Work-Life Balance (WLB) is defined as "the extent to which an individual is engaged in and equally satisfied with his or her work role and family role consisting three components of work-family balance: time balance (equal time devoted to work and family), involvement balance (equal involvement in work and family) and satisfaction balance (equal satisfaction with work and family)" (Greenhaus et al., 2003). WLB is the individual perception that work and non-work activities are compatible and promote growth in accordance with an individual's current life priorities
Workplace flexibility means taking a different approach to traditional ways of working.
Introducing workplace flexibility may involve job redesign, changes in hours of work, or changes
in patterns or location of work.
The National Employment Standards and modern award components of the Fair Work Act 2009
include provisions aimed at encouraging flexibility in the workplace. Anti-discrimination
legislation also imposes a legal requirement for employers to carefully consider flexible working
arrangements. As well as meeting legal obligations, flexible work arrangements may help attract
and retain employees.
What are flexible work
practices?
Flexible work practices are those which vary from
the traditional Monday to Friday, nine to five work
pattern. Flexible work practices enable a business to
tailor working patterns to suit a particular industry
and provide employees with an opportunity to
balance their work responsibilities and important
life commitments.
Employers who provide flexible work practices
create an environment that incorporates choice,
versatility and understanding. This means
employees can be productive while still being able
to meet responsibilities outside of work.
Earlier there was a war for talent acquisition, now employers are reluctant for this investment to be shown the door in some business sectors. Instead of that, they are now focusing on reduced work week, part time work and work arrangements with increased flexibility such that they could retain their staff. So, some employers are now doing inevitable reductions in staff as this leads to an opportunity to redesign their roles and new ways of doing jobs could be found out and employees could simultaneously maintain their work-life balance by working more flexibly.
Juliet Bourke is not entirely comfortable with where the “reshaped” argument for flexibility is heading. While workplace flexibility could reduce overheads and boost productivity, she is concerned that the point of workplace flexibility has shifted – and not for the better.
According to Bourke, flexibility is now about getting of more out of fewer people instead of the previous paradigm and she is afraid of the unintended consequences of this line of thinking. This was presented by her during the launch of a website (www.workplaceflexibility.com.au) which is used to assist companies in developing flexible work practices.
Also, employers could visualize the economic crisis as the time of using flexibility as an opportunity in nasty ways. They might reduce the working hours of employees when they are not needed and could put an extra workload on other staff which have to work longer, which would lead to an increased workload. So, flexibility could not ensure that it is the win-win situation for employee and employer both in most of the situations.
Although, only benefit that was requested universally – both vertically and horizontally across organizations to support work/life balance – was flexibility.In some organizations, for accommodating new requirements, business should develop sustained solutions for flexible working andutilize job redesign.
There might be situations in which demand from clients could decrease as a result of downturn. In response to this decrease, people could reduce work hours through flexible work arrangements and could improve their work life balance. A key element of this strategy includes comprehensive programs for employee flexibility and employee assistance and it would help to develop a diverse, adaptive and high-performing workforce able to meet current and future business needs. Voluntary flexible work and leave options could be provided to avoid redundancies and wages and salaries could be paid accordingly. But, in some organizations, whether there is a strong culture around work/life balance or not, redundancies are inevitable. However, where executives have seen and recognized the benefits that accrue from work/life strategies, it is more likely that senior managers and leaders would explore alternative ways to work as a way to reduce costs and minimize redundancies. Executives know that they need staff that are engaged and committed if they are to continue to be profitable. A culture delivers higher levels of employee engagement if it is supportive of work/life balance for its employees. Flexibility is also about more effective and efficient ways of working for all employees, regardless of whether they work part or full-time (Martin, 2015).
Whereas, in case of natural attrition, redeployment and flexible work practices, most of the reductions come, whenever the downturn is there and employees have to remain agile in such situations. In future duration, economy might pick up and the talent acquisition could be again in demand. Also, employees have a sense that they should have to work harder and sometimes longer in a downturn. But, sometimes there is huge impact on engagement, which is pivotal to discretionary effort and productivity. It’s hard to have an engaged workforce if they’re resentful. Even in the short term, that drive to get more out of less is not always productive. So at a time when you need high levels of engagement, you could find yourself operating a business with low levels of engagement.
As corporations look to increase sales and save on costs to ensure profitability, there’s an expectation that people would do what needs to be done – and that’s to get the results. This would impact on people and the amount of time required doing this.This trend is especially prevalent in multinationals, which have regional offices. As companies are teleconferencing more to save on travel costs, this requires employees to be on call more often across different time zones (Richmond, 2013).
Unless structural efficiencies are put in place and job roles redesigned following a redundancy program, companies could hamstring themselves as they seek to do more with less. While it is well established that talented employees are significantly more productive and profitable, there could a fine line between stretch goals and burnout even for talented performers.
So, we could say that flexibility has moved from its original paradigm to an extent which is necessary and inevitable. Pros and cons are associated with it, and proper management could lead to proper efficient workforce who has work-life balance.e
ความหลากหลาย และคุณภาพของสินค้า
อย่างไรก็ตามผู้ค้าส่งก็ยังคงต้องตัดสินใจในกลยุทธ์การตลาดของการค้าส่งเพื่อการแข่งขันซึ่งกลยุทธ์
หลัก ๆ ประกอบด้วย
1. การตัดสินใจด้านตลาดเป้าหมาย ผู้ค้าส่งสามารถตัดสินใจเลือกกลุ่มเป้าหมายของตัวเองได้อย่าง
ชัดเจน เช่น การตัดสินใจเลือกขนาดของลูกค้า (เช่น กลุ่มลูกค้าที่เป็นผู้ค้าปลีกรายใหญ่ ๆ เท่านั้น) เลือก
ประเภทลูกค้า (เช่น ร้านค้าประเภทร้านอาหาร ประเภทร้านสะดวกซื้อ ประเภทลูกค้ากลุ่มอุตสาหกรรม)
ภายใต้กลุ่มเป้าหมายเหล่านี้ผู้ค้าส่งสามารถออกแบบข้อเสนอ เพื่อสร้างสัมพันธภาพที่ดีกับลูกค้าแต่ละกลุ่ม
2. การตัดสินใจด้านความหลากหลายของผลิตภัณฑ์และบริการ ผู้ค้าส่งจะต้องตัดสินใจว่าสาย
ผลิตภัณฑ์ใดที่มีอัตราการขายสูง และทำกำไรได้ดีก็จะสร้างสต็อกสายผลิตภัณฑ์นั้นเพื่อไว้บริการลูกค้า
มิฉะนั้นผู้ค้าส่งจะต้องแบกภาระต้นทุนจมอันเนื่องมาจากการเก็บรักษาสินค้าไว้เป็นจำนวนมาก ฉะนั้นผู้ค้าส่ง
จึงต้องคอยตรวจสอบอยู่เสมอว่าสายผลิตภัณฑ์ที่จะสั่งมาไว้ในคลังสินค้าควรจะมีปริมาณเท่าใด และเลือก
ที่จะเก็บรักษาสายผลิตภัณฑ์ที่ทำกำไรสูง
3. การตัดสินใจด้านราคา ธุรกิจค้าส่งเป็นธุรกิจที่มีกำไรขั้นต้น (Gross Margin) ต่ำ แต่อาศัยปริมาณ
ขายสูง ดังนั้นผู้ค้าส่งจึงพยายามขอให้ผู้ผลิตเสนอส่วนลดในรูปแบบต่าง ๆ เพื่อนำไปใช้ในการขยายลูกค้า
ใหม่ ๆ และส่งผลกำไรให้กับผู้ค้าส่งในระยะยาว
ิ 4. การตัดสินใจด้านการส่งเสริมการตลาด กลยุทธ์ส่งเสริมการตลาดของผู้ค้าส่งที่นิยาใช้ก็คือการ
ใช้พนักงานขายของผู้ค้าส่งเองทำหน้าที่ติดต่อกับลูกค้า ในความเป็นจริงผู้ค้าส่งยังต้องการสร้างกลยุทธ์
ส่งเสริมการตลาดของตัวเองเพิ่มเติม เช่น ใช้การโฆษณาร้านค้าของตัวเอง (Trade Advertising) การส่งเสริม
การขาย การประชาสัมพันธ์ตลอดจนพยายามใช้วัสดุอุปกรณ์ส่งเสริมการตลาดของผู้ผลิต และอ้างอิงกับ
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