Balancing Career and Family: The Need for Attention - Essay Sample

Introduction

Family is one of the important elements of society. The conflict between family life and work has remained to be one of the main sources of stress among many existing families in society, especially working adults. One of the most important elements of the family is attention and well-developed family exercises it. Attention in the family means that parents get enough time with their children, and this calls for a balance between career and family life. Therefore, the companies that purport that there is no balance between family life and work acted immorally.

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As we move to the future, I, too, plan to have children and to balance between family and career life will call for a critical decision. I do consider family life and work as both important as, without work, it may become difficult to raise a healthy family since family requires some resources to raise it effectively. On the other side, without a family, there are higher chances that someone will not work hard because of fewer responsibilities that come as a result of no family.

Therefore, as for me, the consideration of the importance of both family life and work as both important will be the kind of balance that I will seek. To achieve that, I will identify some of the secrets to balancing between the two. Establishment of boundaries and limits between work and family will become one of the main secrets, and I will achieve this through determinations of acceptable and unacceptable actions.

Setting proper boundaries will ensure the protection of work issues from family distractions as well as the protection of involvement in the family from work obligations. The clear boundaries will enable me to easily tell when my actions are not in favor of the other life aspect. Hence, while raising the family, I will ensure that I stick to all the necessary steps to the best of my ability.

Looking at other countries, America, for instance, seems to have started understanding the importance of family life and work since women who were considered less productive in the society because of spending more time raising the kids have appeared supernatural in most of the professional and managerial positions and have outcome men. Therefore, I believe that the mindset of corporate America is conducive to the type of work and family arrangement that I plan to have.

The companies need to understand the essence of both maternity and paternity leave. Maternity leave is one of the important factors that the United States government should consider. The citizens of the United States are employed in different companies, and the country should ensure that these companies pay attention to maternity leave and also set some funds for the same as one of the job allowances. The government should assist the citizens by ensuring that the companies that offer jobs to its citizens pay the maternity leave through enacting policies that govern such payments. Also, paternity leave is another element that should be considered by the US government, and Companies should be made to consider it too as it exercises maternity leave.

Looking at the issue of mommy track, which refers to the decreasing chances of women in the workforce when they become mothers, the companies already have a mommy track as it has been primarily observed not only in the United States but also in other developed countries across the world. According to me, the idea of mommy track is not a good one as it leads to diminishing opportunities for women upon becoming mothers. Therefore, it is discriminating against women as it provides them with fewer chances to advance their careers. The mommy track is likely to hide some of the potentials that women may wish to show in the workplace.

Children are the most important people in society, and therefore, childrearing becomes one of the important roles of the parents in society. To properly raise the children, there needs to be firm support from both parents, the mother, and the father. For children to feel parental love, they need to have all their needs gathered for at the right time. For most families, proper support for children is achieved when both members work together collaboratively. Therefore, men should actively engage in childrearing.

There are some of the steps in which men can participate in childrearing. One of the steps is through acting protector to the family. The man is expected to provide protection to the family and always ensure that the family receives total security. Being the head of the family, the other step in which a man can involve in childrearing is through acting as a leader. Typically, the man should teach the family on various life issues, and this does not mean that mothers should not take part since they also contribute to the rearing of the children. Hence, society should encourage men's roles in the family.

Companies can play an important role in accommodating parental needs in an effective manner through the adoption of different approaches. One of the vital steps, which is necessary, is through the acknowledgment and, at the same time fostering peer-to-peer learning. At any particular time, when working parents are in need of motivation or even advice, they can readily acquire through approaching a panel of experts. Either the experts, in that case, can be mentors, colleagues, or any other people they trust within the organization endowed with the understanding of both organizational culture as well as politics.

The second viable step is making vacation nonnegotiable. Vacations are important to the parental needs in any given organization since it helps in relieving stress. In a normal life scenario, workplace stress is common; the only key to mitigating it is through the provision of vocational days. Vacations are also constructive in the sense that they increase productivity; parents working within the organization tend to be happy and more energized in the production of better deliverables. These parents are also more determined at all times in the attainment of the organizational goals and objectives with minimum supervision.

The last probable step to align on is encouraging managers to get personal; some of the managers tend to shy away from any personal discussion simply because they perceive it as being unfocused. If only the managers can lower their bar in discussing such personal issues, the organization will automatically be flexible in accommodation of the parental needs at all times without failure.

A company has an obligation to give employees the flexibility to be in a position of working out the particular balance of career and family, which goes beyond the social responsibilities of the business context. The firm can attain that in balancing both career and family through the provision of flexible working hours. The parents can work right from their homes or even splitting shifts purposely for them to spend time with their family and finally allowing them to leave the firm on time to avoid unnecessary delays.

The company is a major player in ensuring that both career and family matters are looked upon accordingly, failure to implement on the prerequisite issues pertaining to parenting within a career field can cause awry. The firm should thereby act within the obligation to ensure that productivity is improving at all times after considering parenting in the career field as a vital element. Parents who also work in the organization should provide positive feedback to the firm's obligations to ensure that work is completed as per the timelines provided.

Both maternity and paternity leave make a lot of sense from a business angle of inclination, whether subsidized or not by the government. It is because it helps with retention in the workplace. Literally, it is expensive to replace people in any business. For instance, the replacement of specialized and skill work within the business firm. A lot of money will be used during the training of new personnel, which is somewhat unrealistic in the wise of business.

The maternal leave is known to boost recruitment, foundationally; businesses hiring young women have realized that paid weeks off being a manageable number of probable hires to make a comparison between different businesses. It increases productivity in the workplace since parents work unceasingly and free from stress and depression because they can freely execute their activities with ease.

Paternal leave, on the other hand, is known to influence prospective employee's preferences as well as choices. It is not only a guarantee that offering paternal leave will assist you in retaining people who are already in place but also results in less disruption than the normal things in real-life situations. Paternal leave lessens work by attracting the best talent in a given desirable market sector.

Moreover, maternal leave keeps many mothers to keep working in their respective business firms. It is because they feel a sense of inclusivity towards the decision-making process, whichever the type of business organization they working on. It portrays an image of indirect involvement in the organization at all times. They are thereby entitled work that is refined and polished because their presence in the organization is highly cheered and respected the same way.