Are Small-Medium-Sized (SMEs) Reaping the Benefits of Work-Life Balance (WLB)?

“A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.” 
― Alain de Botton

Work-life balance (WLB) enables employees to better manage their (un)paid work and non-work activities. Organizations promote WLB culture with flexible work hours WLB along with family friendly policies. WLB is a trend that HR practitioners suggest SME businesses does not integrate a comprehensive approach.  Challenges in firm size and implementation strategies confront SME managers, thus causing apprehension in implementing WLB policies.

Large organizations adopt WLB policies and procedures in greater numbers. The reason larger organizations are more apt to adopt WLB policies is they have greater resources and manpower. Inadequate resources, staffing and retaining concerns and sickness and absenteeism costs make it difficult for SMEs to balance daily management of workforces with complex economically driving business pressures. Despite the difficulties, literature findings suggest greater workplace flexibility powers accountabilities to employers with increased awareness in terms of their social, moral and ethical obligations towards the employees. Promoting a holistic work environment increases employee morale and organization’s well-being as a whole.

Implementing effective WLB policies in SMES will progress employment relations, customer services, business performance and organizational culture. Developing and communicating WLB policies ensures a healthy WLB culture. While there is apprehension in SMEs caused by uncertainty in firm size and applied flexibility, it is important to note SMEs should not adopt a one-size fits all model.  It is essential to adopt WLB policies to address the individual firm’s organizational cultural needs. Many SMEs adopt WLB policies and utilize discretion on a case-by-case basis.

Affirming a healthy WLB culture is encouraged by communicating WLB policies in employee handbooks, employment contracts, notice boards, intranet, staff induction and training sessions along with informal discussions with management. Once WLB policies are implemented, it is important to monitor and update these policies, as with all HR policies. Adopting WLB policies in SMEs is a sure way to improve employee and organizational.

Has your SME adopted WLB policies in your organization? Why or why not?

For more information on implementing WLB practices in your SME, contact all4hrbiz@gmail.com.

April D. Halliburton, MBA

All-4-HR & Business Solutions

Capella University Organization and Management PhD Candidate

www.all4hrbiz.net

all4hrbiz@gmail.com

Small Business Management - Managing Benefits

Benefits are one of the challenges facing human resource (HR) Professionals.  Benefit regulations is and ever-changing industry concerns. HR professionals should stay well-informed of government and state regulation changes and be sure to keep employees up-to-date through newsletter communication, etc. HR Professionals should review packages offered by other companies in the industry. 

There are no laws mandating health insurance, life insurance, vacation, or holidays except for the Service Contacts Act of 1965, which governs federal contractors. There are, federal laws regulating health benefits, retirement income, pension plans, and other benefits when they are provided.

As an employer, it is effective to adopt the approach of keeping healthcare cost under control in a number of ways. The approach includes increasing the share of premiums that employees pay, increasing deductibles and co-pays, and implement various  managed care strategies. 

Periodically review your current plan and establish whether the plan your company has in place is the best choice for your employees. Indemnity and managed care plans are:

·         Indemnity Plan

·         HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations)

·         PPO (Preferred Provider Organization)

·         POS (Point-of-Service Plans)

·         Consumer Directed Plans

SBA has a great new small business healthcare assessment tool located at     http://www.sba.gov/healthcare.

Click here Healthcare Checklist Request to receive any of the below small business healthcare insurance Checklist to assess your current health care position. 

• Healthcare Benefits Chechklist
• Health Insurance Carrier Checklist
• Health Insurance Cost Containment Checklist
• COBRA Checklists
• Worker's Compensation Insurance Checklist

Email or call with any HR or Business related questions. All4hrbiz@gmail.com   

Stay tuned for HR Lunch Café coming very soon. Name a Topic You would like us to research! All4hrbiz.gmail.com

April D. Halliburton, President

All-4-HR & Business Solutions, LLC

Evidence-Based Management (EBMgt) in SMEs

     

     Evidence-based management (EBMgt) establishes the difference between research and practice. It is imperative human resource partners create, change and implement organizational changes based on evidence; not speculation and experience. Many HR practitioners have consistently held the importance of reviewing past and present HR metrics of policies, procedures and practices in the workplace to determine the effectiveness of a particular organizational change. What are your thoughts and views on evidence-based management?

    Evidence-based management is the systematic use of the best available evidence to improve management practices. Under the Evidence-based theory, management science must arm the manager’s imagination and supply them with the vision needed to make rational decisions in respect to the business enterprise.  Management should not serve as a substitute for decision and judgment but should supply methods for making possible decisions that are more effective and with more informed judgment.

      As a small- medium- sized enterprise (SME) owner, a great start is the utilization of human resource metrics in your organization. The fundamental decision every enterprise must make, no matter what stage of maturation, is the allocation of its capital and resources. When analyzing choices of strategy, expansion, acquisition and new products, the decision should be evidenced by detailed financial metrics that show the high returns. More often than not, only those ventures that demonstrate the highest return are selected. The calculation is return on investment (ROI). As a SME owner-founder-manager, how are you setting, benchmarking and achieving your company’s growth?  In 5 years, where will your Company be?

All-4-HR & Business Solutions is committed to helping your organization reach its long-terms goals through effective (HRM) strategies, practices and procedures.

April D. Halliburton

All-4-HR & Business Solutions, LLC