Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
revealed that the employees were not aware of some policies such as compressed hours or working from
home (teleworking). Some of the reasons given during the interviews were that the current economic
conditions in Nigeria did not support such flexible schemes. The employee relations officer, pointed out
that Nigerians are not used to such arrangements and find them rather odd, “we have various polices like
term time and part time but most of the employee choose full time because they would earn more money
from this working pattern”. According to Mordi et al, (2010), there is a preference for conventional full
time permanent contracts. For Mordi, The preference comes from a realization that the country has a
weak and unstable industrial with large reserves of surplus labor struggling for scarce jobs. As one of the
respondents said:
“I count myself luck to have this job, the salary just keep me going it is enormous having to do
any other arrangements like part time. Part time would not be worth my while as a man, I need to
be able to provide for my immediate and extended family, so I need all the money I can get”
(Cashier officer).
The findings in this study align with other studies in that there appears to be little utilization of work life
balance polices among those employees within the western hemisphere (Spinks, 2004). The low
utilization of work-life balance programs has its probable root in the perception that adopting flexible
working arrangements leads to less job security and hinders future career prospects (Rodbourne, 1996;
Stevens, Brown, and Lee, 2004). It seems that, though work-life programs are available to employees,
individuals and organizations have yet to fully embrace the idea. In Nigeria, there are similar problems
but made worse by the ignorance exhibited by employers of the utility if WLB and the lack of information
provided to the workers.
Factors impeding work life balance in Nigeria
Lack of information and training:
Employees in this bank were oblivious to some policies that were in place in the organization such as
leave, career breaks, unpaid leave, flexible working hours and compressed hours. It was clear that
employees did not even know where to find basic information on a number of policies. Sometimes
information was known by chance through the word mouth or those close to managers that were aware of
such information.
It is clear from the interviews that both employer and employees need to be trained on the importance of
WLB. Employers need to understand that having a healthy and less stressful workforce contributes to the
improved mental and physical health, job satisfaction and job performance. When employees were shown
a list of other WLB policies and practices that exist in banks within the UK, US and employees were
excited at the prospects of having more days’ awarded to maternity leave, the introduction of paternity
leave and more options to work from home. For one of the respondents a management staff, he opined
that giving workers more work life balance option or policies will:
incur unnecessary cost. He pointed out that if the bank was to encourage people to work from
home for example, the bank will need to provide workers with computers at home, free Internet
access and some money to fuel the generator. You know we have electricity problem in Nigeria.
Fear of legal implication of taking work life balance programs:
Again, when the information was known by employees, there appeared to be confusion as to the legal
implications of employees requesting for more time. For instance, some of the employees who had taken
maternity leave would have loved to have a longer period but the bank only offers the statutory
requirement of three months. In the words of as some respondents pointed out:
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