The impact of work-life balance policies and work-life balance issues on employee’s satisfaction in Oman

Abstract

In recent years, work-life balance issues and employees’ satisfaction have become a prominent concern in the society and emphasis on work-life balance policies has emerged due to change in demographic composition of workforce. The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between work-life balance policies, work-life balance issues and employee’s satisfaction. Simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents. 624 employees working in various organizations from Muscat and Salalah in Oman responded to the selfadministered questionnaire. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to extract the relevant factors, and statistical techniques such as correlation, multiple regression, ANOVA, t-test and SEM were conducted to test the hypotheses of this study. The findings indicated that work-life balance policies and work-life balance issues are important determinants of employee’s satisfaction. The work-life balance policies mainly showed significant support for employee’s satisfaction whereas work-life balance issues such as work-family conflict, familywork conflict and work-support conflict showed an inverse relationship with the employees’ satisfaction. The SEM results indicated that work-life balance policies and issues have significant impact on employee’s satisfaction. The study found that work-life balance issues fully mediated the relationship between work-life balance policies and employee’s satisfaction. This study has contributed theoretically and methodologically, especially in identifying the significant elements of work-life balance policies and issues that have greater impact on employee’s satisfaction. This research could be used as a guide for organizations to develop work-life balance policies to increase the employee’s satisfaction.