Tammy D. Allen University of South Florida

CROET November, 2008

  Brief overview on work and family roles

  Work-family conflict and well-being

  Overview of family-supportive policies and what companies are offering

  Research on effectiveness –  Dependent care –  Flexibility –  Beyond benefits: family-supportive workplace

Family inputs:   Financial resources   Caregiving

Approach:   Circa 1950 - each gender had a specific role   Today - multiple roles likely for each partner

Results   Each individual experiences conflicts

juggling time and energy to paid work and to family caregiving

  Heavy and increasing total workload –  Implications for employee and family health

and well-being

  Work-family conflict –  The degree that participation in one role (work or family) is

made more difficult due to participation in the other role (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).

  Work-family conflict can originate in either domain –  Work can interfere with family (WIF) –  Family can interfere with work (FIW)

WFC is a workplace hazard!

Meta-analytic research –  Meta-analysis is a statistical technique for combining

findings from multiple studies –  Provides a more precise estimate of relationship

Background –  More research on WIF than on FIW –  Predictors of WIF tend to reside in the work domain –  Predictors of FIW tend to reside in the family domain

Work-related Family-related General health

Turnover intent Life satisfaction Burnout

Job satisfaction Marital satisfaction Depression

Org commitment Family satisfaction Psychological strain

Job performance Family-related stress

Physical health

Work-related stress

Based on Allen et al., 2000; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998, 1999; Mesmer-Magnus& Viswesvaran, 2006

Work-related General health

Job satisfaction Life satisfaction

Organizational commitment

Burnout

Withdrawal behavior

Health Behaviors – Tobacco use – Alcohol abuse – Exercise – Eating

Safety Behavior

Child Health & Behavior

•  Father’s WIF and job demands indirectly related to children’s acting out behavior (Stewart & Barling,1996).

•  Parental WIF directly related to adolescent problems and grades (Voydanoff, 2004).

•  Adolescents’ self-reported aggression related to maternal WIF (Phares & Allen, 2004)

•  Parental WIF related to family dinner frequency (Allen, Shockley, Poteat, 2008).

WIF

FIW

Negative emotions

Family satisfaction

Work satisfaction

Health behaviors

Life satisfaction

Physical health

Based on Greenhaus, Allen, & Spector,2006

Work hours

Flexibility WIF

Mother’s eating behavior

Fast food frequency

Family dinner frequency

Child eating behavior

Child weight /BMI

Supervisor support

  WFC relates to a wide variety of behavioral and health outcomes

  Most research cross-sectional

  Most research based on self-reports

  Most research uses middle-class samples

  Multiple roles have benefits too!!

Flexibility Dependent care Flexible scheduling Subsidized childcare costs Compressed work week Dependent care assistance

plans Job sharing Childcare centers Telecommuting Sick child care Parental leave Lactation accommodation

Adoption assistance Elder care

Hewitt & Associates (http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/OurServices/ServiceTool.aspx?cid=4127)

–  Salaried Work/life benefits –  916 major U.S. employers –  Same group polled every year

Society for Human Resource Management (http://shrmstore.shrm.org/browse.cfm/4,5038.html)

–  HR professionals from membership –  Participants can vary from year to year

Families and Work Institute (http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/2008nse.pdf)

–  2008 national study of employers

Dependent care Hewitt SHRM DCAP 94% 71%

Resource & referral 42% 18%

Childcare/onsite/nearsite 13% 3%

Sick/emergency care 13% 7%

Lactation 11% 18%

Eldercare R&R 38% 20%

Flexibility Hewitt SHRM Flextime 60% 50%

Telecommuting 30% 34/17%

Compressed work week 22% 31%

Job sharing 27% 22%

2008 NSE - changes from 1998 to 2008 companies with 100 or more employees

1998 2008 % allowing at least some employees to periodically change quit times within some range of hours

68% 79%

% allowing at least some employees move from FT to PT work and back again while at some position

57% 47%

Full pay during maternity-related disability 27% 16%

Eldercare resource and referral 23% 39%

% providing an EAP to help with work/personal life 56% 65%

Health insurance coverage for domestic partners 14% 31%

Pay health insurance premium of all family members 13% 4%

% providing private space for breastfeeding 37% 53%

 Can look at individual practices or at a more aggregate level

 Limited research on some practices – Most data available on flexibility practices

 Criterion issue

Little research linking employer-sponsored dependent care and WFC

At least one study found dependent care use positively associated with WIF for dual-career women (Hammer et al., 2005)

WFC has been associated with childcare satisfaction (Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2006)

Need to distinguish between use and availability

Lots of attention on flexibility

Is flexibility the answer to managing work and nonwork??

 Baltes et al. (1999) meta-analysis

– Flextime schedules positively influenced productivity, job satisfaction, absenteeism, and satisfaction with work schedule.

 Study did not include work-family conflict

  Meta-analytic research has produced conflicting results   Distinguish between FWA use and FWA availability

  Closer look at individual studies with work-family conflict (FIW, WIF) as dependent variable

  Distinguish between flextime and flexplace

Allen & Shockley (in press)

  Considerable variation in measures and results across studies

  Small effect sizes; stronger findings for perceptions of availability

  Stronger relationship with WIF than FIW

  Several studies indicate that FWA use relates to more FIW –  Telework users reported more time-based FIW than did nonusers

(Lapierre & Allen, 2006) –  Use of FWA (composite measure) positively related to wives FIW over

time (Hammer et al. 2005)

  Overall no compelling evidence that FWA is a generally effective tool for managing work-family conflict.

Outcome k Mean r

Work-family conflict 19 -.11

Job satisfaction 28 .09

Performance: self-report 9 .01

Performance: other-report 4 .18

Intent to leave 9 -.08

Role stress 11 -.11

Perceived career prospects 8 .00

Meta-analysis (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007)

  FWA not created equal

  Moderators: FWA will not benefit everyone to the same degree

  FWA may be a more useful tool for increasing productivity than for decreasing employee WFC

  Strategic HRM approach –  WF policies more effective if clustered/implemented with other HR

policies than if adopted piecemeal

  Firms with more extensive bundles of work-family initiatives had higher profit and sales growth, market share, and internal organizational performance (Perry-Smith & Blum, 2000).

  Research on companies WM magazine (Cascio & Young, 2003). –  100 Best Firms Working Mother Magazine 100 - publicly traded –  The productivity of the WM best companies exceeded that of the

S&P 500 average in every year of analysis

Based on meta-analytic research (Byron, 2005; Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2006)

  Family-supportive supervision associated with less WFC. –  Appears more important for WIF than for FIW

  Also important to consider the organizational environment as a whole. –  What are the shared assumptions, belief, and values that the

organization espouses?

Dimension Definition

Time demands Expectations for long work hours and prioritizing work over family

Perceived career consequences

Employees perceive negative career consequences for using work-family benefits

Work climate for sharing concerns

Climate encourages employees to discuss family concerns with supervisors and co-workers

Work climate for sacrifices

Climate encourages employees to make family sacrifices to support work role performance

Respect for nonwork life Worker nonwork roles are valued

Sources:e.g., Thompson et al., 1999

  Organizational practices can make a difference, probably… –  Limited research evidence on specific practices –  Variation across criteria

  Need to consider formal and informal practices –  some research suggests informal work-family support more

important in terms of mitigating WFC than are formal benefits

  Challenge long held assumptions about the ideal worker –  Performance and productivity is typically more broadly defined by

employees than by organizations –  Success at one level, that fosters workaholism, while beneficial to

the employer in the short run, may hurt individual and family health and well-being

–  Hidden costs to employer: divorce, depression, child-wellbeing