Her thoughts, feelings whilst answering the question were frustration with the workers and the bosses with giving her more work when they don’t understand how much work we already have. Her behaviour in regards to this situation is getting upset with co-workers who don’t do their jobs, so she does not have enough time to do her job. In result she gets angry with irate customers who don’t realize she is only trying to help. Therefore she gets worried about uncertain future.
With all these emotions, most people don't think they have anything to do with how they are feeling. They believe their emotions are a result of an external cause, i.e., the circumstances or situations of their lives or the behavior of others. It looks that way because that's how you have been taught to think about emotions.
Mrs Bhoja said that when other employees of the surgery are off sick or are on holiday it her responsibility to do their work and make sure she finds cover for them and if she cannot find cover for them she has to cover whoever the employee is. She said this can be hard at times because she has set hours of work every day from 7.30pm till 5.30pm she sometimes has to cover people who do the evening shifts which would mean she would have to stay in the surgery until 10pm in the night, working more than 12 hours in a day.
The reason why Mrs Bhoja works over contract hours because of the volume of work and the need to meet deadlines, as seniority at the work is declining, so she says she feels that she is working over time by choice.
Mrs Bhoja’s answer reveals that the relationship between feeling overloaded, the hours of one work over contract and level within an organisation is quite complex. However, it does reveals that in the organisation there is a strong sense of overloading particularly for manager (Mrs Bhoja) and, that working contract hours is concentrated among the senior manager.
2.5 When I asked her why she works she said that she enjoys the working life although recently it has become more stressful. She said that it keeps her busy and occupied but since taking the role of manager she finds it extremely difficult to do things that she was able to do before being a manager and by the time she gets home she just wants to go straight to bed. It has also been starting to have an effect on her health.
2.6 Mrs Bhoja has started to find that because of her workload her attention spam has gone down because she is hardly getting time to rest at home. She has started to get severe migraines and has lost a dramatic amount of weight because she doesn’t even get time to eat.
Working long hours is not something that Mrs Bhoja enjoys just as many other managers and they would not do it if they were not pressurised into doing it by the volume of work they have to deal with, the culture norms within the organisation and by the actions of coercive employer. When asked why does she work over time she stated that “I believe as a manager it is the only way to deal with overload work and as it is expected by my manager and sometime I have to do it to sacrifice to get ahead”.
2.7 Mr Bhoja has been married for 15 years and has 3 children. She stated that she does not get the time anymore to sit at home with her children or her husband because of working so much and feels very distanced from her family and this has started to depress her.
- An Analysis of non-work roles:
3.1 Mrs Bhoja’s non- work role involves being a mother to 3 children’s (two boys aged 12, 8 and one girl aged 5years old). She is been married to her husband for 15 years. When questioned about what responsibility does her and her husband hold forwards their children and household. Her reply was” my husband drops and picks up children from schools, then it’s my duty to take them to the Islamic centre for religious studies etc, a part from supporting my children with the studies, as a good parent we take them out at times for family outing, however that also depends on whether we have the time to make plans for family outing as it has become hard recently since I have been promoted as a manager role, therefore less time I get to spend at home due to overload of work and long hours of work”.
3.2 when asked to elaborate this point she also carried on saying that she is highly committed to work and also wanted to make an change now to her career. As being a manager was not as easy as she thought it to be. She now thinks that if she finds a part-time work may reduce the amount of work and the stress from long hours of work and its side effects that are affecting her family life and her interest and hobbies which she cannot afford the time to.
3.3 The work does influence family functioning and it is also acknowledged that family functioning influences work. It is certain that Mrs Bhoja wants to balance live with involvement in both home and work where neither becomes too dominated. If this is to occur however, Mrs Bhoja feels to change her job role or take on part time job.
3.4 She highlighted some of the main areas of work and personal life conflicts that have occurred occasionally that has lead to over stress are as followed;
- Feeling guilty about not being home to look after the children and to give enough time to her husband
- Missing out the social life because of working extremely long hours at times
- The dependants of relatives conflicting with work responsibilities
- Expecting to fulfil two roles, at home and at work, to perfection.
- Evaluation balance between work and non-work roles:
4.1 among many women in Britain Mrs Bhoja said that part-time work should be the best opportunity for her. Because part-time employment is strongly associated with marriage and the presences of young children, the main reason for her to do part-time working is their childcare responsibilities. It is reasonable to suppose that rather than higher, would make the total workload of her caring home responsibilities more manageable and would reduce the likelihood of stress from multiple roles.
4.2 This interpretation of the relationship between women’s roles and their employment has been contested by Hakim (1991-1995). She argues that the concentration of women in part-time, low level jobs is due not to demands of family roles but rather to women’s preferences for such jobs and their relative lack of commitment to employment.
Ref:(http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NE7fykwlOl8C&pg=PT300&lpg=PT300&dq=hakim+1991995&source=bl&ots=yjPW217N1J&sig=3JmIcWXIyEtbBKOIlk1GIRoOjyY&hl=en&ei=Bt76SZrlDoaZjAegnoyyAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#PPT328,M1)
- Degree of balance or imbalance:
5.1 Theorist: Fritz Heider and Theodore Newcomb (1946) states in the balance theory that when tensions arise between or inside people, they attempt to reduce these trough self persuasion or trying to persuasion or trying to persuade others.
Ref: (article, Heider, F. (1946). Attitudes and cognitive organization. Journal of Psychology, 21, 107-112)
5.2 My interpretation of balance theory is that individuals have certain attitudes which can be represented by a plus sign (like) or a minus sign (dislike). Every individual has their own opinions therefore people do not always agree on the same things which creates a feeling or discomfort or imbalance. Two people may feel the same about an idea and therefore agree on it so they have a feeling of comfort or balance.
5.3 Mrs Bhoja states that she likes watching horror movies on television, and her husband likes watching football and isn’t much of a fan of horror movies. Yet her husband watches it and values their relationship therefore this system is now in imbalance. If her husband would change his attitude about movies, this system would be in balance then. Therefore taking that as an example, it pretty much explains the reasons for Mrs Bhoja taking on absent staff shifts and doing over time. It’s because she feels that she has to put her best into her job role to get success from it (promotion etc).
6.0 Conclusion
6.1 To conclude this report I will state that introducing work life balance for fulltime manager might be quite hard. This is because managers job roles include a lot of task and responsibly, their do not get that flexibility.
Barriers to manager implementation of work life polices/strategies identified by Mr Bhoja interview and various studies include lack of formal written policies, resources and operational factors, lack of senior management support and supportive workplace culture, concerns about equity among staff, traditional management styles and beliefs.
6.2 Mrs Bhoja stated when ask, that her main problem lies because she perceives a lack of support from her organisation and is working long hours with poor work life due to heavy workloads beyond her control at times. This identifies that poor communication within the work and home life which is becoming a barrier to successful work life balance.
6.3 In order for Mrs Bhoja to be able to carry out her job role without the amount of stress she is under, she needs to share her responsibilities with well trained staff, and can go on for part-time contract which will reduce the amount of time spent at work.
7.0 References
(article, Heider, F. (1946). Attitudes and cognitive organization. Journal of Psychology, 21, 107-112)
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