A human resource practitioner is calling on employers to assist employees to achieve work-life balance by making it their Human Resource (HR) policy and strategy.

Private HR practitioner, Dorothy Asare, joined her colleagues at a day’s colloquium organised by the Department of Human Resource of the School of Business at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) emphasised how that it was to ensure that organisations got the best out of their workers without leaving them unsatisfied, burnt-out and unfulfilled.

Additionally, she intimates that work-life balance had become imperative due to the growing diversity and multiple demands between work and family roles which made employees stressed or over-worked.

The colloquium, which was on the theme “The role of Human Resource Management in the new World of Work” brought together HR professionals from across the country, Heads of Department at the University of Cape Coast as well as students.

“We owe it to the employees. We need to help them in order for them to help the company. Let’s help them to achieve some sort of balance. If they are able to combine their work with other schedules they have, the organisation would be better for it,” she said.

Mrs Asare explains that understanding the concept of work-life balance and investing in it would bring about a win-win scenario for both employers, noting that work-life balance was well rooted in advanced countries and encouraged Ghanaian employers to consider it.

She said she is convinced that having a good work-life balance in an organisation would help to improve employee health and well-being, make them more productive, derive job satisfaction, increase employee loyalty and reduce staff turnover.

The private HR practitioner also urged all stakeholders to collaborate and work towards the ratification of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 156 that deals with workers with family responsibilities.

She argued that women, for instance, struggled more to achieve work-life balance, with their multiple responsibilities at work and managing the daily routine responsibilities of life and home and this did not augur well for their health.

Executive Director of the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners of Ghana, Dr Ebenezer Agbettor, who spoke on “Career self-management in the fourth revolution”, encouraged individuals to take up the responsibility to develop themselves.

He noted that in this age, an individual’s ability to enter and succeed in the workforce required high skills, more knowledge and increasing rigorous academic excellence, which no one could provide except the individual himself.

Head of the Human Resource Department of the School of Business at the University of Cape Coast, Dr Rebecca Dei Mensah described the colloquium as an eye-opener and perfect for both employers and employees indicating that establishments of today needed managers and employees with knowledge and skills of change management, innovation, communications and strategic thinking.