To: Richard Chen, Team Member (Team Undefined)
From: Aleem Tariq, Peer Reviewer (Team Undefined)
Date: October 20, 2020
Subject: Peer Review of Proposal – Proposal for improving work-life balance at PwC Canada
Please see the comments below for “Proposal for improving work-life balance at PwC Canada” addressed by section.
First Impressions
The proposal addresses the very relevant topic of work-life balance, with realistic solutions. However, I do want to comment on what I think would be a necessary consideration, and that is of the topic of temperament and personality. I will expand on this below.
Overall Layout and Design
The proposal has the proper structure as outlined in Technical Communications; no issues noted here.
Introduction
Concise and to the point, provides sufficient background to logically guide the reader towards the problem being addressed.
Statement of Problem
The Statement of Problem highlights PwC’s issues well with regards to work-life balance, however, the topic of temperament and personality must be discussed when it comes to the conversation on work-life balance and employee satisfaction [1]. One must consider what factors contribute to this phenomenon, both at an individual and organizational level.
Concerning the individual level, a question that came to mind earlier would be, “why do junior employees have more issue, on average, with work-life balance?”, and one possible factor involved would be that employees in senior roles are more conscientious on average than those in junior roles. One possible factor could be age, in that senior employees are older, and older people are generally more conscientious than younger ones. Also, they’ve perhaps had more time to acclimate themselves to the demands of the company and have increased their work ethic and work speed with time.
Furthermore, hyper-conscientious workers are more likely to not only be willing to make concessions but their ‘work-life balance’ is generally considerably skewed towards work. Therefore, what may be considered a satisfactory balance for one individual is very unbalanced for another, and so this is one avenue that should be explored further.
Concerning the organization, certain organizations simply by virtue of the domain of their work, may put significantly more pressure on their employees. For instance, numerous health-care professions in emergency settings. Therefore, you will need to consider to what degree the work-life balance you are exploring has a component of being the result of the necessary demands of an organization on its individuals, and to what degree are these demands in excess.
Proposed Solution
The solution raised is appropriate for an organizational level approach and may very well capture this complex interplay of the demands of an organization, and the lifestyle and expectations of an employee, as the regular meetings mentioned seek to match employee and employer expectations.
Scope
The scope addresses valid lines of inquiry, however, in addition to those posed, one must question whether or not the rigorous expectations the employer places on the employee are simply necessary by virtue of the domain of work. Certain fields do require highly conscientious individuals, and there could be a case to be made that while too few concessions may lead to burnout and negative performance, too many concessions could decrease productivity, also leading to negative performance.
As stated earlier, hyper-conscientious workers are more heavily skewed towards work in the ‘work-life balance’, and completely satisfied with that situation whereas a normal conscientious worker would find that situation incredibly stressful. These differences will need to be measured and incorporated into a metric that measures work-life balance while also taking individual differences into account.
Methods
The methods are feasible, realistic, and it is good that both junior and senior-level staff in the audit line of service will be surveyed. Also, the incorporation of a Big-Five personality assessment into the survey will address the consideration posed in the Scope above.
Qualifications
The proposal writer is well qualified to lead this study.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is valid, considering there is already communication in place between employers and management with regards to initiatives promoting work-life balance.
Conclusion
If any changes were made per the above feedback, please modify the conclusion to match.
Concluding Comments
- Your proposal is a very real-world issue that needs to be addressed
- Expand your scope to encapsulate the organizational vs individual topic
- Personality is a factor that will need to be addressed, in terms of how an organization can best accommodate its employees, there is plenty of existing research on the topic of work-life balance and this various research can be used as further avenues of exploration
- As already stated, the role of conscientiousness in work-life balance, and a significant preference towards work for individuals with 90th+ percentile conscientiousness
- Neuroticism, a Big-Five-Personality factor is involved in the likelihood of burnout when under stress
Richard Chen’s Formal Proposal: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2020wa/2020/10/14/research-proposal-for-formal-report-2/
References: [1]
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