Impact of Gender Sensitive Practices on Job Satisfaction & Stress Levels

Introduction Demographic transformations and changes in the structure of society have resulted in a shift in social trends. The inclusion of large number of women in employment is one of the many changes which are taking place in these new working life patterns (Noon and Blyton, 1997) and has created variations in the way employment terms are offered. In 1984, John Atkinson at the University of Sussex (UK) talked about a new model of the firm called the "flexible firm" (Atkinson, 1984) which was a result of these changes. The main premise of the flexible firm is that it divides its workforce into different segments each employed on different terms and conditions, which reflect the nature of their contribution to the production process. Organizations, in order to gain competitive advantage and increase employee's commitment, seek to attain flexibilities--numerically, financially, functionally and temporally (Johnson, 2004). Also, interest in flexible working arrangements has been growing, as such practices have been regarded as the measures to reconcile or balance increased pressures of work and family life (Dex & Scheibl, 2001). Recently, India has also experienced a considerable increase in female employment in BPO industry. The industry has the highest percentage of women workforce and there is a continuous increase in the number of women professionals over the years with one fifth of the female employees at the managerial level or above. A sudden and steep increase in female employees may require a new HRM policy which is different from a traditional male oriented personnel policy. Traditionally, work structures were designed to fit males only. Conventional management policies did not consider the dual responsibilities of female employees between work and families. As a result, there is a sudden development of gender sensitive practices in many organizations in India, including BPOs. From an organizational perspective, the primary focus for being more family-friendly is to attract and retain qualified employees (Rogier & Padgett, 2004). However, with the increase in the number of female employees, there has been additional pressure to become more family friendly on moral or ethical grounds (Cohen & Single, 2001). This argument can be supported by the fact that organizations have an obligation to provide mechanisms to help employees balance their work and home life so that employees, particularly women, are not forced to choose one over the other. Many organizations are adopting gender sensitive or family-responsive human resource policies to help employees achieve a better balance between work and family (Rogier & Padgett, 2004) The purpose of this study is to explore the satisfaction and stress levels of women employees of call centers who avail the benefits of various gender sensitive practices. Over the long term, this may encourage women to reduce their intentions to leave the organization and increase the level of organizational commitment. Many researches have been conducted in various other sectors which focus on the impact of family friendly policies on job satisfaction, career advancement and organizational commitment of women employees (Park & Kim, 2001). However, there is dearth of similar studies in an unconventional work environment like call centers. With a sample of women employees working in BPOs / call centers, this study tries to fill this gap by examining how gender sensitive policies influence job satisfaction, organizational commitment, stress and intention to leave the organization. Literature Review Family--friendly Policies: Today, unlike in the past, employees demand a high quality life both at family front as well as the workplace (Moon & Roh, 2010). This high quality life seems to provide satisfaction and happiness to the employees' family life which according to Romzek (1991) can have a positive impact on the workplace. …