Abstract
Abstract: This paper aimed to evaluate the wellness programs adopted by the South African Public Service to ascertain their efficacy at addressing work-family challenges and aiding employees to achieve work-life balance. Understanding the effectiveness of wellness programmes as work-life balance strategies is necessary especially when the cost of implementing such strategies is considered exorbitant. Many institutions have put in place work-life balance strategies, but discrepancies concerning definitions, formulation and implementation could make it impossible for them to fully reduce work-family challenges and assist employees in achieving the envisaged work-life balance. A sequential transformative mixed-methods study design was adopted. Data was collected using self-report questionnaire administered to 307 individual managers. Additionally, 11 top management members were interviewed. The major findings are as follows; (a) significant relationship exists between the wellness programmes and work-life balance strategies (b) wellness programmes qualified to be addressed only as life strategies because they did not address work challenges faced by employees. (c) work-life balance strategies predicted only 7.1% of the variations in wellness programmes in the South African Public Service. The peculiarity and value of this article lies in the discovery that work and life balance strategies adopted by organisations may not address employee work and life challenges and assist them in achieving work-life balance. Summarily, wellness programmes are not work-life balance strategies, and the South African Public Service should endeavour to adopt strategies that could assist employees in balancing work and family needs.Keywords: Wellness Programmes, Work-Life Balance Strategies, Work-family challenges, Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs)
Highlights
Contemporary organisations face the growing need to increase efficiency in product and service delivery globally
A factor analysis method was engaged in classifying the work-life balance strategies (WLBS) while descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analysing the extent to which WLBS contributed to the wellness programmes
To establish the strategies that made up the wellness programmes, 10 different WLBS were described in the survey instrument
Summary
Contemporary organisations face the growing need to increase efficiency in product and service delivery globally. Organisations must attract and retain the benefits of international, diverse and very technologically sound and high performing employees Where these quality of employees are available, it is reported that they struggle to achieve balance between work and family challenges (Newaz & Zaman, 2012). Work-life balance (WLB) could be viewed as the simultaneous satisfaction that an individual employee has about his/her work and family situations; achieved through the use of work-life balance strategies (WLBS) implemented at a workplace. In this context, employment may no longer be satisfactory to an employee because it pays more or provides job security and prospects for rapid growth in the organisation.
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