“Our Brands have clothed the generation around the world”
The vision statement of Levis is:
“People love our clothes and trust our company.
We will market and distribute the most appealing and widely worn apparel brands.
Our products define quality, style and function.
We will clothe the world”.
The mission statement of Levis is
“We advance the human rights and well being of underserved people touched by our business by taking courageous risks, supporting innovative community partnerships and promoting the practice of good corporate citizenship.”
Diversity & Inclusion at Levis
Levis employs a staff of approximately 10,500 people worldwide, including approximately 1,010 at the San Francisco, California Headquarters.
- 3,920 in North America
- 3,500 in Europe
- 3,200 in Asia Pacific
- 150 in Pakistan
With this data, the company is in the process of developing a comprehensive environmental strategy with clear targets and objectives that it could share with its stakeholders to work toward track and benefit from. Moreover LS&CO. is a consumer-driven apparel company that markets its brands in more than 110 countries around the world. Its consumers include a broad spectrum of ages, lifestyles and cultures. Consumer insight and relevant products and marketing underpin its commercial successes.
To understand and address differing consumer needs, drive innovation and achieve its goals, Levis employs and mentors a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization. The company values and depends on diversity, and respects, embraces and draws upon the varying backgrounds, knowledge, points of view and talents of each other.
As colleagues, the employees at Levis Strauss are committed and accountable to fostering a culture where diversity and inclusion thrive – a work environment that provides every employee with the opportunity to achieve their potential and to participate fully in helping the company build its brands and generate sustained, profitable growth. Currently the company is successfully following the principles of diversity and inclusion. The concept of all people being equal is embedded in the roots of the organization.
ANALYSIS
LITERATURE REVIEW:
Diversity at workplace means that every organization is committed to promoting and building a culture which enables all the employees and partners to achieve their full potential regardless of age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical capabilities. The beauty of having a diverse workplace is that one can have many different types of people all working on the common good for the company. Employees from diverse backgrounds bring different talents and experiences that can foster new ideas, address changing markets and customer demands and add some skills that were not there before so the companies that encourage diversity in the workplace also inspire their employees to perform at their highest ability. Moreover strategies can be devised to have employees work more productively which means a higher return on investment for employers.
However as diversity is a broad topic, therefore, focus of the report will be on one of the key elements of diversity which is work-life balance.
The world of work is changing, both the structure of the labor market and the types of work we do. Employees are the 21st century organization’s greatest asset - accountants are even adding human capital to the balance sheet. Organizations in UK are increasingly aware of the business case for work-life balance. Work life Balance is an important element of Good Work, the interconnection of quality of working life and productive workplace. ‘Work-life balance’ is at the forefront of debates about flexibility and is widely reported in the media as having the potential to transform the world of work, lead to higher productivity and better conditions of work for employees. In response to shifts in the labor market and the changing nature of work, work-life balance is now at the top of the agenda for government and business. While work-life balance traditionally focused on family-friendly workplaces – essentially concerned with enabling mothers to balance work and childcare responsibilities – there is increasing recognition from organizations that work-life balance is about more than families, and are instead helping employees to have access to working arrangements that are compatible with their other responsibilities, lifestyle and, of course, their work.
While work-life balance is an increasingly popular term, there is no clear consensus on what it means, although most definitions do include the concepts of flexibility, juggling and sustainability (Neault, R. 2005). It is most frequently used to describe the equilibrium between responsibilities at work and responsibilities outside paid work. However, there is no one-size-fits-all definition for work-life balance. For some people it means spending more time in paid work and less time at home, while for others it means ensuring that paid work does not encroach on time needed for other responsibilities. A work-life imbalance can have disastrous consequences for the individual in terms of stress, ill health and lack of motivation. The impact of this imbalance at the individual level has been well documented – see Marmot’s work on the detrimental impact on health that a lack of control and autonomy at work has (Marmot, M. 2004) – and many strategies have been suggested to improve the balance.
Balancing both home and work life allows an individual to achieve the best in both situations, but the balance that is right for them may involve much more or much less time at work than for another – and this balance may also change at different times in individuals’ lives. It is also recognized that work-life balance can lead indirectly to productivity gains through increased retention and helps organizations to respond to customer needs more effectively.
In spite of some of the constraining definitions of work-life balance, progress in this area of policy and in organizations has been significant over the last ten years. The ‘right to request’ legislation, which came into effect in 2003, gave parents with children aged under six the right to ask their employers to work flexibly. And this has bedded in well: more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of requests were fully accepted and a further 9 per cent were partly accepted or a compromise reached (). Further evidence that progress is being made comes from the 2004 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey (Bell A and Bryson C, 2005). The survey reports that the number of flexible working options made available by employers in the UK rose from an average of 1.39 in 1998 to 1.99 in 2004.
The overall story on work-life balance is positive. It is increasingly popular and individuals are aware of the options available and are taking these up where possible.
However, there are some worrying variations in availability and take-up. The first of these is gender-related. As outlined above, women are much more likely to have available to them and take up work-life balance policies and while this is not a problem in itself as it supports women to work while they bring up children, the consequences of this variation are more concerning. For example, research by Smithson suggests that the nature of take-up among men and women can contribute to the gender pay gap (Smithson, 2004). Their review of the accountancy profession found that women tend to use flexible working arrangements to cover childcare responsibilities at a time in their careers that damages their prospects of moving to a more senior role in the future. Men, however, tend to make use of flexible working arrangements later in their careers, reducing the detrimental effects.
PRIMARY RESEARCH:
The report presents finding from the survey conducted with the participants from Levis Strauss and Company, UK. The core questions for the research were:
- How is the case for work-life balance currently being made in the private sector?
- What are the existing policies and how are they being promoted?
- How are work-life balance policies being implemented in practice?
- How important is work-life balance to Levis Employees?
- Do all employees report a good work-life balance? What are the barriers and enablers?
- How should the case for work-life balance be made in the future? How can challenges be overcome? How can the management be involved in moving debates and practice forward?
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT:
A questionnaire was developed by the researcher consisting of different questions to gather information over the situation of work life balance at Levis Strauss and Company.
The research was conducted with the help of the questionnaire from the Levis and Strauss employees of UK. Questionnaire is attached along with the report in the Appendix.
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS:
The survey results found that two-thirds of respondents agree that flexible working is good for employers as well as employees, suggesting that there has been a shift away from viewing work-life balance as being all about the individual. Unsurprisingly, employees with caring responsibilities have stronger feelings about home and family being more important than those without.
Interestingly, however, there were no differences in response between men and women. This may reflect the general attitudinal shift that seems to be taking place: caring and family responsibilities are increasingly not being written off as a ‘women’s issue’ and work-life balance as an issue is becoming main stream. These findings are supported by focus groups where participants generally agreed that work-life balance does affect decisions about whether to work for a particular employer or about their future career. The survey findings indicate that employees revealing strength in commitment to the concept of work-life balance as well as strong consensus of opinion and agree that work-life balance has positive outcomes for employers, employees and customers.
The survey also found that, overall employees report high levels of job satisfaction and commitment to the organization they work for that is Levis. Seventy per cent are satisfied or very satisfied with their job and the same percentage share the values of the Levis Strauss.
Over half would speak highly of their organization; this paints a picture of work that is generally good for employees: satisfied, committed employees who feel secure in their jobs. Levels of satisfaction and other indicators about how employees feel about the organization vary by gender, with women being consistently and significantly more positive in their outlook than men. There was a similar trend with hours worked with employees working part time being significantly more satisfied with their job than their full-time counterparts. Most employees felt they had a high degree of control over how and when they manage their work (77 per cent and 71 per cent respectively). Despite this, 66 per cent said their job was stressful compared to just 34 per cent who said their home life was stressful. There are slight gender differences here, with just over a third of women (36 per cent) reporting a stressful home life compared to just over a quarter of men (27 per cent), with women reporting significantly greater lack of time at home than men. This is likely to reflect the continuing traditional role of women as primary homemaker. Focus group discussions gave an added perspective to these findings with employees expressing the view that deadlines at work were immovable, unlike those at home, and therefore it was home life that tended to suffer when the pressure was on. Furthermore, expected standards of behavior at work meant that people felt less able to confront stress while maintaining their professionalism, but could let their guard down at home and sometimes found themselves taking out frustrations on those around them.
Participants were universal in their view about the increasing intensity of work, with the associated issue that work was no longer just nine-to-five, but encroached on evenings and weekends. This in turn had led to participants feeling ‘time squeezed’: trying to juggle paid work, voluntary work and childcare responsibilities had become increasingly difficult. Those working part-time, often because of caring for children, particularly felt under pressure to work more hours or a different pattern of hours than contracted. Having said this, just over half (56 per cent) of participants reported being happy with their current work-life balance, although one in four (26 per cent) reported that work was too demanding. Small numbers of participants (4 per cent) felt that home was too demanding and similarly (4 per cent) that both home and work are too demanding. On the whole, employees felt trusted by their managers to get on with their work, but did not trust these managers as decision-makers. There were no differences in views seen across the different occupational groups, with even 44 per cent of managers and senior officials feeling that management were unreliable in keeping their promises.
Supporting other research, the survey found that flexible working is the most popular work-life balance initiative, with three-quarters of employers (75 per cent) offering flexible working to some or all staff.
The findings also show that many employees feel they have an appropriate work life balance:
- There is strong support for the concept of work-life balance and an understanding of its potential benefits for employers among employees and branch secretaries
- Three-quarters of employers have implemented work-life balance initiatives with there being a wider availability of options in UNISON workplaces than in general
- Seven out of ten employees are satisfied with their jobs and three-quarter are happy with their working arrangements.
Although the majority of employers and employees appear to be making good progress in addressing work-life balance issues, there is still a significant minority for whom working arrangements are less satisfactory:
- Despite plenty of activity by employers in this area, a significant proportion of respondents felt that employers are not committed to work-life balance and this finding is underpinned by high levels of mistrust of senior management
- This is likely to be exacerbated by the poor communication of work-life balance arrangements by employers to employees
- Comparisons to the British Social Attitudes survey reveal that take-up of options is lower among UNISON employees than the wider workforce, despite higher availability
- While employees are generally satisfied with how they work, four out of ten employees report that they cannot make choices about their working arrangements, which leads to questions about whether employees have sufficient labor market power to make decisions about work-life balance.
CONCLUSIONS:
A work-life policy that respects individual, customer and organizational needs can be beneficial to all. However given these barriers and the extent of the frustrations with employers, it becomes apparent that there is still some way to go in reaching a position where the needs of employers, employees and service users are reconciled to the advantage, or at least satisfaction, of all parties.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
On the basis of the findings of the survey conducted with the employees of Levis Strauss UK, the research suggests some recommendations for the organization to meet the challenges of work-life balance.
These include the following:
- Employer needs to consider its business issues (e.g. the need to respond to customers/citizens, and recruit and retain staff ) and the risks of not responding; review how work-life balance policies might help them respond; and invest time in developing a transparent approach to communicating work-life balance initiatives;
- There is an opportunity for Levis management to play a more pivotal role in helping members and employers to understand and obtain information about work-life balance;
- Moreover the employees have a responsibility to be proactive in helping to fill the gaps and be partners rather than victims.
REFERENCE LIST:
Bell, A. and Bryson, C. (2005), Work-life balance – still a women’s issue in British Social Attitudes, London.
Erich Vieth, E. (2006), “”, HR Magazine
Lockwood and Nancy, R. (2005), “Workplace diversity: leveraging the power of difference for competitive advantage”,
Marmot, M. (2004), “Status Syndrome: How our position on the social gradient affects longevity and health”, London
Neault, R. (2005), “That Elusive Work-Life Balance”, Canada
Smithson, (2004), “Flexible Working and the Gender Pay Gap in the Accountancy Profession”, Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp115-135
Visser, F. & Williams, L. (2007), “Work-life balance: Rhetoric versus reality”, London
Wilson, R. (2008), “Embracing Diversity: Bringing Advantages of Different Cultures to the Workplace”,
APPENDIX:
QUESTIONNAIRE
1: Mark which seems the most true to you:
2: Mark which seems the most true to you:
3: Mark which seems the most true to you:
4. Mark which seems the most true to you:
5. Mark which seems the most true to you:
Thank you for participating in survey regarding work-life balance!
