Impact of Employee Engagement Practices of Private Universities on Work-Life Conflict of Female Academicians

Academicians have always been kept on a high pedestal in society with their work being considered very noble and one that shapes the future. In reality, most of the academicians' grapple with the inconsistent and often flawed work policies promulgated by their respective institutions that lead to much heartburn and feeling of under-valued and under-appreciated contribution. In the case of the female academicians, this problem is more acute as they have to grapple with the home and child-rearing responsibilities as well, along with the official responsibilities. Many motivational and research literature have put the responsibility of work-life and career planning on the individual, while the role of organizational policies in this regard has often been ignored or kept out of the public scrutiny. In this empirical paper, the author makes an effort to understand the impact of the employee engagement practices on the life of female academicians, and how those policies affect the work-life conflict of this workforce. The scope of the paper has been defined to contain only the work-life conflict aspects of the female employees of private universities in northern and western India, since, the increased 'Work from Home' (WFH) pattern due to the Covid 19 pandemic has put immense pressure on the maintaining of this boundary between the personal and professional life. Using Correlation Analysis on the data collected through structured questionnaires on a convenience sampling mode, the results are presented in the study along with the limitations of the study and the scope for future studies.