CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

With the globalization and the rapid growing of the Sri Lankan economy in last decade,
numerous changes in the economy and the social setup were taken place. Collectively with the
high inflation rate in the country for luxury goods as well as essential goods and changes in
government tax policies, the monthly expenditure of an average family was gone up leaps and
bounds in recent few months period.

At the same time in the recent past the job market of Sri Lanka faced to some challenging
incidents where it was contracted in several aspects such as mergers, acquisitions, downsizing
and it made the jobs are more demanding as never it was before. This resulted in complex work
setting for employees with longer working hours, use of high technology, tight work schedules,
strict performance evaluations, High targets to achieve from employees etc as more commitment
was expected from employees for facing these economical changes while organizations are more
concern about reducing cost and increasing profit to safeguard their competitive advantage in a
dynamic economy.

Due to these changes in the economy and the social settings, it has been so difficult to employees
to have a proper balance between job responsibilities and family commitments which is an
emerging problem of work life conflict and then it is unavoidable employees are being
dissatisfied with the job . When the work-family conflict arises, job satisfaction goes down
(Kossek 1998).Moreover, the work related stress, work pressure, long working hours which are
main factor of Work to Family Conflict (WFC) (Duxbury, 2001).

However this does not end in this point, where it spreads towards high absenteeism, higher
turnover, and lower productivity and so on which is a big issue on the daily operation of any
organization. Scholars have found the different ways of satisfying the employees and facilitate to
the human resource managers to attract, motivate and retained the most committed work force as
it is very much essential as above issues are very critical influences to be addressed without
being delayed. Lapierre et al. (2008) revealed that when work family conflict is reduced there is
more job and family satisfaction which thus increases the life satisfaction. Similar findings were
revealed by (Aminah,2008) that the work family conflict is negatively related to employees job
performance.

Therefore study about the impact come from the work life conflict of employees are very much
essential to study and should give a proper concern in order to provide effective solutions hence
employees are able to have balanced family life while fulfilling the responsibilities of the work
life.

1.1.1 Elasto Ltd

Elasto Ltd is a leading and matured company in Sri Lanka which is started in 1947 under the
British government funds with the Sri Lankan management in Sothern province Bentota area.
Because of the elasticity effect it had they named it as ELASTO. It was the emergence point of
ELASTO brand. Late Eng. Mr.Donald Gunasekera was the managing director of the company
and now the second generation of the company son of Late Mr.Gunasekera, Mr.Mangala
Gunasekera is heading the Company. Elasto group harvests a range of top quality brands which
serves the customers potential of durability comfort and uniqueness. The portfolio consists of a
range of quality and durable import standard latex product brands which ranges from GOLOGY
bags ELASTO shoes, TT Mackintosh, Syntha cane rods, Mothers Darling cot sheets and
Texstretch exercise resistance bands. Elasto is the first Sri Lankan company which entered in to
the footwear industry in Sri Lanka. In 1987 Elsto engaged in export market and in 2014 Elasto
won the Best Designer of the year- Sri Lanka award for footwear at the footwear & leather fair
exhibition. Elasto is an ISO 9001 QMS certified company and now the company in a process of
achieving ISO 14001 environment certificate and SA 8000 social acceptability certificate.

Current work force of the company is about 350. Out of that 12 employees are management
employees and 57 employees are executive staff and all the other employees are operational level
workers. Most of the employees are between year 30 to 45 age group. From the work force more
than 80% are female. Also almost all the employees are recruited from the five kilometers
surrounding area form the factory. Production process of the company is very unique since most
of the production machineries are developed by internal technical employees including Design
and Development team and the machine shop department employees.

1.2 Research Problem

In twentieth century with the fast economical development all over the global and the new era of
the modern technology, whole global has become a village creating many more opportunities to
human. But on the other hand it has created a massive change to the normal behavior of the
human and the cultures. This has made the job role of employees more complex and employees
are supposed to fulfill many more responsibilities compared to an employee who was there in
past working environment which was decades ago. Long working hours, more work pressure,
high demanding jobs, and usage of sophisticated technology have made a huge challenge for
employees to maintain a balance between their work and personal life commitments. This
situation rise to make Work Life Conflict (WLC).

WLC is important in todays world because the demographic changers including the increases in
the number of females in the workplace, dual career families, single parent families and aging of
population in a highly inflationary economy. People has faced to a critical problem because for
them the family as well as the job life both have come in to a similar important to them and they
should seek for a win win situation rather without compromising either. In this condition it has
made a big pressure within the employees and this would result in various influences on the
overall satisfaction level of the employee, related to their job lives which would result in much
more negative impact on the career survival of them.

In this background, study about the impact of work life conflict on the job satisfaction has
become a timely important aspect and it would assist to propose new strategies to today work
organizations in order to make sure their employees are highly satisfied about their work life and
at the same time overall job responsibilities are fulfilled accordingly.
1.3 Research Questions

1. What is the relationship between job satisfaction and work to family interference?
2. What is the relationship between job satisfaction and family to work interference?
3. What is the relationship between work load and job satisfaction?

1.4 Objectives of the study

1. To identify the relationship between job satisfaction and work to family interference.
2. To identify the relationship between job satisfaction and family to work interference.
3. To identify the relationship exist between work load and job satisfaction.

1.5 Significance of the study

This study is a timely important area as most of employees in working organizations in current
economy has faced to this common problem of maintaining a proper balance between work life
and the family life and hence have a satisfied job life. Study would investigate whether there is a
relationship between work life conflict and the job satisfaction and the findings would help to
propose strategies to achieve a satisfied working life with a balanced work and family life.

1.6 Research Methodology

This study basically used a primary data collection mechanism which is a survey questionnaire
method, with the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques. The SPSS and
Microsoft Excel softwares were used to analyze the data collected and Descriptive statistics;
mean, standard deviation, and measures of skewness were calculated along with a regression
analysis to devise a conclusion on the collected data.

1.6.1 Hypotheses
H1: There is a negative relationship between job satisfaction and work to family interference.

H2: There is a negative relationship between job satisfaction and family to work interference.

H3: There is a negative relationship between work load and job satisfaction.

1.6.2 Population and Sample

For the study Elasto Ltd was selected and the Population of the study was 57 executive
employees of Elasto Ltd. For study purpose the Sample of 30 employees has been selected using
the random sampling method.

1.6.3 Data collection methods

Data have been collected using questionnaire as the primary data collection method.
Questionnaires have been distributed among 30 executive employees in Elasto Ltd. The
questionnaire includes open ended and close-ended questions and close ended questions are
on scale of utilizing a five point categorical. Questioner consisting questions requiring
respondents rank their responses on a likert scale based on Strongly disagree to 5 Strongly
agree.

1.7 Limitation of the Study

The study has drawn from a small sample as it was confined to Executive employees of the
company due to the convenience of contacting with them and the time frame available for the
study. It was limited to 30 due to the willingness of them to participate to the survey.

1.8 Chapter outline

This report consists of four chapters and an appendix. Chapter one contains an overall
introduction to the study including the background information and objectives of the study.
Chapter two provides a review of previous studies and the existing knowledge in the universe
regarding the research topic. Chapter three presents analysis and findings of this study. Chapter
four details the summary, conclusions, and suggestions through the findings.