Work-life balance indicators and talent management approach: a qualitative investigation of Indian luxury hotels

Purpose The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) it captures the work-life balance (WLB) experiences of front-office employees to inductively classify a set of WLB indicators for the locally owned Indian luxury hotels and (2) it further examines the existing WLB practices of the select hotels with the lens of talent management (TM) approach of key human resource management (HRM) practices (Thunnissen, 2016). Design/methodology/approach To explore and classify WLB indicators, an exploratory, qualitative approach is utilized by administering seven focus group discussions involving 70 front-office employees working in Indian luxury hotels. Seven in-depth interviews with HR professionals were triangulated with secondary data to capture and analyse the existing WLB practices of sampled organizations. Findings Four clusters of WLB indicators that are grounded in the lived experiences of front-office employees are identified and presented. Interview data from human resource representatives unveil that hotels consider existing WLB practices as key HRM practices with an inclusive TM approach. The findings also surface the differences in expectations of front-office employees and WLB practices followed by the hotels. Research limitations/implications First, the paper addresses the issue of WLB from employees' perspective which is crucial for designing effective WLB practices. Second, the paper contributes to the existing TM literature from the perspective of WLB practices. Originality/value The originality of the study is grounded in the employees' lived experiences to classify the WLB indicators for India and further examine the WLB practices through the lens of the TM approach.