Work-life balance and health care benefits - Essential forms of modern life-cycle benefits

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Personnel and Organisation, grade: 1,0, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, course: Human Resource Management, 35 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In modern companies terms like "life- cycle benefits", "work- life balance" or "family policy" are often to be heard. Before getting into detail about the topic "Work- life balance and Health Care Benefits - essential form of modern life- cycle benefits" the definition and the importance of those benefits should be pointed out.Life cycle benefits are defined as a part of the compensation package offered to the employees according to their part of life cycle; which means for instance to their age or their social situation. The benefits can be financial or non- financial. Today's working situation is under real pressure. There are a lot of different influences and requirements to the employer as well as to the employees due to socio- demographic, socio- cultural and economic changes. The economic power often is achieved at the expense of social and healthy work environments. Nowadays overtime work, organizational stress and lower payments are no exception. In order not to loose qualified staff firms introduce new kinds of programmes and services related to the needs of their employees. In the next two chapters family policies, health care benefits and their impact on the companies shall be pointed out. These two forms of life-cycle benefits are getting more and more importance for the Human Resource Management as it is announced in several magazines such as "Personalwirtschaft". On the following pages the reader should get a review over the possibilities of internal family policies and health care, the different parts of these beneficial systems, their outcome and advantages. Having handled the single parts, it should be clear that the coverage of family affairs and health care is essential for modern life-cycle benefits and for the success of a company.