Introducing Work-Life Balance at Oxford Manufacturing

Oxford Manufacturing is a company that started out with 350 employees in large
Midwestern city in the field of manufacturing custom plastic products, along with a range
of small plastic items (such as storage boxes and water bottles) to its wholesale
distributors. The variety in its products demanded employees with varied skills, ranging
from engineers with university degrees (working on design and production
specifications) and assembly line workers, some even school dropouts(operating
machines in the production facility). The company operates 12 hours a day, 7 days a
week with additional hours being added to meet excess demand.
Over the past few years Oxford’s demand for workers began to exceed the supply. The
need was felt to appoint highly skilled employees and not wait for people to approach the
company for employment. In order to attract employees, the company started
propaganda of work-life balance via its already existing employees. The company
adopted a policy giving each employee five “free days” off per year for whatever use the
employee desires, in addition to generous vacation and sick leave benefits. It also
encouraged department managers to schedule workers’ shifts so as to accommodate
the workers’ outside commitments as much as possible. The ulterior motive behind the
company framing such policy was to not only attract good workers to Oxford but also to
aid retain the ones already working there.
The case herein to be discussed is about the dilemma of a manager in one of the
production areas, Peter MacNee, who has received simultaneous requests from two of
his employees to accommodate their work schedules to their non work commitments.
One of the employees, John Mason, an engineer, has just been through a bad marriage
and is now the single parent of two children, a daughter (9) and a son (6). John’s parents
willing help him with the child care, but are not available at all times during the day, when
he is at work. In addition, John’s daughter, affected badly by her parent’s divorce,
occasionally has temper tantrums, refuses to put up with her grandparents and feels her
father can best take care of her. These situations have occasionally resulted in John
having to abstain from work or take abrupt leaves at short notice. So far Peter has
allowed John to use three out of the five annual free days to cover up for such situations,
despite the fact that the company grants generous leaves and sick leave benefits only
upon a prior two week notice. Hence to tackle this situation, John has requested Peter to
allow him to work only in the evening shifts so that he can regularly supervise his
children during day time while his parents can take the responsibility of the evenings
while he is away at work. He has also offered to work unpaid overtime in exchange for

1
formally being allowed to take two remaining free days as needed without any prior
notification. He is also willing to be available for unpaid overtime if he be granted five
additional free days in addition to the ones already allotted.
Jane Collier is a supervisor on the production line. She also participates in curling at the
local recreation center. Jane was suggested this curling by her friend for fun, since she
had some health complications and was also shy. Upon regular practice Jane’s health
automatically began to improve and she could also over come her shyness, so she took
it up as a part of her routine activities. Jane’s curling team has now an opportunity to join
a curling league which will enable them to compete at not only regional and national
levels but also give them chance at the international level. Jane’s team has to not only
join the league but also start working with a coach to improve their techniques. For this
very reason Jane is requesting Peter to have her scheduled only for day shifts as this
new level of participation demands her to train for curling during the evenings. She is
also asking for two weeklong unpaid leaves per year to attend curling competitions out of
town.
Peter is aware that the company itself encourages the work-life balance of its
employees. But in order to apply this policy practically he has to disrupt the normal
functioning of the production unit under him which consists of John’s and Jane’s
services. There is no way that he can grant both their requests at the same time, since
the products that john helps design are manufactured by the line of production
supervised by Jane and which requires both of them to be at work simultaneously atleast
twice a week so as to share the information about the products they are working on. At
the same time Peter knows that his declining their requests might have them quit this job
and find better placements in other rival companies since they are both very talented
and experienced employees.
While trying to figure out a solution for this situation, Peter came across an interoffice
memo in his pile of mails, which came from three office administrators in his area. They
were found pretty upset and complaining about the increasing “dumping” work by their
married co-workers on them, in order to tackle their personal family crises. The memo
described incidents of co-workers receiving phone calls about family problems and then
leaving for the rest of the day asking the office administrators to cover up for them. This
would have the office administrators often stay beyond the end of their schedule to
complete their own work after the completion of the incomplete tasks dumped on them
by their co-workers. They were also found saying that they wouldn’t mind covering up for
the co-workers sometimes but it was becoming a nerve reckoning situation as such

2
situations repeated more than once. They felt that the ones who couldn’t take care of
both family and work responsibilities should the ones making the adjustments and not
the administrators. They wanted Peter to address this problem immediately as it was
occurring more and more frequently.

Suggestions:
1. For Peter:
• Peter can call for a joint meeting of John and Jane and address the problems of
granting both their requests simultaneously. He can either ask them to reschedule their
requests or adjust in the best possible manner to give their maximum performance.
• Since the company encourages department managers to schedule workers’ shifts to
accommodate the workers’ outside commitments, Peter can grant the shifts requested
by John and Jane and pair them with a different supervisor and worker respectively to
carry on their tasks undisturbed.
• Peter can also schedule their work shifts at the same time as per the twice a week
requirement, when their simultaneous presence is most demanded.
• He can also encourage teleconferencing or e-mailing or drop-in checks whenever
possible besides the altered shifts.
• In case of Jane’s week long abstinences Peter can allot those particular shifts to any
other supervisor on temporary basis to co-ordinate and supervise John’s work.
• Peter can consider their requests for voluntary work in unpaid overtime and grant them
the 5 additional free days to John and 2 weeklong holidays to Jane.
• As for the administrators memo, Peter can share his opinions on shift adjustments,
temporary hiring of staff, co-ordination and team ups in unavoidable situations,
voluntary overtime by employees for no extra pay, and so on.
• He can suggest that they watch the work patterns of their co-workers and accordingly
allot them convenient shift timings.
• In case of co-workers leaving office on daily basis on flimsy pretexts, employees must
be warned and dealt with strictly.
• They should also set limits to acceptance of responsibility.
• Report to higher ups about unorganisational behaviour on part of such co-workers.

2. For Organization:
• The organization can reconsider the set of rules already penned down.

3
• They can make a deeper study of work patterns of employees who are regular and
dedicated to their work and those who are not or who abstain from work on vague
pretexts.
• Accordingly such erring employees can be dealt with strictly and warned of dire
consequences.
• The abstinence from work should be kept on record and beyond certain limitations,
such employees can b replaced at the earliest.
• The company can introduce employee motivation by providing bonus, perks, and
holidays to regular and hard working employees.
• They can try and fit in part time employees to make up for suddenly, uninformed
absenteeism by regular employees.
• For jobs with are cumbersome and need major time to complete, the company can
employ more staff which will reduce the burden on the shoulders of a few.
• The Company can also consider outsourcing of jobs, and off-site work projects.
• The organizational rules and policies must be cleared read out and explained to the
employees at the time of their employment.
• Certain policies can be relaxed in case of lady staff.

3. Organizational behaviour issues:

• Stringent Company policies.
• Farce display of employee’s work-life balance.
• Mismanagement of employee issues.
• More attention/preference to family and recreations by employees.
• Dumping of work on co-workers.
• Too much misunderstanding and misconceptions.
• Lack of time and resource management.
• Lack of co-ordination among employees and a mangers.
• Emotional thinking.
• Perception.
• Attitude.
• Commercial motive behind company policies.

-Snehal Nayak (Group 6)

4
5