Antecedents and outcome of work-life balance among officers of the Ghana police service in the Cape Coast Metropolis

Abstract

The study sought to examine the effect of work-life balance on job satisfaction of Ghana Police Service in Cape Coast Metropolis. The study employed the descriptive survey design and conveniently sampled 155 police officers using stratified sampling technique. The findings established that there was no statistically significant relationship between sex and work-life balance. Also, junior officers were adversely affected by work-life conflict compared to senior officers. Married police officers experienced work-life conflict as compared to the single police officers. Long working hours, lack of initiative by institutional heads, pressure and demands of work were some of the organizational factors that adversely affected work-life balance. With respect to personal factors, police officers were not happy with free or leisure hours, sleeping hours and time spend with their partners/families. It was unraveled that work-life balance could statistically significantly influence and predict job satisfaction [F (1,153) = 17.337, r = .296, p = .0036] of police officers. It was recommended that management should enforce the policy on brief sabbatical leave with pay, part- time work, logistics for work, provision of incentives and allowance and the fact that they cannot take office work home occasionally to enhance work-life balance and improve morale among officers.