IDENTIFYING CRITICAL FACTORS OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE AND ITS IMPACT ON INSURANCE EMPLOYEES IN INDIA – AN EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS

The present paper aims at identifying the factors influencing work-life balance practices of insurance companies and assessing the impact of work-life balance practices on the employee’s work domain. The study focuses on responses on sixteen WLB statements of 300 respondents of managerial and supervisory cadres randomly selected from various insurance companies in Kolkata, India. Data have been collected by survey method using structured questionnaire of four point scale. The principal components method of Factor Analysis with varimax rotation and Ordinal Regression Analysis - PLUM (Polytomous Universal Model) have been performed in order to identify influential factors of WLB and the impact of work-life balance practices on family work conflict (FWC). The study identified four factors comprising sixteen items having Eigen values of more than 1 which accounted for about 52.9% of variation in data. Finally, thirteen statements were found to be statistically valid valid on the basis of Cronbach’s alpha of internal consistency. The pseudo R2 values (Nagelkerke = 37.6%) indicate that sixteen variables of WLB practices explain a relatively moderate proportion of the variation on family work conflict. Further, the Wald statistics identified only four influential variables out of sixteen variables which explain on family work conflict. The study would be beneficial for the service sector organizations in order to design a effective workplace that facilitates work-life balance and results in minimum family-work conflict.

本研究旨在识别影响保险公司工作与生活平衡（Work-Life Balance, WLB）实践的相关因素，并评估工作与生活平衡实践对员工工作领域的影响。本研究针对从印度加尔各答多家保险公司随机抽取的300名管理及监督岗员工开展调研，分析其对16项工作与生活平衡相关表述的反馈。数据收集采用调研法，使用四点量表结构化问卷完成。本研究采用带有最大方差旋转的因子分析主成分法，以及定序回归分析——PLUM（定序通用模型，Polytomous Universal Model），以识别工作与生活平衡实践的影响因素，以及工作与生活平衡实践对家庭-工作冲突（Family-Work Conflict, FWC）的影响。本研究共识别出4个因子，涵盖16个题项，其特征值（Eigen Value）均大于1，可解释约52.9%的数据变异量。最终，基于内部一致性克朗巴哈α系数（Cronbach’s Alpha），共有13项表述被证实具有统计学有效性。伪R²（Pseudo R²）值（内格尔克克Nagelkerke R²=37.6%）表明，16项工作与生活平衡实践相关变量可适度解释家庭-工作冲突的变异量。此外，通过沃尔德统计量（Wald Statistics）分析，16项变量中仅4项对家庭-工作冲突具有显著解释效力。本研究可为服务行业组织设计有助于实现工作与生活平衡、最大限度降低家庭-工作冲突的高效工作场所提供参考价值。