Ok, I bet you're asking yourself, its impossible to increase thirty hours from twenty-four. You're correct, but we can use the total day in a more effective way that benefits our teams and therefore increases shareholder value in the process. It's a WIN-WIN!

Today's work environment is very different than it was generations ago. It is not uncommon for a person to change careers an average of five or more times in his or her lifetime. Whereas, not long ago it was common for an individual to work with a single company his or her entire working life. This all stems as employees now are more willing to leave a company for better opportunities. Organizations are finally starting to realize the need to find ways not only to hire qualified employees, but also to retain them. Unfortunately, many employees currently feel they are working harder, faster, and longer hours than ever before. Job-related employee stress can lead to a lack of commitment to the corporation, poor productivity, and even separation from the company; all of which are of serious concern to management(Ciulla, 2005).

Many employees bring work home with them on a regular basis, especially now since it’s convenient. With the wide availability of cell phones, laptops, tablets, and computers, employees find it harder to get away from the office. More and more organizations are starting to realize that a happy employee is a productive employee, and they have started to look for more ways to improve the work environment. Many have implemented various work-life programs to help employees, including alternate work arrangements, onsite childcare, exercise facilities, flex time, job sharing, relaxed dress codes, and more (Johnson, 2009). Quality-of-work-life programs go beyond work/life programs by focusing attention less on employee needs outside of work and realizing that job stress and the quality of life at work is even a more direct bearing on worker satisfaction.

Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement. Throughout this article the writer will give recommendations, which could be implemented and improve employee productivity. Open communications, mentoring programs, and fostering more amicable relationships among employees are some of the ways organizations can improve the quality of work life. The world is rapidly evolving and becoming more competitive and in order to continually be a leader in the marketplace in all facets and sustain high employee satisfaction, leaders must continually revamp work conditions, ethics, and standards to reflect the changing times. The technological advancement of the world today affects each employee differently and the convenience of portable devices makes employees accessible even after work hours. Due to this change, it is vital to ensure that there is a separation of home life and work life since they so easily mesh together.

There has to be an even balance between the two in order to effectively show appreciation and concern for employees since the idea and threat of unceasing work is rapidly plaguing the once standard 9am -5pm workday due to technological advancements.With the rapid change in the nature of work and technology, organizations desire to improve productivity and morale are higher than ever (Marcus, 1996). Some of the key attributes to this particular characteristic are caring about each other inside and outside of work, investing in their people and reward performance, helping employees grow with the business, valuing diversity in thought, background, and experience, and lastly encourage community service (Hunt, Osborn, Schermerhorn, Uhl-Bien, 2010).In recent years, many forward-thinking corporations such as Google, Netflix, and Virgin have experimented with a variety of work-related innovations. The more common approaches are production- based compensation plan, flextime, telecommuting, compressed workweek, contracted employment, and job sharing. Many organizations have great success with certain programs, while other may abandoned the idea because it is not meeting the need of the organization. Senior leadership must deliver new innovative products and services to their customers for the purposes of gaining additional market share and thus a stress on personal time and family life. Improving the quality of work life is paramount and thus fundamentally significant to all employees.

Senior leadership should encouraged cooperation within organizations between leadership and employees for the purpose of improved work quality. Two common approaches in work quality are flextime and telecommuting. Flextime allows workers to begin their normal workday at whatever time they wish, often within a predetermined window. Flextime eliminates the 9-5-work routine each day, but flextime has its benefits and disadvantages just like any other innovative idea. The benefits of flextime reduce stress that some employees endure in their commute to work through rush hour traffic, it also reduces tardiness, absences do doctor appointments, and childcare issues that an employee may have (Bass, Steidlmeier, 1998). A disadvantage to flextime is that it can require more elaborate record keeping, which can increase administrative cost. Telecommuting employees are allowed to work at home or at another location away from the company and can be a very beneficial tool when communicating between time zones. Telecommuting took off in the 1990’s when businesses where booming. With business on the rise, there were more workers than office space and thus practical. Telecommuting offer great benefits to employer and employees; it can help resolve problems associated with occasional parent-teacher meetings or after school, when there is a tight time schedule to meet and an added personal stressor. Employees with small children can pick up theirs kids from the caregiver or pre-school with encountering additional fees for late pick-ups and there is no micromanaging of their time.

Some disadvantages with telecommuting are less interaction with the co-workers and face time with leadership, however; employees learn self-discipline, and the ability to work without direct supervision (Bass, Steidlmeier, 1998). Another method in European companies are shorter work weeks.

Shorter work week’s increases productivity, higher moral, less absenteeism, enhanced recruiting, lower cost for the employee, and possible reduction in the need for overtime. Disadvantages are employee fatigue for working parents, possible child-care problems, and concerns that the 4/40 approach will lead to employee and union demands for a 4/32 which increasing the cost of operations, and concern that employees are likely to socialize more on the job because the workday is longer (Trevino, Brown, Hartman, 2009).

Each innovative idea helps productivity and morale, which leads to job satisfaction for employees. These aforementioned opportunities for employees help establish Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction has three components according to “The Human Side of Organization”and they are Internal, External, and Individual satisfaction factors. The components of internal job satisfactions are the work, job variety, task specialization, and autonomy, goal determination, feedback, and recognition. It is possible and likely that an employee may not have all components; however, they may have some such as autonomy and task specialization (Trevino, Brown, Hartman, 2009).

An employee that is self-manage and self-motivated to perform his or her job extremely well may embrace autonomy and task specialization. Autonomy allows for an employee or team player to work separate while having an impact to the success of the team of corporation (Trevino, Brown, Hartman, 2009). Task specialization goes hand in hand with autonomy because one of the benefits to task specialization is the ability to have a duty that is unique to you and you alone to complete for the sole benefit of moving the team or organization forward. Organizational culture stands out, primarily because a company’s culture has a major impact to the type of person that would perform well or not perform well.

In today’s work environment a person must have a quality work life and the benefit of job satisfaction in order to continue to get up every morning to perform their duties to the best of their ability and feel good doing it. We spend the majority of our lives at work. The lest we could have is a pleasant time doing while working. As Vince Lombardi was quoted saying, “The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor”