Work-Life Balance Reality among Czech Managers: Staying Halfway

IBIMA Publishing Journal of Electronic Banking Systems http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JEBS/jebs.html Vol. 2016 (2016), Article ID 744425, 16 pages DOI: 10.5171/2016.744425 ______________ Cite this Article as: Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), “ Work-Life Balance Reality among Czech Managers: Staying Halfway", Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, Vol. 2016(2016), Article ID 744425, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 Research Article Work-Life Balance Reality among Czech Managers: Staying Halfway Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný Department of Law and Humanity Sciences ,Faculty of Business and Economics MENDEL UNIVERSITY IN BRNO Zemědělská, Czech Republic Department of Management, Faculty Of Business And Management BRNO UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Kolejní , Brno, Czech Republic Correspondence should be addressed to: Martina Rašticová; [email protected] Received date: 9 October 2015; Accepted date: 24 December 2015; Published date: 15 March 2016 Copyright © 2016. Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný . Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Introduction Efficient management and leadership of diversified teams is the latest challenge facing human resources departments in all organizations striving for competitiveness. The theory of economic growth formulated by R. Florida in 2004 (also dubbed 3T theory) states that individual and organizational tolerance is instrumental in building diversified teams which then serve as hothouses for talent guaranteeing technological progress. Work-life balance is one of the concepts that can provide Abstract While developed companies have for a long time, due to efficiency and competitiveness, facilitated better reconciliation of work and family life of their employees; in reality in the Czech Republic these business solutions are still not at the level achieved in other countries. In our research, we decided to analyze the options of managers and workers in senior positions in five professional areas to achieve work life balance depending on their age and gender. An inquiry was carried out using a sample of 148 respondents asking questions concerning the options offered by the employer and those preferred by the respondents for work-life balance. The research of the options for work-life balance offered by the employer reflects particular situations in a sample of Czech-based companies and organizations. The results corroborated the rigidity of options offered by the employer to senior employees. According to the results of the research on the work-life-balance options as preferred by the employees, the majority would welcome more possibilities for handling with their work time: part-time work, flexible working hours and working from home. The different preferences of male and female employees and the differences given by the professions are discussed in detail. The results thus suggest that despite proclamations about the benefits of work - life balance for companies, the typical situation in the Czech Republic is slightly more improvement in the work-life balance, while the majority of staff is still waiting for substantial changes concerning especially time possibilities. Keywords: Diversity management; gender management; work-life balance Journal of Electronic Banking Systems 2 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 employees with more incentives, thereby making their work more efficient. Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organization such as their nationality, ethnicity, sex, gender, education, etc. (Greenberg, 2004). Katherine Klein, however, points out that diversity cannot be reduced to mere demographic terms such as gender, race, and age. She emphasizes that it also involves various attitudes, skills, knowledge, and power, which often play a crucial role in the dynamics of a diversified team (Harrison, Klein, 2007). The management of organizational diversity aims to use the capacity and potential of a diversified work team. Generally, diversity may be described at individual, group, and organizational levels (Cox, 1993; see also Groeschke, 2011). Diversity, age, and gender management Keil defines diversity management as an active, deliberate building of a strategic, value-oriented communication and management process orientated towards the future, consisting in the acceptance and use of certain differences and similarities as the organization's potential drivers. In an organization this process adds value (Keil et al., 2007, p. 7). Diversity management can take on a number of forms, with the most frequent form in practice being gender and age management. The challenge of age management is to find out how quickly a work team ages, what is its structure, and what are its future tasks and needs (Rašticová, Kolářová, 2013; Putnová, 2013). This, then, entails the choice of strategies and tools by human resources departments to match the changing conditions of an ageing work team. Generational differences are taken into consideration as diversity issues that an organization must understand and accept and as a matter that needs to be attended to by the present and future managers (Arsenault, 2004, p. 124). Over the last decade, there have been numerous studies done on older workers, while research on multi-generation working environment (generation X and generation Y) is still at an early stage. However, it is mainly long-term research of multigeneration teams and the mutual influence between generations that can shed light on whether generation patterns are the consequence of age, generation, or stage of life. Gender management has been discussed for a number of years. The Commonwealth Secretariat (1999) defines gender management as a network of structures, mechanisms, and processes that are interleaved with the existing organizational system designed to implement, plan for, monitor, and evaluate the inclusion of gender issues in all aspects of work organization. Latent mechanisms that often prevent handicapped groups in the workplace (in the Czech environment, these are mostly women and people aged 50+) from career advancement include the glass ceiling; multiple glass ceiling; glass cliff; mini-me syndrome, etc. (see Bartošová, 2008; Rašticová, 2007; Mahalingam, Leu, 2005; Riglová, Skálová, 2008; Křížková, 2002, 2003 and others.). According to research done by eFinancialCareers.de (2011), women work in less than 10 % of senior management positions in German banking and financial services. Moreover, 92 % of women in this sector believe that career opportunities for women are inferior to those for men. Among the most frequent barriers that women striving for management positions have to face are the "gents' club" in top management, issues related to parental leave, child-care, and lower salaries. Forty-nine percent of men see the career opportunities for women as worse. Almost half of the men (45 %) then agree that if women want to advance to management positions they must overcome more obstacles. More than three quarters (78 %) of men still believe that the number of women in senior positions will increase in 3 Journal of Electronic Banking Systems ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 the coming five years. Only 56 % of women believe this to be true. Work life balance These are the concrete options offered to achieve work life balance: part-time work, company kindergarten, flexible working hours, management of maternal and parental leave, work from home, shared jobs, compressed working week, leisure benefits (Králíková, 2010; see also Vohlídalová, 2007). New directions and approaches emerge in career building according to Fischlová and Gazdová (2006). Despite career building being slower and more difficult for women for the above reasons, the importance of career as a value of life and the ways a career is integrated into personal life change. After graduation or before it, women of older generations had already set up a family, and when the children grew up, started to build their careers. Younger generations of women begin with career building right after graduation delaying, or even completely abandoning, family and motherhood. A career has become an important priority in life for the modern young woman. While work-life balance is now much easier to reach, thanks to modern convenience and household appliances, it is often complicated by the attitudes of many employers who believe that balancing personal life with career is a problem employees or their families must deal with. (ibidem). An interesting project is the initiative of Gender Studies (2010) to give the best employers and companies introducing equal opportunities and work life balance options a Company of the Year: Equal Opportunities award. Research objective Carrying on the research on the leadership of diversified teams in the workplace while focusing on the work-life balance of employees (see Rafnsdóttir, Heijstra, 2011, Bosničová, 2010, Králíková, 2010 and others.) and taking into account the specific situation of work teams in a globalizing Czech society, the research objective has been formulated as follows. The research aims to analyse the work life balance options offered to female and male managers and senior executives in five sectors depending on their age and gender (see also Rašticová, 2012). The sectors investigated include: • financial and tax consulting and auditing, • information and communication technology, • industry, • healthcare, • education. The data were collected from December 2010 to April 2011. With the agreement of company representatives, e-questionnaires were sent to managers to be filled in and submitted. The total number of questionnaires sent to managers was 232 from a total of 22 companies and organizations. Relatively high percentages (68.3) of the questionnaires were returned. The companies and organizations wished to stay anonymous, however, all of them have been located in the Czech Republic for a minimum of four years with employee numbers ranging between 70 and 800. The respondents were only required to enter data concerning the sector in which they worked. Sample Description A total of 148 respondents, 52 % men and 48 % women, were involved in the research. The age was less evenly distributed over the sample (see Fig 1). The most frequent age group was that of 30 to 39 years (39.3%). The percentages of other age brackets were between 10 and 22.1. The research sample consisted mostly of childless respondents or respondents with children older than 20 years (64% of respondents). About one quarter (24.7%) said that their child/children were aged 8 years or younger. The length of employment of the respondents was mostly 1 to 5 years (38.5%), almost one quarter (23%) had worked with the Journal of Electronic Banking Systems 4 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 present employer from 6 to 10 years. Thus, a major part of the research sample consisted of respondents employed by the present employer for 1 to 10 years (a total of 61.5%). Most of them said that they worked full time (77.3%) and about one fifth was working part time (22.7%). The data indicated that more than half of the respondents (56.1%) worked as managers or heads of small departments (with five or less persons), about one third (27.7%) were in the medium-manager positions (heading departments of five to thirty persons), the remaining respondents being managers in executive or strategic positions. In terms of the sectors in which the respondents work, the sample is distributed rather evenly. The bulk of the respondents work in finance and tax consulting with major consulting and auditing companies (26.4%), next in industrial plants (25%), in the ICT sector (18,9%), managers and senior executives in education formed 16.2% of the sample, and managers of health care facilities were represented by 13.5%. Results The sample data were analysed by the SPSS program using statistical methods including t – tests, χ 2 – tests, correlation analysis, and others. The research outcomes are discussed in detail at the end of the chapter. For the purposes of statistical analysis, the below demographic categories (except the sex and work sector) were re-coded as follows: • the age structure category was divided into two subgroups – respondents aged below 40 years (50.3%) and above 40 years (49.7%); • the family status category was divided into two subgroups – respondents living in a family or common household (64.9%) and other respondents (single, divorced, widows and widowers, etc. – 35.1%); • the number of children category was divided into two subgroups – respondents with no children or with children aged 20+ (64%) and those with one or more children aged below 20 years (36%); • the length of employment category was divided into three subgroups – respondents having worked with the present employer for less than 5 years (42.6%), 6 to 10 years (23%), 11+ years (34.5%); • the part-time percentage category was divided into two subgroups – respondents working full time (77.3%) and those working part time (22.7%); • the managerial position category was divided into two subgroups – respondents working as managers or heads of small departments (with five or less persons – 56.1%), respondents working as mid or top managers (in departments of five or more persons – 43.9%). Work life balance options that a company striving for competitiveness should offer All the work life balance options were supported by more than a half of the respondents in the following order (see Fig 1): part time work supported by 66.5%, flexible working hours by 64.7%, home office by 61.2%, and company kindergarten by 54.7% of the respondents. 5 Journal of Electronic Banking Systems ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 11: Work life balance preferences at companies striving for competitiveness by keeping good employees. Next, by statistical methods, we determined the relationship between the work life balance options (see above) and all the demographic categories considered (sex, age, family status, number of children, length of employment, part-time percentage, position in management, and work sector). Listed below are the major relationships and those proved to be statistically significant. An analysis of the responses of men and women concerning their preferences unequivocally confirms that women prefer all four options offered more often than men (see Fig 2). The differences between men and women are statistically significant in the cases of flexible working hours (χ 2 (df 1)=25.084, p=0.0001) and company kindergarten (χ 2 (df 1)=35.962, p=0.0001). Here, an overwhelming majority of women believe that it is the options of flexible working hours and company kindergarten that may help a company striving for competitiveness win and keep good employees. Journal of Electronic Banking Systems 6 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 2: Differences between men's and women's positive responses to the home office, part-time work, flexible working hours, and company kindergarten options. According to an analysis of the relationships between respondents with no children and those having a child or children depending on their sex, women with one or more children believe more (82.8%) than other respondents (men and childless women) that part-time work may improve the company's competitiveness by keeping good employees (see Fig 3). Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 3: Differences between the responses of four respondent groups (men and women with and without children) concerning the part-time work option 7 Journal of Electronic Banking Systems ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 The responses concerning the relationship between respondents with and without children depending on their sex indicate that, generally, women more than men believe that a company striving for competitiveness should offer a flexible working hours option. Although the differences between men and women are not statistically significant, the above trend is evident (Fig 4). Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 4: Differences between the responses of four respondent groups (men and women with and without children) concerning the flexible working hours option Next we focused on the relationship between childless men and women and those with a child or children and the preferences concerning a company kindergarten. The results indicate that it is again women more often than men who believe that a company striving for competitiveness should offer a company kindergarten (Fig 5). While the differences between men and women were not statistically significant, the two women groups were different at a significance level of 0.01 (χ 2 (df 1)=6.751, p=0.009). Childless women significantly more often (90.5%) than women with children (65.5%) stress the importance of company kindergartens. Journal of Electronic Banking Systems 8 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 5: Differences between the four respondent groups (men and women with and without children) concerning the company kindergarten option The work sector of the respondents, too, affects their work life balance preferences. According to Fig 6, respondents working in finance and tax consulting, ICT, and education opt for (in the following order) home office, part-time work, and flexible working hours. On the other hand, home office is regarded as the least interesting option by respondents from manufacturing companies and healthcare. Statistically significant differences were proved between the responses concerning the home office (χ 2 (df 4)=30.671, p=0.001), flexible working hours (χ 2 (df 4)=10.221, p=0.037), and company kindergarten (χ 2 (df 4)=12,681, p=0,014) options. Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 6: Differences between the work sectors concerning work life balance preferences 9 Journal of Electronic Banking Systems ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 Analysing the responses of men and women divided into five groups by work sectors concerning the home office option, we arrived at remarkable conclusions. Home office is preferred by more than half of the men and women working mostly in finance and tax consulting, information and communication technology, and education (see Fig 7). Generally, women across the sectors more than men regard home office as an option significant for work life balance. Given sex and professional sector of the respondents, the responses differed at a 1% level of significance (χ 2 (df 1)=30.671, p=0.001), with differences also confirmed between both women (χ 2 (df 4)=15,599, p=0,004) by work sector and men (χ 2 (df 4)=17,698, p=0,001) by work sector. Source: author's own analysis N=148 Figure 7: Differences between the responses of men and women concerning the home office option given by the work sector. The fig shows the percentages of home office acceptance by the respondents According to an analysis of the relationships between the sex and work sector of the respondents and their preferences concerning part-time work, this option is mostly preferred by women in healthcare (90%), next women in education (85.7%), in finance and tax consulting (80%), more than half of the women working in ICT (60%) and industrial companies (59.1%). In our sample, there were more men (73.3%) than women (59.1%) believing that a company striving for competitiveness should offer this option (see Fig 8). Journal of Electronic Banking Systems 16 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Martina Rašticová and Štěpán Konečný (2016), Journal of Electronic Banking Systems, DOI: 10.5171/2016. 744425 30. The Global Online Recruitment Resource. PwC targets women for the top. Posted in News archive. [Online]. [Retrieved 22nd Feb 2011]. Available: http://www.onrec.com/news/newsarchive/pwc-targets-women-for-the-top. 31. Vohlídalová, M. 2007. Vztah pracovního a soukromého života v perspektivě mezinárodního srovnání. Gender, rovné příležitosti, výzkum, roč. 8, č. 2. [Online]. [Retrieved 8.6.2011]. Available: http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisl oclanku=2008012710.