Work Life Balance Of Female Workers: A Study On Garment Industry Of Bangladesh
Introduction
Preliminaries
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. Today’s workers have many competing responsibilities such as work, children, housework, volunteering, spouse and elderly parent care and this places stress on individuals, families and the communities in which they reside. The recent ups and downs in the readymade garment industry bring the industry in light from Bangladeshi context.
The readymade garment industry of Bangladesh is a labor- intensive industry. Because of the industry’s nature, the matters relating to human resource management comes first. Work life balance signifies the whole scenario of human resources, mainly the workers working in the industry. Human resource plays vital role in the success of any organization, because most of the problems in organizations are human and social rather than physical or technical. A good work life balance not only attracts new talent but also retain the existing talent. Work life balance involves job security, good working conditions, adequate and fair compensation and equal employment opportunity all together. WLB aims to meet the twin goals of enhanced effectiveness of organization and improved quality of life at work for employees. But today’s employee would not believe in such values of work. Employees work for salary, and continue to work, if the conditions of work are encouraging and pleasant and terms of employment are favorable to him. Women are considered as the major working group the textile and garment industries of the country. These industries are more labor intensive and require finest output at the end. WLB consists of opportunities for active involvement in group working arrangements or problem solving that are of mutual benefit to employees or employers, based on labor management cooperation.
The Problem Statement
Work life balance is significant in relation to job and overall performance in the organization. The work-life balance must be kept effectively to ensure that all workers are running at their peak potential and free from stress and strain. Work life balance helps the employees and workers to feel secure and like they are being thought of and cared for by the organization in which they work. An organization‘s HR department assumes responsibility for the effective running of the work life balance for their employees or workers. But now-a-days employees are dissatisfied with the several functions of the job and dealing with social relationship in the organization consequent upon the mechanization and automation of the industry. Additionally disregard by others and less utilization of skills caused stress and disappointment among the workforce. They experience alienation, which may result from poor design of socio-technical systems. Poor quality of work life may lead to increased absenteeism, stress and ultimately job dissatisfaction. This being the real fact and since there was absenteeism and lack of job satisfaction among the workers in Savar Upazila. I have made an attempt in this regard and have undertaken the current study to analyze the work life balance among female workers with special reference to garment industry in Savar Upazila.
Purpose/Objective of the Study
Specific Objective
To find out the prevailing condition of work life balance/ quality of work life of female workers working in garment industry of Bangladesh.
Border Objectives
To find out the normal working hours in a day and weekly working days for the garment industry along with the normal traveling hours to reach the working place. To find out age of working women, marital status, and having children and the number of children. To investigate how often they think or worry about work as well as how they feel about the amount of time spend at work. To disclose whether industry provides counseling services to improve their mental pressure. To inspect whether industry provides health program facility for the female non- management employees.
Scope of the Study
The study is on female workers of garment industry of Bangladesh. The study related to the issues of work life balance of female workers of garment industry. Work is an integral part of our everyday life, be it our livelihood or career or business. On an average we spend around twelve hours daily in the work place, that is one third of our entire life; it does influence the overall quality of our life. It should yield job satisfaction, give peace of mind, a fulfillment of having done a task, as it is expected, without any flaw and having spent the time fruitfully, constructively and purposefully. An assured good quality of work life will not only attract young and new talent but also retain the existing experienced talent. This being the virtual fact, the current study on work life balance among female workers with special reference to garment industry in Savar Upazila – A textile, is expected to prove extremely useful for the organization to improve the quality of work life among its female workers with the help of the recommendations given by me.
Hypothesis of the Study
Hypothesis 1 Ho – Most of the workers feel that there are worries due to work. Ha – Most of the workers feel that there are not worry due to work. Conclusion: Null hypothesis is accepted that is Most of the workers feel that there are worries due to work.
Hypothesis 2 Ho – Workers feel that the company provides better counseling facility. Ha – Workers feel that there is no proper counseling facility provide by the company. Conclusion: Null hypothesis is accepted that is Most of the workers feel that the company provides better counseling facility.
Hypothesis 3 H0: The sample proves that 83. 73% worker can be disagree or strongly disagree if the mean of responses is 20 %Ha: The sample proves that 83. 73% worker can be disagree or strongly disagree if the mean of responses is 20 %.
