Analysis Of Sonia Taneja's Article On Sustaining Work Schedules

Sonia Taneja’s article on Sustaining Work Schedules “Balancing Leisure and Work” aims at examining the trends in work schedules that people currently have and the impact they impose on their personal lives, their jobs and also to the organizations in which they work in. According to Taneja, the current poor economic situations have blinded people such that individuals burry themselves in their jobs for long hours, forgetting their leisure time. In addition, people are also changing their lifestyles and as a result, they end up working longer hours so as to satisfy their endless needs. The article also aims at defining and discussing the importance of leisure time.

Taneja argues that the main importance of leisure time is energizing the body

The author uses different approaches to deliver several arguments. She quotes various scholars about the nature and cause and effects of conflicts between work and leisure. For example, the author quoted Li & Shani (1991) among other scholrs on arguments that work-leisure conflicts is one of the main factors that determine if an employ will leave for another company. Employees love freedom and socializing with others hence, if he/she does not have a well balanced work schedule, he/she may leave and get a job elsewhere. Consumption, work and leisure are the main three activities considered s the main means to the achievement of ends or objectives. The objectives may be in form of personal needs which can be classified as basic psychological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. The capabilities and level of needs of each individual determine the extent to which these activities are carried out. The three economic activities are also argued to be mutually dependent on each other at the workplace unlike in theory, where they can be explained

Here the author focuses on different leisure-work relations across different countries all over the world. Several countries such as Japan seem to have decreased their working hours and allowed employs to have more time to spend with their friends and families. In other parts of the world such as Western Europe, people have more vacations and time for their leisure activities than any other part of the world. This has benefited the society and also contributed to the well-being of individuals. The study carried out on international comparisons show those employees who work for longer hours, such as most of the Americans, are not s much happy as others who work for lesser hours and take the rest of their time in