1. Work life balance 3.77 0.78 0.608
2. Job performance 4.15 0.75
2-tailed correlation is significant
N= 100
at the 0.01 level

The descriptive statistics of the study suggest that there are high levels of work-life balance exist among the
organization's employees. The results also imply that the job performance of employees is in high level with mean scores
from 3.77 to 4.15 of 5. Correlation analysis explained that work-life balance has a strong positive correlation with job
performance.

DISCUSSIONS

The results of the analyses indicate that a significant and positive relationship exists between work-life balance
and job performance. This result provides a support to the hypothesis of the study. The results of the current study suggest
that, organizations need to enhance the work-life balance of the employees to improve their job performance. Work-life
balance plays a vital role in determining the job performance of employees by enhancing their job satisfaction,
commitment, engagement, organizational citizenship behaviour and productivity.

In addition to that work-life balance considered as the crucial element to reduce the work related stress of
employee which in turns lead to improve the job performance of the employee. In general, organizations implement the
effective work-life balance promoting practices such as telecommuting, job sharing, flexi time, part time work, shift work,
employee assistance programs, on-site child care facility, leave programs, and compressed work weeks to improve the job
performance. Beyond that, organizations should focus more on creating, identifying, implementing the effective work-life
balance promoting practices to improve and sustaining the employee as well as organization performance.

Further, Thevanes and Arulrajah (2017) argued that, work-life balance promoting practices contributes to enhance
the organizational sustainability by improving the economic, social and environmental performance of the organization. In
this regard, recently organizations start up to recruit and select appropriate people who are closest to the workplace or
organization to eliminate the work-life conflict of employees. For the employees who work in the home town, the work-life
conflict is much less than the others whose work site is far away from home (Thevanes & Arulrajah, 2017). Further, an
employee can work around the clock to improve the productivity. Most of the employees who work in the out stations
usually feel homesick and don’t show any interest in their works. Hence, this suggested that organizations take necessary
steps to up-lift the work-life balance of employees in order t o improve job performance of employees. This finding
consistent with previous studies which suggested work-life balance contributes to enhance the job performance (Kim 2014;

Impact Factor (JCC): 7.2092 NAAS Rating: 3.38

A Relationship between Work-Life Balance and Job Performance of Employees 57

Aslam 2015; Naithani 2010; Gomez et al. 2010; Cegarra-Leiva, Sánchez-Vidal &Cegarra-Navarro 2012).

CONCLUSIONS

Collecting empirical data from private organizations in Chennai, one of the rapidly developing economics in the
world, researcher tests the relationship between work-life balance and job performance. According to the empirical
findings from this study, work-life balance, as an important element of HRM, does influence employee’s performance.
Other conditions being equal, the better the work-life balance in a given firm, leads to improve the job performance of
employees. This study is important because the Tamil Nadu has, in recent years, adopted a range of work-life policies.
Empirical findings should help practitioners to understand the how their employees work-life balance influences on job
performance.

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3. Brauchli, R, Bauer, GF, &Hämmig, O 2011, „Relationship between time-based work-life conflict and burnout: A cross-
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4. Osa, I. G., & Amos, I. O. (2014). The impact of organizational commitment on employees productivity: a case study of Nigeria
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