Work-life balance practices in the healthcare industry: the case of East Malaysia

Work-life balance practices, an important dimension in contemporary human resource management, has received significant attention from academics, management, government and employees. This study investigates work-life balance practices in relation to the perceived value of money, employee outcomes (well-being and work behaviour), the meaning of work and life contentment for medical professionals (doctors and nurses) in the healthcare industry in East Malaysia. The thesis takes a pragmatic mixed-methods approach by adopting a two-phase, sequential explanatory research design to investigate the central research questions ‘how does the perceived value of money influence the relations between work-life balance practices and employee outcomes, and why?’ The quantitative study investigates the relations between work-life balance practices and employee well-being and work behaviour as well as the moderating impact of the perceived value of money. The qualitative study further investigates some key findings of the quantitative analysis and confirms the influence of the meaning of work and life contentment on employee work-life balance, the perceived value of money, well-being and work behaviour. The thesis expands Western interpretations of work-life balance to include specific interactions between East-Malaysian collectivist culture and gender norms which mitigate the stress of high-intensity work for medical professionals. The study also extends the concept of the perceived value of money by suggesting that medical professionals value their permanent job status as a component of financial security. In addition, medical professionals perceived their professions as a ‘calling’ which conforms to their notion of the meaning of work. The study also suggests that life contentment is an important outcome of work-life balance practices. The HR contributions of the study are important, underscoring the significance of developing and cultivating work-life balance practices in the workplace to attract, motivate and retain talented employees

Exploring the mediating role of flexible working hours in the relationship of supervisor support, job and life satisfaction: A study of female nurses in China.

(c) The Author/sAIMS: To examine the mediating role of flexible working hours on the relationship between supervisor support, job and life satisfaction among female nurses in China. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted with online survey questionnaires. METHODS: Convenience sampling was implemented with 171 female nurses from two tertiary public hospitals in 2019. RESULTS: The mediation analysis demonstrates that flexible working hours significantly and positively mediate the relationship between supervisor support to job (β = 0.775, p < .001) and life satisfaction (β = 0.745, p < .001). In addition, supervisor support and flexible working hours significantly and positively influence job (r = 0.520, p < .01; r = 0.520, p < .01) and life satisfaction (r = 0.487, p < .01; r = 0.487, p < .01). The study suggested that flexible working hours iarean indicator of what supervisor support (r = 0.656, p < .01) is to improve nurses' job and life satisfaction. The study revealed that flexible working hours and supervisor support are crucial to female nurses who face high demands at both work and home.Publishe

Empirically testing the relationship between income distribution, perceived value money and pay satisfaction

Compensation management literature highlights that income has three major features: salary, bonus and allowance. If the level and/or amount of income are distributed to employees based on proper rules this may increase pay satisfaction. More importantly, a thorough investigation in this area reveals that the effect of income distribution on pay satisfaction is not consistent if perceived value of money is present in organizations. The nature of this relationship is less emphasized in pay distribution literature. Therefore, this study was conducted to measure the effect of the perceived value of money and income distribution on pay satisfaction using 136 usable questionnaires gathered from employees who have worked in one city based local authority in Sabah, Malaysia (MSLAUTHORITY). Outcomes of hierarchical regression analysis showed that the interaction between perceived value of money and income distribution significantly correlated with pay satisfaction. This result confirms that perceived value of money does act as a moderating variable in the income distribution model of the organizational sample. In addition, discussion and implications of this study are elaborated

Work-life balance, employee job performance and satisfaction among doctors and nurses in Malaysia

In this era, the concepts of human resource management (HRM) practices have evolved to the implementation of work-life balance (WLB) practices, such as: flexible working hours and supportive supervision. WLB practices have shown a great influence on employee attraction, retention, motivation and development. This study examines the relationship between WLB practices on employee job performance as well as the mediating effect of job satisfaction in the relationship among doctors and nurses in East Malaysia. The study surveys 491 doctors and nurses in the East Malaysia states of Sabah and Sarawak in 2016-2017. Four hypotheses were tested with validated measures of WLB practices (flexible working hours and supportive supervision), job satisfaction and job performance. Findings revealed that flexible working hours and supportive supervision has a significant and positive impact to job performance. Job satisfaction also positively mediates the relationship between flexible working hours and supportive supervision towards job performance. This study confirms the importance of job satisfaction in influencing employees job performance. An effective WLB practices will improve employees job satisfaction which eventually increase their job performance and productivity. This studys findings aim to assist the Malaysian healthcare industry in improving doctors and nurses attraction, retention and motivation