Managing Human Resources Management Policies in a Private Hospital and its Impact on Work-Life Balance and Employee Engagement

This study examines the role of human resources practice in enhancing work-life balance and engagement. We try to identify how are employees manage their work and life with the help of an organization to achieve stronger engagement. Data obtained by distributing a questionnaire to 200 employees from a private hospital in Banyuwangi. The collection of the questionnaire took 45 days and we have 113 useable responses. The technique used is mediation analysis using bootstrapping analysis. The results showed there is a positive effect of human resource practice on work-life balance. Both variables have a positive effect on employee engagement. Through the mediation analysis, it is known that work-life balance acts as mediation in the relationship between human resource practices and the level of employee involvement. Future studies can expand the participants from other hospitals in Banyuwangi or East Java. Info Article History Article: Submitted 20 February 2020 Revised 22 June 2020 Accepted 8 July 2020


INTRODUCTION
Current business situations require all organizations to involve in fierce competition. They need a unique competitive advantage which difficult to copied by others. One of the important resources that can provide such an advantage is their human capital. Outstanding human resources can contribute greatly in achieving organizational goals. Characteristics of an outstanding employee include high performance, strong affective commitment, loyal, highly motivated, and have strong organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, highly engaged employees also can become an important aspects. The employee who engaged will do the work with full of passion, dedicated, tireless, and focus on doing their job and responsibilities. Engagement is a feeling of comfort and pleasure in performing the work. These comfortable and pleasant feelings can be in physical, emotional, and cognitive form. Thus, employees will contribute more and achieve the organization's objectives (Rich et al., 2010).
With enthusiasm, dedication and independence, employees are believed to be able to carry out activities without too much control. The importance of employee engagement is evidenced from the previous research that indicates there is a significant positive effect of employee engagement on their performance (Karatepe, 2013;Anitha, 2014) and organizational performance (Garg, 2017;Al-dalahmeh et al., 2018). Therefore organizations that want to achieve success need to identify important factors that can increase employee engagement.
Many factors are believed to affect engagement. Studies have proven that job satisfaction (Kumar et al., 2018), organizational commitment ( Juhdi et al., 2013), leadership roles (Ghadi et al., 2013), compensation satisfaction (Saks, 2006), organizational support (Chass & Balu, 2018), work motivation (Gillet et al., 2013), stress levels (Perko et al., 2016), and perceptions of justice (Saks, 2006) have a positive correlation with employee engagement. This study examines how effective human resources practices (HRP) and work-life balance (WLB) influence employee engagement in private hospitals in East Java. The Hospital needs to provide excellent service to all patients. Employees from any division have an important role to ensure that patient treatment and other services run smoothly. Interviews with one of the managers reveal that the employees always show high enthusiasm and dedication to their work. Several employees also stated that working in a hospital is their manifestation to serve. Without enthusiasm and dedication, it is difficult to face job demands. In addition, they are relatively focused on details when working.
This study examines the direct effect of HRP on engagement with the mediation of WLB. The contribution of this study is related to the comprehensive and practical discussion which interrelated three variables using hospital employees as participants, which is still limited in Indonesia. The result will fit up the literature regarding HRP, WLB and engagement from the collective cultural background in Indonesia.
Organization policy regarding human resources (compensation, career opportunity, training and development, and employee relations) is one important aspect that can shape employee perception. When they feel that organization provide a good treatment which suits their need employees can work smoothly without interference and worries. Such conditions could also develop balance in their work and private life interactions. When employees feel that the workplace can fulfill their personal and family needs, and also at the same time they can work well and fulfill their financial needs and self-development they will become more engaged.
The novelty of the study lies in explaining and understanding the driving factors that a company can practice to maintain and enhance employee engagement.

Hypothesis Development Relationship between Two or More Variables Human Resources Practices (HRP)
Human resource management (HRM) as the management and utilization of human 218 resources (employees) to achieve organizational goals (Mondy & Martocchio, 2016). Human resource management as a process to manage employee talents to achieve organizational goals (Snell & Bohlander, 2013). In order to managed HRM properly, it is necessary to understand what functions that exist in HRM. HRM responsibilities include analyzing and designing jobs, recruiting, training and developing, managing performance, implementing compensation policies, establishing positive relationships with employees, managing administrative issues, and ensuring that all activities are in accordance with labor regulations (Noe et al., 2011). All these activities must be managed and effectively.

Work-Life Balance (WLB)
WLB is defined as a condition where there is an only a small level of conflict between work and personal/family demands. WLB is a condition when there are no conflicts or interferences between work and family roles (Frone, 2003). Organizations need to develop programs and environments that support WLB so that employees can focus on their work (Mondy & Martocchio, 2016). WLB is achieved when individuals can minimize the level of conflict between work and non-job demands (McShane & von Glinow, 2018). More people are aware of the importance of work and life balance. Thus companies that do not try to help employees achieve WLB will have difficulties getting excellent and motivated workers. Factors that can influence WLB include the implementation of HR policies (Anshuja & Sodhi, 2015), transformational leadership styles (Conway & Monks, 2008), organizational support (Narang & Singh, 2010), reasonable workloads (Nordenmark et al., 2012), and the level of control over the work (Kinman & Jones, 2008). By controlling these factors the company might help increasing the balance. The work-life balance needs to be managed since it can have a great impact on absenteeism and productivity (Fapohunda, 2014), intention to leave (Cao et al., 2013), job satisfaction and employee performance (Mendis & Weerakkody, 2018), and organizational performance (Cegarra-Leiva et al., 2012;Ainapur et al., 2016), and increasing investment costs to find new employees (Vlastos, 2006).

Employee Engagement
Engagement as a form of emotional and logical motivation, where individual strongly focus on their job which leads to the achievement of ultimate goals (McShane & von Glinow, 2018). Engagement is an encouragement to be united and immersed, strives hard, perseverance, focus, and involvement (Macey et al., 2009). Highly engaged employees are the one who willing to give everything and their best for the company (Kinicki & Fugate, 2016). Some positive consequences of a high levels of engagement are employee and organization performance (Anitha, 2014;Al-dalahmeh et al., 2018). Employees with high engagement level will easily adapt and ready to filled various positions, which can potentially be reducing costs (Macey et al., 2009). Marescaux et al. (2013) proposed that employees who possess affective commitment tend to have stronger engagement. Furthermore, companies with proper HR management also have the potential to build strong engagement (Aybas & Acar, 2017). The importance of stress management can affect employee's engagement level (Perko et al., 2016). Other factors which can also influence engagement include; leadership style (Breevaart & Bakker, 2018), compensation (Saks, 2006), WLB-ori-ented policies (Haar et al., 2017a), organizational support (Chass & Balu, 2018), and job satisfaction (Caesens & Stinglhamber, 2014).

Human Resources Practice, Work-Life Balance and Employee Engagement
The relationship between the implementation of good HR management practices and the WLB is still rarely studied. Research in the United States reveals that effective HRM practices in which bridging work and personal life activities influence employees WLB (Batt & Valcour, 2001). In Ireland also found a significant and positive relationship between these two variables (Conway & Monks, 2008). Effective HRM practices could increase employee motivation and improve the interaction between work and personal life (Bui et al., 2016). Some studies support the positive relationship between HRM practices and WLB (Lo, 2003;Narang & Singh, 2010;Singh, 2013). Although one study found that these two variables did not have a significant relationship (Edgar et al., 2015) we determine the first hypothesis as: H1: HRM practice will have a significant and positive effect on employee WLB.
Employees who perceive they have adequate resources to carry out their work will become more focused and involved in finishing the job. This is in line with the conservation of resource theory (COR). Employee regards the existence of effective HRM practice as their important resources which can support their work. Sufficient resources to carry out work will encourage employee morale in achieving organizational and personal goals (Hakanen et al., 2006). Effective HRM practices can affect employee engagement through the activities that can improve skills (training), provide clear career opportunities, and by developing supporting working conditions and the environment. Previous studies found the positive perception of HRM practices can increase employee engagement (Zacher & Winter, 2011;Ang et al., 2013;Juhdi et al., 2013;Shuck et al., 2014;Hetaljani & Balyan, 2016;Aybas & Acar, 2017).
Those studies were carried out in various countries including; India, Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, Turkey and Germany. Our second hypothesis is: H2: HRM practice will have a significant and positive effect on employee engagement.
Investigations in various countries found a significant and positive relationship between WLB and engagement. When employees perceived balance in their work and personal life, the level of engagement will become higher. Studies in the academic environment in Brazil and Canada found the same result (Boas & Morin, 2013). Others also support the same notion (Crutchfield et al., 2013;Alvi et al., 2014;Chan et al., 2017). Based on these findings our third hypothesis for this study is: H3: WLB will have a significant and positive effect on employee engagement.

WLB as a Mediator
Many benefits are received by both employees and organizations when employees perceive higher WLB. Therefore WLB is studied as a mediating variable between the independent and dependent variables. WLB has a central role in the relationship between the servant leadership style and employee engagement level (Haar et al., 2017a). WLB also mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and motivation (Khalid & Rathore, 2018) and also in relation to work status and motivation (Omar, 2013). Yet, the study of WLB as a mediator in bridging the relation of effective HRM practice and engagement is still rarely done. Based on the interrelation between variables, we propose our fourth hypothesis that: H4: WLB will mediate the relationship between effective HRM practice and employee engagement.

METHOD Participants
The study was conducted during April-June 2018 in one of the private hospitals in East Java. The hospital was chosen since it has a hazardous work environment which could affect the attitude and behavior of employees. besides, this particular hospital is considered the best in terms of service and equipment in Banyuwangi. This particular hospital Data was collected using a questionnaire distributed through the Human Resources Department. The total number of questionnaires distributed was 150 and we get 113 valid responses. Table 1 displays the demographic of par-ticipants. Female employees dominate gender characteristic (73%). Regarding the education level, most employees have diploma background (53%). This is in line with the most of occupation in the hospital which usually require employees to have diploma background in related fields. Another interesting thing is that most employees (54%) have worked for more than 5 years. This could indicate that the average employee is quite comfortable working in this hospital.

Data Analysis
Data analysis was performed using SPSS with the macro Process program developed by Hayes (2018). Macro Process is used to conduct regression analysis and measure mediation. The mediation role of WLB will be determined based on the Confidence Interval value from the Upper Level and Lower Level sides (ULCI and LLCI). To determine that a variable have a mediation role, the ULCI and LLCI values cannot contain 0. The macro will facilitate the application of the bootstrap approach. Bootstrap is a statistical method based on building a sample distribution for a statistic by the re-sampling of existing data (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). One of the advantages of bootstrap is that there is no need for a normality distribution assumption. The approach is quite popular because it has been widely adopted by previous literature (Costa et al., 2014;Gray et al., 2015).

Measurements
To measure the HRM practice, WLB, and employee engagement we use 56 items questionnaire. Participants were asked to choose one from six alternatives answers. The choice of answers from Strongly Disagrees (1) to Strongly Agree (6). HRM has 33 items based on Tessema & Soeters (Tessema & Soeters, 2006). The Cronbach Alpha is 0.997. Examples of questions used are "The company has clear recruitment & selection policy "and "organization has written promotion systems and procedures." The nine items for WLB were developed from Prasetio (Prasetio et al., 2017). The example is; "My work makes me difficult to live good personal life" and "Personal life & work can complement each other." Cronbach Alpha for this measure is 0.992. Employee engagement was measured using concepts from Schaufeli (Schaufeli et al., 2002). There were 14 questions with Cronbach Alpha of 0.997. regarding the validity test result, we obtained the corrected itemtotal correlation value above 0.700 for the HR Practice, and above 0.900 for work-life balance and employee engagement.

Results
Table 2 shows the correlation between variables and also the relationships related to the demographic elements. HRM practices, WLB, and engagement are proved to be correlated with each other. The correlation between the WLB and engagement is relatively strong while the correlation between HRM practices with WLB and engagement is classified as medium. An interesting finding is that older employees tend to work more hours. Employees with lon- 222 ger tenure and higher positions tend to have a higher WLB. Table 3 presents the regression coefficient which shows that HRM practices can predict WLB and employee engagement (p < 0.01). WLB can also predict employee engagement (p < 0.01). Thus the hypotheses H 1 , H 2 and H 3 were accepted. Effective HRM practices have a significant positive effect on the WLB and engagement while WLB also has a significant positive impact on the engagement.
Regarding the fourth hypothesis, it turns out the Upper Level and Lower Level confidence interval do not contain zero value (Hayes, 2018). This means that WLB can play as a mediator in the relationship between HRM practices and employee engagement. The H 4 hypothesis was accepted (Table 4). The implementation of effective HRM practices in terms of recruitment, placement, training, objective performance appraisal, compensation policies and clear career development, and handling complaints can improve employee perceptions regarding the balance between work and personal life while also strengthening employee engagement. The strong perception of WLB will ultimately strengthen employee engagement. Thus, HRM practices and WLB are complementary elements to build optimal levels of employee engagement.

Discussion
All hypotheses in this study were accepted (Table 5). This means the results reinforce findings from previous studies. Effective HRM practices was found to have positive effect on the WLB which supports previous studies (Narang & Singh, 2010;Bui et al., 2016). HRM practices also influenced employee engagement which corroborated the previous discussions (Zacher & Winter, 2011;Ang et al., 2013;Shuck et al., 2014;Hetaljani & Kumar Balyan, 2016;Aybas & Acar, 2017). The hospital seems to have carried out effective HRM management practices quite well. This was evidenced by only the small number of employee complaints regarding HR policies. Furthermore, WLB has a positive effect on employee engagement levels, which also support previous research from (Boas & Morin, 2013;Crutchfield et al., 2013;Chan et al., 2017). The balance between work and personal life influences their intention to work better and become more engaged. This is consistent with the theory of conservation of resources that humans tend to always hoard positive resources. In order for these resources to continue to produce and make higher contributions, they will make various efforts to maintain them. One such effort is to run the work better for organization.
Regarding the mediation role of WLB, we provide an additional insight regarding the result since literature that discusses WLB as a mediator between HRM practices and employee engagement still relatively limited. Nevertheless there are at least three articles that find evidence of the role of the WLB as mediation (Omar, 2013;Haar at al., 2017a;Khalid & Rathore, 2018). The results of this study support these findings. WLB is known to have a mediating role to increase employee engagement. Our mediation analysis based on Hayes (2013) who did not distinguish between partial and full mediation.
Based on these results, the hospital should develop more effective HR policies and practices that care and support employee WLB if they want to develop stronger engagement from their employees. Hospital needs their employee to be focus while doing their job because its related with human and their life. In order to make them perform they must meet their need. According to social exchange and conservtion of resources theory an individual will resciprocate what they are received and protect positive resources. They expect organization to provide good HR practice not just one day but in their entire work days.
Fair and adequate compensation, clear career advancement, opportunity to access training and development program, objective and open performance appraisal, and also someone to talk to when they face problems. Most organization already have such requirements. The question is whether it is match employee's need. They need to adjust and do not try to choose trial ad error program which can have negative impact on employee perception. Some examples of HR practices that show work-family supportive were part-time work, flexible working time, varied work schedules, compacted work hours, work from home, special work leave for urgent needs (sick, education), providing allowances (children with special needs, elderly people, educational purpose). Of course such policies do not have to be applied to all employees. Certain jobs that can be varied can begin to implement new policies. More attention from the company is expected to encourage employees to work more passionately, independently and focus. Current study provides additional insight in the discussion regarding the role of HRM and WLB in building employee engagement. However there are still some weaknesses, like; the use of cross-sectional models that can cause limitations in overall conclusions, the use of questionnaires with independent answers is prone to deviations, and the object of research in one organization also limits the ability of these results to be generalized. Subsequent research is expected to be able to perfect these deficiencies so that results that can be easily generalized can be obtained for certain regional conditions at least.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
All four hypotheses in this study were accepted. Organizations engaged in health services such as hospitals have high requirement of service. Their activities must be carried out with high level of service, security, and safety. This type of work requires focus, concentration, and seriousness from employees. Therefore employees who are energetic, dedicated, and focused are indispensable. Such employees will work with the heart and produce optimal performance. This research proves that effective HRM can make employees enjoy their work and personal life. That conformity between work and life will eventually make them enjoy their work. Work that is in harmony with personal life will make employees enjoy and feel secure which makes them more focused, dedicated, and engaged.
Our study using three variables which is not frequently used. But based on the theoretical concept we believed that good handling from organization can have impact on employee work attitude and behavior. We recommend future study will look into engagement and using other antecedents like perceived organizational support in order to confirm the basic concept. Or, they can investigate the HRM and its effect on other variables such as organizational commitment, employee satisfaction, turnover intention, and performance. This can clarify the im-portant role of such effective HR practice in the organisation. Next, future study can combine the quantitative model with qualitative model to give more in-depth analysis. The use of longitudinal data and expanded sample from other hospital in Banyuwangi can provide comparative discussion regarding each company results that will add more value to the study.