Work life balance and employee performance in hotels in Kisumu City

Abstract

Globally, it has been unanimously accepted that work-life balance results in satisfied workers so that employees do not consider work as an affliction to them. Hence, work-life balance is a modern phenomenon that cannot be ignored by organizations. This has been largely attributed to by contemporary workers who value flexible working hours, increased urbanization, growth in human resource policies, and cut throat inter-company competition. Report shows that the hospitality industry in Kenya contributed up to 6.8% of the GDP by Quarter 1 of 2022. Besides, research work in Kenya has mostly been focused on other sectors though not in the hotel industry. Additionally, various studies on the linkage between work life balance and employee performance have yielded conflicting results. Moreover, the status of the work life balance research in Kenya, that is the conceptualization and operationalization are to a greater extent borrowed from the western literature which may not empirically be applicable in the Kenyan context which creates a gap for the present study. The main objective of this study was to establish the effect of work life balance on employee performance in hotels in Kisumu City, Kenya. The specific objectives were to; determine the effect of flexible working hours on employees’ performance, establish the impact of leave entitlement on employees’ performance, and investigate the impact of stress management at work on employees’ performance. This study was anchored on constraint and signaling theory. The study adopted a correlational research design. Data collected was sorted, classified, and coded, then tabulated and also presented using tables and charts. The questionnaire was the main instrument for collecting primary data. Regression analysis was used to determine the cause-effect analysis while correlation analysis measured the strength of association between the study variables. The study is an invaluable tool for human resource managers in sourcing ways of increasing employee productivity. The study is also of help to government ministerial agencies in coming up with sound labour policies that shall not only safeguard employees’ health but shall also make sure there is improved productivity at the workplace. Results shows that a significant high correlation exists between employee performance and flexible working hours (p=0.683, α<0.05, α=0.0000). Besides, flexible working hours is the best predictor of employee performance with B=0.381. Moreover, a significant moderate correlation exist between leave entitlement and employee performance (p=0.464, α <0.01, α =0.004). Though leave entitlement moderately predicts employee performance with B= 0.357. The study as well evidences that a significant moderate correlation exists between stress management and employee performance (p=0.577, α<0.01, α=0.000) and that stress management does not highly predict employee performance among hotel workers with B=0.012. The study concludes that the independent variables (flexible working hours, leave entitlement, and stress management) predict dependent variable (employee performance) up to 63%, that is R2=0.632. This study also concludes that based on constraint theory, the main constrain in the hotel set up could be flexible work designs. That is, the human resource managers in the hotel set up should therefore consider implementing flexible work patterns. Moreover, in regard to signaling theory, hotel managements should always put in place attractive policies which will appeal and keep employees to work toward hotel specific and general objectives. Additionally, it is concluded that the findings in the western countries on factors affecting employee performance really applies to the hotel set ups in developing countries like Kenya. It is recommended that other sub variables of work life balance that were not considered in this study to be considered by other scholars in future studies on this topic to aid explicate the unsolved 37% of factors affecting employee performance in the hotel setup.