Work Life Balance among Accountants

Most unemployed people continue to avoid accounting profession due to the pressure associated with it and the work-life perspective that the career is very demanding in terms of time. Indeed, some already qualified accountants are now shifting careers to what they perceive less demanding with little pressure careers. Work-life balance is the self-determined well-being state that an individual can often reach or set as an objective with the aim of managing work at home, work and within their community. The state allows individuals to offer support emotionally and physically to the family and community without them suffering any negative impact such as stress and grief. According to Buddhapriya, S. This research paper thus handles the emerging accountant’s trends of work life balance by looking at the growing concerns of the need to have policies that allow work life balance.

The research includes introduction of what work-life balance entails and goes further to show the importance of these balance to individuals first. The roles of human resource managers and managers are discussed since they are involved in formulation of policies and in enforcing them. The associationthat exists between the roles of accountants and work life balance are also discussed since accountants have roles which differ from most of the employees. Work life conflicts are also discussed including the causes of conflicts, effects and there implications on business. Therefore, most of the accountants may prefer selecting alternative professions which they feel they have enough time for other life issues. Indeed, many accountants face a challenging work environment since most employers want high performance and results now and then.

However, this work load is required to be met within a very short period of time leading to stress and burn out to most employees. Importance of Balancing Work and Life Work and life balance consists of work and family with family matters having a key role to what workers bring within the work environment. Work life balance is important in that it brings effectiveness to employee’s life in all aspects. Most women suffer role overload than men since they devote more hours on activities such as child care and elderly care are left mostly to women. In other cases women are likely to face less spousal help in their careers than men but despite this men report more cases of work-life conflict than women do.

Indeed, family life is affected by the work-life balance since it determines the ability of the employees to complete tasks at their homes. Younger generation in the current world is now increasingly demanding for changes in policies that will favor them working for results anywhere not just at work place. Older generation are more likely to be comfortable with longer hours but often they may demand other work arrangements that allows them to cater for life needs including family needs. Human resource managers should ensure the employees unplug from work especially when they are on leave or during the weekends(Clutterbuck2003). Some employees may fail to put clear line between work and home and thus managers should be there for them.

The managers and human resource managers are responsible for firing and hiring. Thus, they should be very keen on some signs from employees such as frequent absenteeism and low performance from employees who were performing before. Managers should be aware of burn out from work force and in that case should introduce policies which favor them. The emerging changes in professional standards, tax laws and business environment continue to increase pressure on them especially requiring them to sacrifice time for work. Often accountants are required to improve on their skills and abilities within most of the firms they work in (Gallagher, 2012). However there is more to life than work and these has led to most of them making choices based on life issues.

Most of the people are experiencing burnout due to stress and overwork with accountants having to face extra time in dealing with the heavy workloads. Accountants need to integrate work and life by trying to balance them and acknowledging that their work is very demanding. The time used on one activity cannot be spent on another thus time spent on issues affecting homeoften result to family- work conflict while those spent at work result to conflicts related to work-family. Work overload is another major cause of work-life conflict and is the perception of having so much to do but with limited time required to do. Parental overload and role ambiguity can also lead to conflict between work and life. Organizational policies have an influence on conflicts that may arise between work and life.

Supervisors support and schedules that are flexible are important in determining the work-life balance with such support helping employees to iron out work-family issues. Employees should be left to have control on their time since it leads to work satisfaction and hence this lowers their stress and overall work harder. More so, organizations that allow flexible time for working are likely to retain the experienced employees while they are more prone to attracting new and more vibrant employees. Accountants with flexible work time are likely to serve the customers more vibrantly and also deliver efficient services and reports. Most accountants and employees often use the flexible work arrangements to balance work and life responsibilities. Additionally, companies should aim at offering programs that encourage employees accountants included.

Indeed, such employees require programs such as leave days and off in order for them to avoid work-family conflicts such as marital obligations. Morale boasting firms are also likely to retain most of the long serving accountants and also attract new ones(Appendices A). Accounting job is a demanding job whose attraction rate is very minimal thus any organization would not only want to retain but also get new recruits due to the limited number of accountants who join the profession. Divergence and several perspectives of looking at work-life balance are important since the issue is much bigger than most of the corporations think. Work-life balance among the accountants has gained momentum and most agree that it does not only depend on the organization but also individual responsibility.

Work-life balance does not just involve organizations and government but also accountants themselves since most will always feel that pressure to finish on the last remaining file. Others feel the work load pressures and tend to work on that financial statement within shortest time possible then attend a company meeting in order not to miss a union post they are vying. It is important that as an accountant you create for yourself time by avoiding last minute rush for work which had enough time. While work-family conflicts are common, creation of time for families is important through ways such as having family outings when having leave and thus avoiding marital conflicts. References Buddhapriya, S. D. , & American Society for Training and Development.