Discuss how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life.

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English Language

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An insider’s point of view: how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life
With the increasing competition in the business fields, organizations are looking for new ways to work and most of them have identified flexible working arrangement as a potential way to balance work and personal commitments. Work-life balance refers to any one of a spectrum of work structures that changes the time or place that work is done on a regular basis. Example of flexible working arrangements includes, change in hours of work and this usually involves reducing the working hours, changes in patterns of work that is, working split-shifts and changes in the location of work for instance working when at home or in another location. When employees are able to balance their family life and work, their work productivity increases (Galea et al. 2014). The program brings positive attitudes into the work-life of the employees, when they meet their personal needs and the organization’s needs. The program also makes employees work harder since they feel in control of their work and time. Although there are many benefits that results from flexible work arrangement, there is still some criticism of this program.The first criticism is the organization’s commitment in implementing the program. Many organizations believe that the program reduces the time an employee’s work and this reduces the employee’s output. The second criticism is that, when an employee chooses when and where to work, this increases work-life conflict and deteriorate work-balance instead (Galea et al. 2014). Employees are forced to work under the organizational working hours and not according to the employee’s personal needs. The third criticism is based on the cultural diversity. Most organizations face the challenges of developing an effective, flexible work arrangement program because they have to consider their employees’ cultural differences. The program may not be fully implemented because it may be difficult to meet the needs of all its employees based on their cultural background (Calderwood et al. 2014).
Procrastination and Mental Health Coping
Procrastination refers to the delay to start or complete a task. In addition, procrastination can be considered to be the irrational delay of behavior. It is a troubling phenomenon that can subject one to discomfort. It is estimated that 20-25 % of adults have the problem of procrastinating. Different people have different reasons why they procrastinate; some argue that they work best under pressure. Virtually those who offer this explanation habitually procrastinates and most of them end up not completing the task before the deadline or not even starting the task. Most of the people who procrastinate experience high levels of stress; they don’t have persistence, have poor management skills and cannot work methodically (Ferrari & Diaz-Morales, 2014). Studies have also established that most procrastinators are not able to regulate their negative emotions, they usually have low esteem and are not accurate in the activities they are involved. Procrastination can result in self-handicapping when the procrastinators feel that their actions will not change their situation and in order to cope with the situation they use an emotion-oriented rather than a task-oriented style. Procrastination tendencies are therefore related to mental health coping techniques such as controllability and self-approval (Ferrari & Diaz-Morales, 2014). Chronic procrastinators do not express their needs and most of them have their own tactics to cope with procrastination and this always leads to greater perceived stress, resulting in poor mental health. Because of the poor mental health, they minimize their own skill and abilities, doubting their ability to succeed. It is also hard for them to accept praise in the case of a well done job. In order for the procrastinators to overcome this problem, they have to involve themselves in activities that lead to positive, productive, satisfying feelings and actions (Ferrari & Diaz-Morales, 2014)

What else do college students “do” while studying? An investigation of multitasking
Most students in schools involve themselves in other things at the expense of their studies. Very few who can spend about 30 hours per week in the classroom and those who does this, they usually have good grades. One of the major factors that facilitate student’s destructions from the school is communication technology. The student multitask school works with cell phones and portable audios from a desire to engage in non-schoolwork activities (Calderwood et al. 2014). Most students use the media devices to alleviate boredom from school work and therefore multitask are a way to avoid being involved with academic works. The problem is more prevalent among the college students since there is no instructor oversight of their study. When students are working on their homework, they are likely to experience moods decrement and this reduces their motivation to complete the homework.There is a correlation between the quality of work done and a positive effect. Other factors that weigh in on the performance are motivation and mood. Negative affect is also another factor that constitutes the quality of work done. Positive affect refers to a positive mood and a more receptive brain to the information fed. Negative affect refers to the negative mood connotation that hampers the quality of work as the brain’s cognitive is compromised (Calderwood et al. 2014). It is ironic that deep thoughts and centered focus for long periods may bear negative results; and as such there is a high likelihood of negative multitasking hence distractions. Positive effect on the other hand, promotes high brain cognition and attentiveness due to diligent planning and time management. There is less occurrence of distractions when one adopts a positive affect outlook. With positive affect, information is retained with less time on task as compared to negative affect; moods and motivation levels are determined by the negative and positive affect adopted by the student (Calderwood et al. 2014).
References
Calderwood, C., Ackerman, P. L., & CONKLIN, E. M. (2014). What else do college students “do” while studying? An investigation of multitasking. Computers & Education.75, 19-29.
Ferrari J.R., & Diaz-Morales J.F. (2014). Procrastination and mental health coping: A brief report related to students. Individual Differences Research.12, 8-11.
Galea, C., Houkes, I., & De Rijk, A. (2014). An insider’s point of view: how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life. The International Journal of Human Resource Management.25, 1090-1111.