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Changing Work and Work-Family Conflict: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network
Abstract
Schedule control and supervisor support for family and personal life may help employees
manage the work-family interface. Existing data and research designs, however, have made
it difficult to conclusively identify the effects of these work resources. This analysis utilizes
a group-randomized trial in which some units in an information technology workplace were
randomly assigned to participate in an initiative, called STAR, that targeted work practices,
interactions, and expectations by (1) training supervisors on the value of demonstrating
support for employees’ personal lives and (2) prompting employees to reconsider when
and where they work. We find statistically significant, although modest, improvements in
employees’ work-family conflict and family time adequacy, and larger changes in schedule
control and supervisor support for family and personal life. We find no evidence that this
intervention increased work hours or perceived job demands, as might have happened
with increased permeability of work across time and space. Subgroup analyses suggest the
intervention brought greater benefits to employees more vulnerable to work-family conflict.
This study uses a rigorous design to investigate deliberate organizational changes and their
effects on work resources and the work-family interface, advancing our understanding of the
impact of social structures on individual lives.
... Supportive work-family environments are associated with lower levels of perceived work-to-family interference (WFI; Kelly et al., 2014), but we know little about the mechanisms underlying this linkage. Nor is much known about the larger family contexts within which these processes take place, including crossover effects of spouses' work on one another's WFI (Westman, 2001). ...
... This is problematic for families, given that research has found WFI is associated with reduced levels of marital and family satisfaction, higher levels of family related stress, poorer quality parent-child interactions, and children's behavioral problems (Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering, & Semmer, 2011;Cinamon, Weisel, & Tzuk, 2007;Parcel & Menaghan, 1993). To help alleviate WFI and its effects, some workplaces have sought to increase levels of support for family responsibilities, and evidence has accumulated suggesting that supportive work-family environments have the potential to reduce WFI (Kelly et al., 2014). Yet, we know little about the processes through which supportive work-family environments have implications for either employees' or their spouses' WFI. ...
... A body of correlational research studying individual employees has found spillover effects of employees' supportive work-family environments on lower levels of WFI reported by both single and married men and women in a variety of occupations (Allen, 2001;Fiksenbaum, 2014;Ford, Heinen, & Langkamer, 2007;Hill, 2005;Kossek, Pichler, Bodner, & Hammer, 2011;Matias et al., 2017;Thompson et al., 1999). Although most research used crosssectional designs and examined concurrent associations, one experimental study that implemented a workplace intervention to improve the work-family environment found reduced levels of WFI among employees (Kelly et al., 2014). ...
Supportive work-family environments are associated with lower levels of perceived work-to-family interference (WFI; Kelly et al., 2014), but we know little about the mechanisms underlying this linkage. Nor is much known about the larger family contexts within which these processes take place, including crossover effects of spouses' work on one another's WFI (Westman, 2001). This study utilized longitudinal data collected in home interviews with dual-earner couples to examine mechanisms through which a supportive work-family environment has implications for employees' and their spouses' WFI-with a focus on work demands, specifically hours and pressure, as potential mediators. Participants were married heterosexual couples (N = 194 dyads) with at least two children living at home; reflecting the demographics of their communities, they were almost all white and working/middle class. In separate home interviews wives and husbands reported on their work-family environment, work demands (work hours; work pressure) and their work-to-family interference one year later. Results of an Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model revealed that more supportive work-family environments predicted less WFI for both employees and their spouses. The mechanisms underlying this association, however, differed by employee gender and type of effect (spillover to the employee or crossover to the spouse). Work demands served as a mediator for wives' (but not husbands') spillover (but not crossover). Wives' supportive work-family environments, however, were associated with husbands working longer hours. Results suggest that supportive work-family environments may be particularly beneficial for dual-earner families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... A comprehensive multilevel intervention integrating two work interventions that had been shown to be empirically effective in previous field research in other industry settings was implemented. One component was related to ROWE, which involved group participation training to increase employee control over work time and processes (previously piloted and described with office workers and IT professionals in Kelly et al., 2011Kelly et al., , 2014). The second component involved leader development to increase social support for work and family (i.e., FSSB) on and off the job, which was piloted in the grocery industry as described in Hammer et al. (2011), and replicated and enhanced with additional content on job supportive supervisor behaviors in 2015 as STAR ). ...
... It is also noteworthy that these three-way interactions (i.e., Wave Condition Moderator) define the moderated intervention effects. These models have been used successfully in other cluster-randomized workplace intervention studies Kelly et al., 2014). Intent-to-treat analytical approach. ...
... Such results, and the lack of general main effect results for psychological health for the overall workforce in the current study, doesn't challenge the validity of the STAR intervention findings but rather suggests that the mechanisms by which these effects were obtained were not through the theoretically predicted mechanisms used in the original design of the intervention but some other psychosocial mechanisms that need to be identified in future research. This study shows that unlike the research on STAR's positive main effect benefits with IT workers ( Kelly et al., 2014), in a context with 24/7 tightly regulated health care shift work, and many low-income hourly workers, there may be limits to the general benefits of the support and control resources we studied. Future research should examine the effects of other organizational structural contextual resources such as increasing pay and staffing levels ( Kossek et al., 2016). ...
Although job stress models suggest that changing the work social environment to increase job resources improves psychological health, many intervention studies have weak designs and overlook influences of family caregiving demands. We tested the effects of an organizational intervention designed to increase supervisor social support for work and nonwork roles, and job control in a results-oriented work environment on the stress and psychological distress of health care employees who care for the elderly, while simultaneously considering their own family caregiving responsibilities. Using a group-randomized organizational field trial with an intent-to-treat design, 420 caregivers in 15 intervention extended-care nursing facilities were compared with 511 caregivers in 15 control facilities at 4 measurement times: preintervention and 6, 12, and 18 months. There were no main intervention effects showing improvements in stress and psychological distress when comparing intervention with control sites. Moderation analyses indicate that the intervention was more effective in reducing stress and psychological distress for caregivers who were also caring for other family members off the job (those with elders and those "sandwiched" with both child and elder caregiving responsibilities) compared with employees without caregiving demands. These findings extend previous studies by showing that the effect of organizational interventions designed to increase job resources to improve psychological health varies according to differences in nonwork caregiving demands. This research suggests that caregivers, especially those with "double-duty" elder caregiving at home and work and "triple-duty" responsibilities, including child care, may benefit from interventions designed to increase work-nonwork social support and job control. (PsycINFO Database Record
... Finally, for work-life balance in the specific contexts of change, employees may feel the need to work overtime due to the process' demanding conditions, which may harm work-life balance. Consequently, when the organisation accounts for the employees' family demands and responsibilities and guarantees the balance between professional and personal domains, there will be a smooth implementation of the changes ( Kelly et al., 2014). Thus, positive effects of HRMPs on organisational change can be expected. ...
... Thus, a job design that provides role clarity and confidence will help individuals cope with the change efforts with higher self-confidence, less uncertainty and, therefore, greater well-being. For work-life balance, because the workload and physical demands usually increase during the change process, employees may feel the need to work overtime, and work-life balance may deteriorate ( Kelly et al., 2014), thus, eroding well-being (Grant-Vallone and Donaldson, 2001). Consequently, if organisations guarantee that employees have enough time for both work and their social lives, and maintain this policy during changes, there will be a benefit for employees' well-being ( Kelly et al., 2014). ...
... For work-life balance, because the workload and physical demands usually increase during the change process, employees may feel the need to work overtime, and work-life balance may deteriorate ( Kelly et al., 2014), thus, eroding well-being (Grant-Vallone and Donaldson, 2001). Consequently, if organisations guarantee that employees have enough time for both work and their social lives, and maintain this policy during changes, there will be a benefit for employees' well-being ( Kelly et al., 2014). ...
Purpose
Organisational change is increasingly important and interesting to study. Change may affect employees’ attitudes and impact on their well-being. In this regard, it is important to examine how organisations enhance employees’ well-being when the competitive environment requires organisational changes whose implementation could cause well-being to deteriorate. Research suggests that human resource management practices (HRMPs) may have a positive impact on well-being. However, there is little research that analyses how the internal and external contexts of changing organisations may influence the outcome of HRMPs as regards well-being, which is of interest as it pertains to the application of suitable HRMPs in every setting. Thus, to address this research gap, the purpose of this paper is to analyse how employees’ perceptions of HRMPs and support from supervisors enhance well-being, taking into account the national cultural context of organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Linear regression models tested the proposed hypotheses on a sample of 10,866 employees from 18 European countries who participated in the Fifth European Working Conditions Survey. Of the total sample, 5,646 respondents were involved in substantial restructuring and organisational change.
Findings
Results confirm the importance of national “uncertainty avoidance” values in the choice of the proper HRMPs to enhance employees’ well-being.
Originality/value
The literature highlights that HRMPs and supervisor support have a positive impact on well-being, and it also warns that national culture may condition the outcomes of human resource (HR) interventions. Based on this, the current study analyses how such HR interventions enhance well-being, taking into account national cultural context of organisations in both stable contexts and those involving change.
... We examine the effectiveness of SHIP using a sample of construction workers, a sector and demographic group that the National Occupational Research Agenda [5] has targeted as understudied. Although there is recognition that managing work and family roles is challenging for workers and their families and that these challenges lead to diminished worker health and safety (e.g., [6,7]), few workplace interventions that specifically address work-life stress and safety communication have been developed based on theory and they have not been systematically tested using scientifically sound experimental designs (for exceptions, see [2,[8][9][10]). Further, while the effects of supervisor behaviors, team, and organizational climate have been shown to affect a number of safety outcomes [11], relatively few studies have examined actual safety interventions other than Zohar and Luria [2], and no published intervention studies have taken a TWH approach that integrates both work-life stress and safety risk factors. Therefore, the present study addresses this gap in the research by examining the effects of a TWH intervention that addresses work-life stress and safety on worker health, well-being, and safety outcomes using a randomized control design in a sample of construction workers. ...
... Thus, work-life stress is a psychosocial risk factor and is identified as an occupational hazard by Hammer and Sauter [7]. In turn, supervisor support for work and family is related to reductions in work-life stress [8,9]. Work-family conflict and stress are linked to general mental and physical health outcomes [27][28][29][30][31][32]; more chronic physical symptoms; and higher levels of dysphoria, psychological distress, and sickness absence [33,34]. ...
... Our behavior tracking strategy was informed by Olson and Winchester's [18] study demonstrating the effectiveness of this method for improving training transfer. In addition, we drew on the suggestion of Zohar and Luria [59], as well as that of Kelly and colleagues [9], to integrate work teams into the change process. Thus, we used the team effectiveness process (TEP) developed by Work Family Directions (WFD Consulting), a consulting firm that specializes in work-family integration practices within organizations. ...
The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of a workplace intervention targeting work-life stress and safety-related psychosocial risk factors on health and safety outcomes. Data were collected over time using a randomized control trial design with 264 construction workers employed in an urban municipal department. The intervention involved family- and safety-supportive supervisor behavior training (computer-based), followed by two weeks of behavior tracking and a four-hour, facilitated team effectiveness session including supervisors and employees. A significant positive intervention effect was found for an objective measure of blood pressure at the 12-month follow-up. However, no significant intervention results were found for self-reported general health, safety participation, or safety compliance. These findings suggest that an intervention focused on supervisor support training and a team effectiveness process for planning and problem solving should be further refined and utilized in order to improve employee health with additional research on the beneficial effects on worker safety.
... The dual trends of long work hours for professional workers and the rise of dual-earner households have led to increased time demands on families (Harvey & Mukhopadhyay, 2007;Jacobs & Gerson, 2004;Lee, McHale, Crouter, Hammer, & Almeida, 2017). Concurrently, there has been a dramatic increase in research on work-family conflict and the resultant strains on families ( Kelly et al., 2014;Nomaguchi, 2009;Pedersen, 2014). Recently, research has pointed to schedule control -whether workers have the ability to determine, to some degree, their working hours and where their work is done -as a positive response to these new time demands (Briscoe, 2007;Moen, Kelly, Tranby, & Huang, 2011). ...
... Having schedule control may help employees balance the competing time demands between work and family responsibilities, allowing them to engage in more family roles and responsibilities (Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, & Weitzman, 2001;Jacobs & Gerson, 2004;Moen & Yu, 2000). Previous studies have shown that employees' schedule control can be enhanced by a workplace intervention ( Kelly et al., 2014;); yet we know little about the effects of employees' increased schedule control on the family. ...
... Specifically, the W-HR model asserts that contextual resources, such as family-supportive workplace practices, can attenuate work-family conflict by increasing employee resources to handle work-family responsibilities. Changing workplace practices through well-designed interventions may increase employees' resources such as schedule control ( Kelly et al., 2014Kelly et al., , 2011Kossek, Hammer, Kelly, & Moen, 2014). Increased schedule control may, in turn, increase temporal resources in the family and enhance the spouse/partners' well-being. ...
This study examined whether one partner’s additional resources obtained from a workplace intervention influence the other partner’s perception of having those resources at home (crossover of resources). We also examined whether one partner’s decreased stress by increased work resources crosses over to the other partner’s stress levels (crossover of well-being). Longitudinal data came from IT employees and their married/cohabiting partners in midlife (N = 327). A randomized workplace intervention significantly increased employee-reported schedule control at the 6-month follow-up, which, in turn, increased partner-reported employees’ work schedule flexibility to handle family responsibilities at the 12-month follow-up. The intervention also decreased partners’ perceived stress at the 12-month follow-up through the processes by which increases in schedule control predicted decreases in employees’ perceived stress, which further predicted decreased levels of partners’ perceived stress. Notably, crossover of resources and well-being were found in couples who lived with children in the household, but not in couples without children. Our findings suggest that benefits of workplace support can permeate into the family domain, by increasing partner-perceived family resources and well-being.
... Negative work-family spillover (WFS) occurs when job responsibilities influence workers' attitudes, capabilities, or energies toward family, creating difficultly in meeting obligations and expectations (Kanter, 1977). Since both men and women manage dual and often competing demands, negative spillover has become increasingly common, leading to distress, feeling overwhelmed, and burned out (Allen et al., 2000;Barnett and Baruch, 1985;Dettmers et al., 2016;Kelly et al., 2014). ...
... In recent years, researchers have developed interventions focused on training supervisors in family support strategies, yielding benefits for employee physical health, job satisfaction, and reduced turnover (Hammer et al., 2011;Odle-Dusseau et al., 2016). Other studies have found that alternative work schedule initiatives and inhouse childcare programs were beneficial to workers' job quality and overall well-being (Kelly et al., 2014;Moen et al., 2011aMoen et al., , 2011b. Therefore, in spite of its complex nature, negative WFS can be intervened upon. ...
This study examines the link between negative work–family spillover and metabolic risk factors over a 9-year period. Data from two waves of the Midlife in the United States Survey were used to explore relationships between negative work–family spillover and four indicators of metabolic syndrome—blood pressure, triglycerides, body mass index, and glucose levels. In a sample of full-time working men and women (N = 630), increased negative spillover at baseline significantly predicted higher body mass index nearly a decade later, with a marginally significant effect for triglyceride levels. Increases in spillover also body mass index and glucose levels at follow-up. This study extends research tying work–life spillover to health and suggests that further investigation is needed to fully understand the long-term effects of work stress.
... 1 Employees in information technology (IT) industry have particularly demanding jobs that may inhibit their ability to maintain healthy sleep habits. 2,3 Stress embedded in the interconnection between work and family life, called workfamily conflict, may impact employee sleep as a result. 4 Because one's time, energy and other resources may be limited, participation in the two incompatible roles creates unavoidable conflict and stress. ...
... The employees were nested within 123 workgroups who reported to the same senior leadership or worked closely together on the same application. To have a consistent sample with other studies that examined this IT employee cohort, 3 we excluded 24 employees across 5 workgroups who had different experiences from other employees during the study period, such as changing their manager-employee reporting structures or not following the WFHS protocol due to research staff error. Therefore, 799 employees from 118 workgroups who completed the CAPI were the baseline cohort of IT employees. ...
Study objectives:
Work-family conflict is a threat to healthy sleep behaviors among employees. This study aimed to examine how Work-to-Family Conflict (demands from work that interfere with one's family/ personal life; WTFC) and Family-to-Work Conflict (demands from family/ personal life that interfere with work; FTWC) are associated with several dimensions of sleep among information technology workers.
Methods:
Employees at a U.S. IT firm (N=799) provided self-reports of sleep sufficiency (feeling rested upon waking), sleep quality, and sleep maintenance insomnia symptoms (waking up in the middle of the night or early morning) in the last month. They also provided a week of actigraphy for nighttime sleep duration, napping, sleep timing, and a novel sleep inconsistency measure. Analyses adjusted for work conditions (job demands, decision authority, schedule control, and family-supportive supervisor behavior), and household and sociodemographic characteristics.
Results:
Employees who experienced higher WTFC reported less sleep sufficiency, poorer sleep quality, and more insomnia symptoms. Higher WTFC also predicted shorter nighttime sleep duration, greater likelihood of napping, and longer nap duration. Furthermore, higher WTFC was linked to greater inconsistency of nighttime sleep duration and sleep clock times, whereas higher FTWC was associated with more rigidity of sleep timing mostly driven by wake time.
Conclusion:
Results highlight the unique associations of WTFC/ FTWC with employee sleep independent of other work conditions and household and sociodemographic characteristics. Our novel methodological approach demonstrates differential associations of WTFC and FTWC with inconsistency of sleep timing. Given the strong associations between WTFC and poor sleep, future research should focus on reducing WTFC.
... Lower-wage workers in the extended care (nursing home) industry often work nonstandard, unpredictable schedules. 22 Employees in the IT industry are generally considered white collar, involved mostly in software development, IT architecture, or engineering, 23 and in relatively privileged jobs (by education and income) compared to other workers in the United States. Examining these two industry samples provides unique opportunities to compare the association between sleep health and CRS between different socioeconomic and work contexts. ...
... To have a consistent sample with other studies that examined sleep and work-family conflict in this IT employee cohort, 23,26 we excluded 24 employees across 5 workgroups as previously described. 23,26 Therefore, 799 employees were the baseline cohort of IT employees (IT managers did not participate in biomarker and actigraphy-assessed substudies, and thus were not included in the current study). Of the 799 total employees, 703 employees provided biomarker data necessary to calculate CRS. ...
Study objectives:
Sleep disorders and sleep deficiency can increase the risk for cardiovascular disease. Less is known about whether multiple positive attributes of sleep health known as the SATED (satisfaction, alertness, timing, efficiency, and duration) model, can decrease future cardiovascular disease risks. We examined whether and how a variety of indicators of sleep health predicted 10-year estimated cardiometabolic risk scores (CRS) among employed adults.
Methods:
Workers in two industries-extended care (n = 1,275) and information technology (IT; n = 577)-reported on habitual sleep apnea symptoms and sleep sufficiency, and provided 1 week of actigraphy data including nighttime sleep duration, wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep timing, and daytime napping. Workers also provided biomarkers to calculate future cardiometabolic risk.
Results:
More sleep apnea symptoms predicted higher CRS in both industries. More sleep sufficiency, less WASO, and less daytime napping (having no naps, fewer naps, and shorter nap duration) were also linked to lower CRS, but only in the extended care workers. There was no effect of sleep duration in both industries. In the IT employee sample, shorter sleep duration (≤ 6 hours versus 6-8 hours) and more naps strengthened the link between sleep apnea and CRS.
Conclusions:
Sleep health, measured by both subjective and objective methods, was associated with lower cardiometabolic disease risks among extended care workers (lower to middle wage workers). Sleep apnea was an important predictor of CRS; for the IT workers, the link between sleep apnea and CRS was exacerbated when they had poorer sleep health behaviors.
... Preventive actions should mainly target excessive workload and psycho-organizational constraints while promoting communication, proper organization of schedules and pace of work [40][41][42], as well as staff recruitment within the deficit health structures. Nevertheless, to be effective, these measures should actively involve nurses themselves through a selfreflection process [40,43]. ...
... For his part, familial support seems to have a protective effect on WFC, particularly on strain-based WF-C. Indeed, it was demonstrated that familial support had a negative association with total score of WFC interface, so when this support increased, WFC decreased [24,41]. ...
Objective. This study aimed to examine the association of the different dimensions and forms of work-family conflict with the occurrence of neck and lower back pain (LBP) in Tunisian nurses. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional study on nurses assigned to a district hospital in Tunisia. The work-family interface was assessed with the work-family conflict scale of Carlson et al. Psychosocial and organizational constraints at work were assessed through the nursing work index - extended organization in its specific version designed for nurses. Assessment of neck and lumbar pain was carried out with the standardized Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire. Results. Seventy-two nurses participated in the present study (participation rate = 100%) with a mean age of 42.38 ± 10.85 years. Binary logistic regression analyses retained strain-based work-to-family conflict as a significant determinant of both LBP (p < 10-3; odds ratio [OR] = 5.07; 95% confidence interval [CI] [2.1, 11.7]) and neck pain (p = 0.001; OR = 6.8; 95% CI [2.13, 22]). Conclusions. Strain-based work-to-family conflict was found to predict lumbar and cervical pain more than the other types of conflict in nursing staff. Thus, reducing strain in health-care settings should be a central component of the preventive approach of musculoskeletal disorders in nursing staff.
... 34,36 Supervisors can offer this assistance through various mechanisms, including providing emotional support for their employees' worklife-balance challenges, modeling effective balance strategies, and being creative and supportive of strategies to provide flexibility in work schedules. 37 Because their supervisors were ''hands-off'' leaders, our participants had some control over when they came to work and met their obligations. Having a supervisor who permitted the workday to be structured according to the AT's needs and responsibilities was previously found to be a useful benefit O n l i n e F i r s t of working in the collegiate athletics setting. ...
... 7,10 Thus, drawing from our results and the work of those before us, we see the value in having a supervisor who provides autonomy and the freedom to structure one's work schedule in a way that blends work and personal obligations and needs. 31,37 This concept that everyone can have control over their work schedules as long as they complete the work has recently emerged as the critical piece to providing, encouraging, and maintaining that control. 35 ...
Context:
An organizational climate is largely based on an employee's perceptions of the working conditions in which he or she engages regularly. A multifaceted concept, the organizational climate is often formed by perceptions of employee welfare, rewards, and support. Achieving work-life balance is also a part of the climate.
Objective:
To learn collegiate athletic trainers' perceptions of organizational climate and specifically how it may pertain to their work-life balance.
Design:
Phenomenologic study.
Setting:
Collegiate practice setting.
Patients or other participants:
Thirty athletic trainers working in the collegiate athletics setting took part in 1-on-1 phone interviews. The participants were 30.5 (interquartile range [IQR] = 7.75) years old and had been certified for 7 (IQR = 5) years and at their current position for 4 (IQR = 3) years.
Data collection and analysis:
Participants completed a phone interview that followed a semistructured framework. All transcribed interviews were analyzed using a phenomenologic approach. Researcher triangulation, expert review, and data saturation were used to establish credibility.
Results:
Athletic trainers working in the collegiate athletics setting who had positive perceptions of their work-life balance described their organizational climate as family friendly. Our participants' supervisors allowed for autonomy related to work scheduling, which provided opportunities for work-life balance. These athletic trainers believed that they worked in a climate that was collegial, which was helpful for work-life balance. In addition, the importance of placing family first was part of the climate.
Conclusions:
The perceptions of our participants revealed a climate of family friendliness, supervisor support, and collegiality among staff members, which facilitated the positive climate for work-life balance. The mindset embraced the importance of family and recognized that work did not always have to supersede personal priorities.
... Based on the study of Hammer et al. (2014), some of the reasons why employees are resisting changing are: ...
The aim of this research is to identify the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) in managing changes in the work place and the attitude for a new change initiative. With this research we would like to prove that the success in managing changes and in the working performance in general, is not depending only on professional knowledge and the level of IQ of employees and managers, but also the level of emotional intelligence has a great impact on it. Based on research result from 265 respondent divided on 215 non-managers position and 51 respondent with managers/director position from different private and public institutions we have concluded that in Macedonia the success of managing changes is depending from the level of emotional intelligence. There is significant correlation between the level of EQ and the index of managing changes.
... A supportive work organization includes safeguards against job strain, work overload, and harassment, 7,71-74 as well as supports for workers as they address work-life balance, return to work after an illness or injury, and take entitled breaks, including meal breaks as well as sick and vacation time. 75,76 Comprehensive and collaborative strategies, defined as:"Employees from across the organization work together to develop comprehensive health and safety initiatives." Measures were adapted from our Indicators of Integration 1 and also relied on recent recommendations from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. ...
Objective:
To present a measure of effective workplace organizational policies, programs and practices that focuses on working conditions and organizational facilitators of worker safety, health and wellbeing: the Workplace Integrated Safety and Health (WISH) Assessment.
Methods:
Development of this assessment used an iterative process involving a modified Delphi method, extensive literature reviews, and systematic cognitive testing.
Results:
The assessment measures six core constructs identified as central to best practices for protecting and promoting worker safety, health and wellbeing: leadership commitment; participation; policies, programs and practices that foster supportive working conditions; comprehensive and collaborative strategies; adherence to federal and state regulations and ethical norms; and data-driven change.
Conclusions:
The WISH Assessment holds promise as a tool that may inform organizational priority setting and guide research around causal pathways influencing implementation and outcomes related to these approaches.
... Within this context, this study used multiple measures (hours worked, absenteeism, and presenteeism) to examine the work performance effects of the STAR intervention, which has been shown to reduce work-family conflict 35 and have a positive (although insignificant) ROI. 24 Using a group-randomized field experiment, this study found no evidence that an intervention targeting work-family conflict negatively affected employee performance measures of total hours worked, absenteeism, and presenteeism. ...
Purpose:
To estimate the effects of a workplace initiative to reduce work-family conflict on employee performance.
Design:
A group-randomized multisite controlled experimental study with longitudinal follow-up.
Setting:
An information technology firm.
Participants:
Employees randomized to the intervention (n = 348) and control condition (n = 345).
Intervention:
An intervention, "Start. Transform. Achieve. Results." to enhance employees' control over their work time, to increase supervisors' support for this change, and to increase employees' and supervisors' focus on results.
Methods:
We estimated the effect of the intervention on 9 self-reported employee performance measures using a difference-in-differences approach with generalized linear mixed models. Performance measures included actual and expected hours worked, absenteeism, and presenteeism.
Results:
This study found little evidence that an intervention targeting work-family conflict affected employee performance. The only significant effect of the intervention was an approximately 1-hour reduction in expected work hours. After Bonferroni correction, the intervention effect is marginally insignificant at 6 months and marginally significant at 12 and 18 months.
Conclusion:
The intervention reduced expected working time by 1 hour per week; effects on most other employee self-reported performance measures were statistically insignificant. When coupled with the other positive wellness and firm outcomes, this intervention may be useful for improving employee perceptions of increased access to personal time or personal wellness without sacrificing performance. The null effects on performance provide countervailing evidence to recent negative press on work-family and flex work initiatives.
... Based on the study of Hammer et al. (2014), some of the reasons why employees are resisting changing are: ...
The aim of this research is to identify the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) in managing changes in the work place and the attitude for a new change initiative. With this research we would like to prove that the success in managing changes and in the working performance in general, is not depending only on professional knowledge and the level of IQ of employees and managers, but also the level of emotional intelligence has a great impact on it. Based on research result from 265 respondent divided on 215 non-managers position and 51 respondent with managers/director position from different private and public institutions we have concluded that in Macedonia the success of managing changes is depending from the level of emotional intelligence. There is significant correlation between the level of EQ and the index of managing changes.
... Since the idea of coworking-spaces is partly based on sharing a common office, and partly on open and social interaction in general, coworking-spaces fit exactly in the idea of the sharing economy. Given the increasing demand for work-life balance and the rather flexible and constant working models that are especially younger generations ask for (Kelly et al. 2014), coworking-spaces fit in the gap. Richter et al. (2017) who define the sharing economy as "an economic model […] in which users systematically share underutilized assets for monetary or nonmonetary benefits". ...
Coopetition has the potential to improve entrepreneurship and innovation. It will be prevalent in coworking-spaces building a growing field for individual and corporate entrepreneurship. The individuals’ physical closeness in the professional and social space of the coworking-space eases multifaceted transfers of explicit and implicit knowledge, stimulating their creation, transfer, overhaul, and implementation of entrepreneurial ideas. While entrepreneurs in these coworking-spaces collaborate on sharing knowledge and resources
and on finding creative ideas from which can breed new venture concepts, they simultaneously compete on the appropriation of values. Thus, entrepreneurs in coworking-spaces face coopetitive tensions of creating and appropriating the values. Based on interview data and secondary sources, this paper explains four different prototype institutions of coworking-spaces: the corporate coworking-space, the open corporate coworking-space, the consultancy coworking-space, and the independent coworking-space. Our study explains different tensions of value creation and appropriation that occur within the coopetition in the different forms of coworking-spaces.
... For the most part, organisations clearly meet their duty of care towards families through standard HR practices: in the absence of calling, it makes theoretical and practical sense to conflate employees and their families, as is usual (e.g. Kelly et al., 2014;Kossek et al., 2011aKossek et al., , 2011b. However, this article claims that calling is a 'wildcard' that requires a more nuanced approach. ...
... On-site or near-site childcare and elderly care can also help prevent work–privacy conflict . The current study was inconclusive with respect to influence at work and social support, but Kelly et al. [28] recently showed that increased schedule control and increased supervisor support for family and personal life significantly reduced WFC. ...
Purpose
Surgical nurses’ work is physically and mentally demanding, possibly leading to work–family conflict (WFC). The current study tests WFC to be a risk factor for neck and lower back pain (LBP). Job influence and social support are tested as resources that could buffer the detrimental impact of WFC.
Methods
Forty–eight surgical nurses from two university hospitals in Germany and Switzerland were recruited. WFC was assessed with the work–family conflict scale. Job influence and social support were assessed with the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, and back pain was assessed with the North American Spine Society Instrument.
Results
Multiple linear regression analyses confirmed WFC as a significant predictor of cervical pain (β = 0.45, p < 0.001) and LBP (β = 0.33, p = 0.012). Job influence and social support did not turn out as significant predictors and were not found to buffer the impact of WFC in moderator analyses.
Conclusion
WFC is likely to affect neck and back pain in surgery nurses. Work life interventions may have the potential to reduce WFC in surgery nurses.
... Based on two pilot studies 24,25 and an extensive literature review, the WFHN developed a biopsychosocial model representing the hypothesized causal pathways between an intervention designed to reduce WFC and improvements in employee health, family health, and the employer's organizational costs such as expenditures on health care utilization and sick leave, diminished employee productivity, and increased absenteeism, and turnover. 26 The conceptual model links WFC interventions to organizational outcomes primarily through two mechanisms: (1) improved psychological and physical health of employees that results from reduced stress caused by WFC and (2) direct administrative changes that WFC interventions may induce (eg, changes in sick leave policies that redefine absenteeism in administrative systems). Beyond these two mechanisms, the conceptual framework for the WFHN also acknowledges the need to assess intervention effects on common organizational cost drivers (eg, health care utilization) regardless of a conceptual link to a specific WFC intervention to better garner organizational support for such interventions. ...
Objective:
To estimate the cost and return on investment (ROI) of an intervention targeting work-family conflict (WFC) in the extended care industry.
Methods:
Costs to deliver the intervention during a group-randomized controlled trial were estimated, and data on organizational costs-presenteeism, health care costs, voluntary termination, and sick time-were collected from interviews and administrative data. Generalized linear models were used to estimate the intervention's impact on organizational costs. Combined, these results produced ROI estimates. A cluster-robust confidence interval (CI) was estimated around the ROI estimate.
Results:
The per-participant cost of the intervention was $767. The ROI was -1.54 (95% CI: -4.31 to 2.18). The intervention was associated with a $668 reduction in health care costs (P < 0.05).
Conclusions:
This paper builds upon and expands prior ROI estimation methods to a new setting.
... Some studies show that having control over where and when one works can relieve work-family conflict -that is, the conflict one feels from the demands coming from work and family life (e.g. Chung, 2011;Kelly et al., 2014), most notably during the transition into parenthood (Erickson et al., 2010). However, others argue that flexitime and telework have little or no impact on workers' work-family conflict (Allen et al., 2013;Michel et al., 2011) or that they, particularly teleworking, can potentially increase work-family conflict (e.g. ...
This article sets out to investigate how flexitime and teleworking can help women maintain their careers after childbirth. Despite the increased number of women in the labour market in the UK, many significantly reduce their working hours or leave the labour market altogether after childbirth. Based on border and boundary management theories, we expect flexitime and teleworking can help mothers stay employed and maintain their working hours. We explore the UK case, where the right to request flexible working has been expanded quickly as a way to address work–life balance issues. The dataset used is Understanding Society (2009–2014), a large household panel survey with data on flexible work. We find some suggestive evidence that flexible working can help women stay in employment after the birth of their first child. More evidence is found that mothers using flexitime and with access to teleworking are less likely to reduce their working hours after childbirth. This contributes to our understanding of flexible working not only as a tool for work–life balance, but also as a tool to enhance and maintain individuals’ work capacities in periods of increased family demands. This has major implications for supporting mothers’ careers and enhancing gender equality in the labour market.
... Organisational modifications, such as increasing supervisory support for employees' work-family concerns, and control over work hours, have reduced work-family conflict among workers of the information technology industry. 22 These pathways have also improved safety-related outcomes among direct-care workers. 23 However, it is unclear whether work-family organisational changes, namely supervisory support for workfamily concerns and schedule control would reduce cigarette consumption. ...
Background Observational studies have linked work–family issues with cigarette consumption. This study examined the 6-month effects on cigarette consumption of a work–family supportive organisational intervention among nursing home workers.
Methods Group randomised controlled trial where 30 nursing homes across New England states were randomly assigned to either usual practice or to a 4-month intervention aimed at reducing work–family conflict via increased schedule control and family supportive supervisory behaviours (FSSB). Cigarette consumption was based on self-reported number of cigarettes per week, measured at the individual level.
Results A total of 1524 direct-care workers were enrolled in the trial. Cigarette consumption was prevalent in 30% of the sample, consuming an average of 77 cigarettes/week. Smokers at intervention sites reduced cigarette consumption by 7.12 cigarettes, while no reduction was observed among smokers at usual practice sites (b=−7.12, 95% CI −13.83 to −0.40, p<0.05) (d=−0.15). The majority of smokers were US-born White nursing assistants, and among this subgroup, the reduction in cigarette consumption was stronger (b=−12.77, 95% CI −22.31 to −3.22, p<0.05) (d=−0.27). Although the intervention prevented a decline in FSSB (d=0.08), effects on cigarette consumption were not mediated by FSSB.
Conclusions Cigarette consumption was reduced among smokers at organisations where a work–family supportive intervention was implemented. This effect, however, was not explained by specific targets of the intervention, but other psychosocial pathways related to the work–family interface.
Trial registration number NCT02050204; results.
... For the most part, organisations clearly meet their duty of care towards families through standard HR practices: in the absence of calling, it makes theoretical and practical sense to conflate employees and their families, as is usual (e.g. Kelly et al., 2014;Kossek et al., 2011aKossek et al., , 2011b. However, this article claims that calling is a 'wildcard' that requires a more nuanced approach. ...
... Schedule control is central to any analyses of the work-home interface because it involves the extent that workers are able to determine the hours they work, ranging from having no control at all to complete control over scheduling (Golden 2001;Kelly and Moen 2007;Schieman and Young 2010). The depiction of schedule control as an effective job-related resource is demonstrated in the organizational intervention research conducted by Kelly, Moen, and their colleagues (Kelly, Moen, and Tranby 2011;Kelly et al. 2014;Moen et al. 2016). The resource view predicts that schedule control should enhance work-home integration, thereby minimizing the disruptiveness of role blurring activities for nonwork roles Glavin and Schieman 2012;Schieman, Milkie, and Glavin 2009). ...
Has the COVID-19 pandemic altered the status dynamics of role blurring? While researchers typically investigate its conflictual aspects, we assess if the work-home interface might also be a source of status—and the relevance of schedule control in these processes. Analyzing data from nationally representative samples of workers in September 2019 and March 2020, we find that role blurring is associated with elevated status—but the onset of COVID-19 weakens that effect. Likewise, schedule control enhances the status of role blurring, but its potency is also weakened during the pandemic. Our findings align with the suggestion that role blurring signals a commitment to work and adherence to ideal worker norms. However, the pandemic changed that by intensifying role integration and possibly by reducing the degree of agency once associated with role blurring. The loss of choice around role blurring might have also diluted the distinctive status that it once carried.
... Based on Hammer et al. (2014), some of the reasons why employees are resisting changing are belief that the change initiative is a temporary fad; belief that fellow employees or managers are incompetent; loss of authority or control; loss of status or social standing; lack of faith in their ability to learn new skills; feeling of change overload (too much too soon); lack of trust in or dislike of managers; loss of job security; loss of family or personal time; and feeling that the organisation is not entitled to extra effort (as cited on Berisha (2015). ...
The aim of this chapter is to identify the relationship and the impact of innovative working behaviour (IWB) of employees on their performance. With innovative working behaviour, we are trying to analyse the initiative taken from employees for improving work and the effects over working performance (WP). Employees with a higher level of innovative behaviour are expected to be star performers in their working place. An organisation needs to increase the awareness of the importance of innovative working behaviour of their employee in working activity. The sample includes 214 respondents from the private and public sector in Macedonia. Based on our findings, we provide some useful recommendation to organisations to raise the awareness of innovation that comes from employee side. The chapter ends with study limitations and future research directions.
... Flexible working arrangements (FWAs) have potential to increase fathers' involvement in family life since they allow autonomy over schedule, location and hours (Bryan and Sevilla, 2017;Kelly et al., 2014;Wheatley, 2016). All UK employees who have worked for an employer for 26 weeks or more have a right to request FWAs (ACAS, 2016). ...
A conditional right to request flexible working arrangements (FWAs) has existed for most UK employee parents since 2003. However, there are growing concerns about access, particularly among fathers. Using nationally representative data from the 2015 UK Household Longitudinal Survey, this article examines fathers’ perceptions of the availability of hours reduction, schedule flexibility and working from home. Results show that almost one-third of fathers believe that FWAs that reduce working hours are unavailable to them, compared with one-tenth of mothers. There are no gender differences in perceptions of availability of schedule and location flexibility. Among fathers, those with lower education levels, in lower status occupations, working in the private sector and in workplaces that do not have trade union presence are more likely to believe that FWAs are unavailable. Therefore, even though most employees now have the right to request FWAs, a significant minority of fathers do not perceive FWAs to be available to them.
... 3 As well, there are a number of studies that provide evidence that flexible working relieves work-tofamily conflict. 4,5 It is no surprise then that flexible work is beginning to look like the norm rather than the exception in many professional jobs. In the United States, for instance, national census data revealed that nearly three quarters of survey respondents strongly considered flexibility in the workplace when looking for a new job. ...
Although some research has examined health implications of flexible work arrangements, little is known about job flexibility and health in the context of modern working life, characterized by intensification. Grounded on the Job Demand-Resource model, this article explores access to flexible work arrangements and organizational climate on the health and well-being of white-collar, urban professionals in downtown Toronto. A qualitative content analysis of eight semistructured interviews with white-collar, urban professionals between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-two revealed three domains—intensity of work life and demands, coworker and managerial relations, and the boundaries between work and home—where demands outweighed resources to limit workers’ ability to practice flexibility. Thus, an emerging trend where workers need to be flexible within flexible work arrangements emerged. Findings point to the need for organizational commitment and activities to address unhealthy behaviors in the context of modern working life.
... For the most part, organisations clearly meet their duty of care towards families through standard HR practices: in the absence of calling, it makes theoretical and practical sense to conflate employees and their families, as is usual (e.g. Kelly et al., 2014;Kossek et al., 2011aKossek et al., , 2011b. However, this article claims that calling is a 'wildcard' that requires a more nuanced approach. ...
This conceptual article extends the literature on the disadvantages of calling. The article makes four main contributions. First, it argues that some of the burden of calling is shouldered not by called individuals or their employers, but rather by close family members. Second, it argues that calling influences work–life ideology, limiting a called person’s ability to exercise choice and self-manage their work–life boundary. Third, it introduces the novel notion of the sacrifice-reliant organisation, which relies on calling to achieve organisational goals. Fourth, the article argues normatively that organisations with called members have an enhanced duty of care towards families of its members that is commensurate with the extent to which they rely on calling to achieve their goals. Using ethics of care, it also develops guidelines on the extent and components of such an enhanced duty of care.
... The commercial construction industry is highly dynamic, with diverse psychosocial 32 factors and significant physical hazards that may be contributing to negative mental health 33 outcomes. 7 It is evident that construction workers have a high prevalence of work-related 34 injuries and high-risk health behaviors that limit their overall work ability and productivity. 8,9 35 However, it is unclear how work influences their mental health and well-being. ...
Objective:
Identify work-related factors associated with the mental health and well-being of construction workers.
Methods:
We completed eight key informant interviews, six worker focus groups, and a survey, informed by the interviews and focus groups, of 259 construction workers on five construction sites. Negative binomial regressions examined associations between psychological distress and work-related factors including safety climate, work-to-family conflict, psychological demands, social support, harassment, and job security.
Results:
Three themes emerged from the interviews and focus groups, job demands and structure, social support and workplace relations, and job precarity. From the survey higher psychological demands, higher work-to-family conflict, lower supervisor support, higher discrimination, and higher likelihood of losing a job were associated with higher psychological distress. When combined into a single model job demands and work-to-family conflict remained significant.
Conclusions:
Work-related factors were associated with high levels of distress.
Some studies have argued that information and communication technologies such as smartphones can
pressure employees to work more from home, while others argue that they help employees manage transitions
between the work and family role domains. Leveraging boundary theory and the job demands–resources
model, the present study examines the conditions under which work–family technology use is associated with
greater boundary control. Findings show that technology use is associated with higher boundary control for
those who prefer role integration and lower boundary control for those who prefer role segmentation.
Findings also show that boundary control is linked to emotional exhaustion and that organizational afterhours
electronic communication expectations can compel work–family technology use despite individual
preferences.
Background
Sleep is intricately tied to emotional well-being, yet little is known about the reciprocal links between sleep and psychosocial experiences in the context of daily life. PurposeThe aim of this study is to evaluate daily psychosocial experiences (positive and negative affect, positive events, and stressors) as predictors of same-night sleep quality and duration, in addition to the reversed associations of nightly sleep predicting next-day experiences. Methods
Daily experiences and self-reported sleep were assessed via telephone interviews for eight consecutive evenings in two replicate samples of US employees (131 higher-income professionals and 181 lower-income hourly workers). Multilevel models evaluated within-person associations of daily experiences with sleep quality and duration. Analyses controlled for demographics, insomnia symptoms, the previous day’s experiences and sleep measures, and additional day-level covariates. ResultsDaily positive experiences were associated with improved as well as disrupted subsequent sleep. Specifically, positive events at home predicted better sleep quality in both samples, whereas greater positive affect was associated with shorter sleep duration among the higher-income professionals. Negative affect and stressors were unrelated to subsequent sleep. Results for the reversed direction revealed that better sleep quality (and, to a lesser degree, longer sleep duration) predicted emotional well-being and lower odds of encountering stressors on the following day. Conclusions
Given the reciprocal relationships between sleep and daily experiences, efforts to improve well-being in daily life should reflect the importance of sleep.
Purpose
Recent work–family literature has identified leadership as an area for practical research inquiry. The purpose of the present study was to conduct a multilevel analysis that applies leader–member exchange (LMX) and conservation of resources theories as frameworks for optimizing subordinates’ work–family experiences.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Effects of the interaction between individual-level and workgroup-level LMX on work–family outcomes were examined using web-based survey data from 765 information technology workers in 79 workgroups.
Findings
High LMX was linked to reduced work interference with family, perceptions of managerial support, perceived career consequences, and organizational time demands. However, the benefits of high LMX were attenuated in the presence of low workgroup LMX for all outcomes except managerial support.
Implications
Findings suggest that an individual’s work–family experiences are influenced by both self and others’ supervisory relationships and provide further support for the efficacy of multilevel examinations of LMX. Results support LMX theory as a framework for enhancing work–family outcomes. Through individual and group-level LMX, supervisors may foster perceptions that shape work–family micro-climates within the same organization.
Originality/Value
This study focuses on a practical avenue for intervention (i.e., leadership) using a theoretically grounded approach. It uncovers a possible mechanism—high individual and group LMX—through which work–family outcomes can be improved. Additionally, this study answers calls in the work–family literature for research with implications for intervention and employs multilevel modeling.
Background Healthcare professionals are confronted with specific work-related demands that influence work-family relations and might indirectly affect the quality of healthcare. This paper seeks to provide an overview of the current state of research on this topic of relevance to health services research. The overview may serve as a starting point for modifying structures in the healthcare system (especially in rural regions) with the aim of improving work-family compatibility. Methods A systematic national and international literature search was conducted in terms of a scoping review. The following criteria/contents to be covered in publications were defined: work-family compatibility; work-family interface and work-family conflict in employees working in healthcare; healthcare professions in rural areas and links with work-family issues; interventions to improve work-family compatibility. 145 publications were included in the overview. Results The available literature focuses on physicians and nursing staff while publications on other professions are largely lacking. The methodological quality of existing studies is mostly low, including a lack of meta-analyses. Several studies document dissatisfaction in physicians and nursing staff regarding reconciliation of work and family life. Only few intervention studies were found that seek to improve work-life compatibility; few of them focus on employees in healthcare. There are also deficits with respect to linking work-family issues with aspects of healthcare in rural areas. Conclusions There is a shortage of systematic national and international research regarding work-family compatibility, especially when it comes to the evaluation of interventions. The overview provides starting points for improving work-family compatibility in healthcare.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.
PurposeMost research on the work conditions and family responsibilities associated with work-family conflict and other measures of mental health uses the individual employee as the unit of analysis. We argue that work conditions are both individual psychosocial assessments and objective characteristics of the proximal work environment, necessitating multilevel analyses of both individual- and team-level work conditions on mental health.
Methodology/approachThis study uses multilevel data on 748 high-tech professionals in 120 teams to investigate relationships between team- and individual-level job conditions, work-family conflict, and four mental health outcomes (job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, perceived stress, and psychological distress).
FindingsWe find that work-to-family conflict is socially patterned across teams, as are job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Team-level job conditions predict team-level outcomes, while individuals’ perceptions of their job conditions are better predictors of individuals’ work-to-family conflict and mental health. Work-to-family conflict operates as a partial mediator between job demands and mental health outcomes.
Practical implicationsOur findings suggest that organizational leaders concerned about presenteeism, sickness absences, and productivity would do well to focus on changing job conditions in ways that reduce job demands and work-to-family conflict in order to promote employees’ mental health.
Originality/value of the chapterWe show that both work-to-family conflict and job conditions can be fruitfully framed as team characteristics, shared appraisals held in common by team members. This challenges the framing of work-to-family conflict as a “private trouble” and provides support for work-to-family conflict as a structural mismatch grounded in the social and temporal organization of work.
Work in the human services—whether on the frontlines or as a policy analyst, grant writer, researcher, manager, or teacher—is potentially satisfying and rewarding. It can also be extremely stressful, beyond the expectations of those starting out in a career. Educators are sometimes reluctant to tell students about the extent of the stress they might encounter in work, fearing that to do so might frighten them. Yet students, new entrants to practice, and seasoned workers find it helpful to receive information that normalizes the impacts of work pressures. They need the tools to identify unreasonable expectations and the knowledge to challenge those expectations. When overstressed workers receive information that recognizes the negative impacts of highly demanding and poorly resourced jobs, they often feel relieved. Critical sociological perspectives help us to challenge discourses that pathologize workers who become distressed when they face pressures, lack appropriate control over professional decisions, or receive too little support. Social work knowledge builds on these theoretical insights, adding to them with understandings derived from practice.
Federal law mandates that employers accommodate lactating workers who wish to express breast milk at work. Lactation's physical demands set the lactating employee apart from her coworkers, as lactation requires regular breaks and private rooms to express milk. Whereas longer breaks and convenient lactation accommodations make for more successful workplace milk expression, many lactating workers lack one or both. During their lactation breaks, some lactating workers wish to maintain workplace productivity, while others seek to relax and reconnect with their nurslings. Although the law mandates basic lactation accommodations, additional consideration must be given to location as well as to the preferences of lactating employees.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to validate a short version of the Effort-Reward-Imbalance (ERI) questionnaire in the context of New Zealand among older full-time and part-time employees.
Methods: Data were collected from 1694 adults aged 48–83 years (mean 60 years, 53% female) who reported being in full- or part-time paid employment in the 2010 wave of the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement study. Scale reliability was evaluated by item-total correlations and Cronbach's alpha. Factorial validity was assessed using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses assessing nested models of configural, metric, scalar and strict invariance across full- and part-time employment groups. Logistic regressions estimated associations of effort-reward ratio and over-commitment with poor physical/mental health, and depressive symptoms.
Results: Internal consistency of ERI scales was high across employment groups: effort 0.78–0.76; reward 0.81–0.77, and over-commitment 0.83–0.80. The three-factor model displayed acceptable fit in the overall sample (X²/df = 10.31; CFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.075), and decrements in model fit indices provided evidence for strict invariance of the three-factor ERI model across full-time and part-time employment groups. High effort-reward ratio scores were consistently associated with poor mental health and depressive symptoms for both employment groups. High over-commitment was associated with poor mental health and depressive symptoms in both groups and also with poor physical health in the full-time employment group.
Conclusions: The short ERI questionnaire appears to be a valid instrument to assess adverse psychosocial work characteristics in old full-time and part-time employees in New Zealand.
Now a days' the health sector has become the center of attention for researchers and practitioners. Nurses' role in curing and caring is very crucial and vital in delivering the services. The role of work family conflict needs to be understood in terms of management and the role of burnout along with the organizational citizenship behavior. This study novelty lies in an investigating the role of work life conflict along with burnout and organizational citizenship behavior in the twin cities of Pakistan, particularly in the health sector which has previously ignored by the researchers'. This study developed two hypotheses to achieve the objective of the study. Data were collected through questionnaire and sampling technique was the simple random sampling from 200 respondents'. The findings of the study reveal that work family conflict has positive effect on job burnout and no effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Findings are important for the hospitals top management to implement the proper practices of organizational citizenship behavior in order to develop the organizational citizenship behavior in nurses which in turn will lead to better performance and reduce the work family conflict. Results are crucial for practitioners and researcher to further investigate the possible reasons of work family conflict and burnout and organizational citizenship behavior role, particularly in Pakistan.
Flexibility bias and the “ideal worker” norm pose serious disadvantages for working mothers. But, are mothers the only ones harmed by these norms? We argue that these norms can be harmful for all workers, even “ideal” ones—men without caregiving responsibilities who have never used flexible work arrangements. We investigate how working in an environment where workers perceive flexibility bias affects their job attitudes and work-life spillover. Using representative survey data of U.S. workers, we find that perceived flexibility bias reduces job satisfaction and engagement and increases turnover intentions and work-life spillover for all types of workers, even ideal workers. The effects of perceived bias on satisfaction, turnover, and spillover operate beyond experiences with family responsibilities discrimination and having colleagues who are unsupportive of work-life balance. We show that workplace cultures that harbor flexibility bias—and, by extension, that valorize ideal work—may affect the entire workforce in costly ways.
Although calls for intervention designs are numerous within the organizational literature and increasing efforts are being made to conduct rigorous randomized controlled trials, existing studies have rarely evaluated the long-term sustainability of workplace health intervention outcomes, or mechanisms of this process. This is especially the case with regard to objective and subjective sleep outcomes. We hypothesized that a work–family intervention would increase both self-reported and objective actigraphic measures of sleep quantity and sleep quality at 6 and 18 months post-baseline in a sample of information technology workers from a U.S. Fortune 500 company. Significant intervention effects were found on objective actigraphic total sleep time and self-reported sleep insufficiency at the 6- and 18-month follow-up, with no significant decay occurring over time. However, no significant intervention effects were found for objective actigraphic wake after sleep onset or self-reported insomnia symptoms. A significant indirect effect was found for the effect of the intervention on objective actigraphic total sleep time through the proximal intervention target of 6-month control over work schedule and subsequent more distal 12-month family time adequacy. These results highlight the value of long-term occupational health intervention research, while also highlighting the utility of this work–family intervention with respect to some aspects of sleep.
Background:
While a large literature links psychosocial workplace factors with health and health behaviors, there is very little work connecting psychosocial workplace factors to healthcare utilization.
Methods:
Survey data were collected from two different employers using computer-assisted telephone interviewing as a part of the Work-Family Health Network (2008-2013): one in the information technology (IT) service industry and one that is responsible for a network of long-term care (LTC) facilities. Participants were surveyed four times at six month intervals. Responses in each wave were used to predict utilization in the following wave. Four utilization measures were outcomes: having at least one emergency room (ER)/Urgent care, having at least one other healthcare visit, number of ER/urgent care visits, and number of other healthcare visits. Population-averaged models using all four waves controlled for health and other factors associated with utilization.
Results:
Having above median job demands was positively related to the odds of at least one healthcare visit, odds ratio [OR] 1.37 (P<.01), and the number of healthcare visits, incidence rate ratio (IRR) 1.36 (P<.05), in the LTC sample. Work-to-family conflict was positively associated with the odds of at least one ER/urgent care visit in the LTC sample, OR 1.15 (P<.05), at least one healthcare visit in the IT sample, OR 1.35 (P<.01), and with more visits in the IT sample, IRR 1.35 (P<.01). Greater schedule control was associated with reductions in the number of ER/urgent care visits, IRR 0.71 (P<.05), in the IT sample.
Conclusion:
Controlling for other factors, some psychosocial workplace factors were associated with future healthcare utilization. Additional research is needed.
A 40-hour working week is the norm in Europe, yet some organizations require 60 or more working hours and in investment banks an alarming 120-hour weeks are known to be worked. What is more, these organizations often require workers to be permanently on call and demonstrate high production rates. Consequences of such practices include frazzled employees, with their families’ and their own health under pressure. This article introduces our special issue of the German Journal of Human Resource Management. It tackles the many reasons behind excessive work hours and failed attempts to change working time arrangements in organizations. It first identifies three core ideas in previous research, namely the dispersed nature of regimes of excessive working hours, their high levels of persistence and their constitution at multiple levels of analysis. It then summarizes the contributions in this special issue. Finally, it proposes avenues for future research, such as focusing on the genesis and the historicity of organizational working time regimes, studying the interrelation of factors across multiple levels of analysis, and probing new theories to explain the extreme persistence of excessive working hours. The overarching aim of our special issue in this core area of human resource management is to contribute to an understanding of organizational working time regimes and the tenacity of excessive working hours in an effort to deepen our knowledge of how to change them.
The notion of constellations is central to many occupational health theories; empirical research is nevertheless dominated by variable-centered methodologies. Guided by the job demands-resources framework, we use a person-centered longitudinal approach to identify constellations of job demands and resources (task-based and time-based) over time that predict changes in well-being. We situate our research in two dissimilar, but growing, industries in the United States—information technology (IT) and long-term care. Drawing on data collected over 18 months, we identify five patterned, stable constellations of job demands/resources using group-based multi-trajectory modeling: (1) high strain/low hours, (2) high strain/low hours/shift work, (3) high strain/long hours, (4) active (high demands, high control), and (5) lower strain (lower demands, high control). IT workers are overrepresented in the lower-strain and active constellations, whereas long-term care providers are more often in high-strain constellations. Workers in the lower-strain constellation experience increased job satisfaction and decreased emotional exhaustion, work-family conflict and psychological distress over 18 months. In comparison, workers in high-strain job constellations fare worse on these outcomes, as do those in the active constellation. Industrial contexts matter, however: Compared with long-term care workers, IT workers’ well-being is more at risk when working in the “high strain/long hours” constellation. As the labor market continues to experience structural changes, scholars and policy makers need to attend to redesigning the ecological contexts of work conditions to promote workers’ well-being while taking into account industrial differences.
According to the 2015 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving report, Caregiving in the U.S., 60% of family caregivers in the United States are involved in the dual roles of caregiving and working. It is important to determine whether workplace impacts, and factors such as workplace and other supports are predictors of overall emotional, physical, and financial caregiving strain. Guided by the caregiving stress process and role conflict theory, the current study used hierarchical regression analyses to determine whether caregiver reports of impacts of caregiving in the workplace were associated with caregiver physical, emotional, and financial strain after accounting for the primary stressors of ADL/IADL assistance and hours of care provided. We also examined both workplace and informal support as potential resources that might attenuate the effects of primary stressors and workplace impacts on emotional, physical, and financial caregiving strain. Participants included 436 employed caregivers of adults ages 50 and above from the 2015 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving population-based study, Caregiving in the United States. Regression analyses showed that caregiver reports of higher negative workplace impacts of caregiving were associated with greater emotional and financial strain, even after controlling for primary caregiving stressors. Among other findings, caregivers who reported disclosing their caregiving duties to supervisors reported higher levels of emotional strain. Results suggest the importance of workplace strain in the stress process and suggest that some workplaces may be unsympathetic to the challenges of impaired caregivers.
Work-family policies (WFPs) are a result of policymakers’ efforts to effectively support labor force participants work and family domains. Often, users of WFPs experience penalties or lower organizational rewards, which inhibits the effect of WFPs. To further study this, we examine the long-term effects of unpaid and paid parental leave on wage growth. Based on the ideal worker norm framework and signaling theory, we hypothesize that using paid/unpaid parental leave will result in lower wage growth over time, above and beyond the negative effect of having children. We further hypothesize that men will be penalized more than women for using parental leave. To test our hypotheses, we use the 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth with a sample of individuals who worked before and after taking parental leave. We find that, for both women and men, having children is associated with lower wage growth over time. Supporting our hypotheses, we find that women are penalized more than men for having children, while men are penalized more for using parental leave.
Why should students and scholars who are interested in gender difference and inequality study organizations? In recent years, as research on organizations has migrated to business schools and become less connected to other subfields of the discipline, the value of organizational sociology has become less evident to many. Yet characteristics of organizations contribute in important ways to producing different experiences and outcomes for women and men, by constraining certain individual actions and enabling or bringing about others. In this essay, we trace the consequences of four categories of organizational characteristics—the formal structure of work, employment practices, informal structure and culture, and organizational networks and fields—for gender inequality in three areas: workplace experiences, work–family conflict, and career outcomes. We close with some brief reflections on future directions for research linking organizations and gender.
Objective:
To determine whether employed family caregiver reports of caregiving to work conflict (CWC) are associated with emotional, physical, and financial strain, and whether organizational factors, including supervisor disclosure and caregiver-friendly workplace policies, attenuate these effects.
Method:
We examined 369 full-time employed caregivers of adults aged 50 years and above from the 2015 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving population-based study, Caregiving in the United States, using ordinary least squares hierarchical regression and moderation analyses.
Results:
Regression analyses showed that caregiver reports of more CWC, in addition to disclosure of caregiving, were associated with greater emotional, physical, and financial strain after controlling for demographics and caregiving stressors, and workplace policies did not attenuate strain. Neither disclosure nor policies moderated the impact of CWC on caregiver strain.
Discussion:
Results suggest the importance of workplace strain in the caregiving stress process and suggest that disclosing caregiving responsibilities to supervisors should be closely examined.
Men and women increasingly express egalitarian preferences for organizing family life, but workplace norms and practices are still based on relatively traditional assumptions about the gender division of labor in families. In this article, we unpack this discordant feature of the cultural landscape with recent sociological research on gender, work, and family. We begin by discussing the growing body of evidence on preferences for gender–egalitarian relationships and specify how these egalitarian desires are incongruous with workplace norms and practices. Such a mismatch between desires and reality tends to produce negative personal and career outcomes, including work–family conflict, stress, and job and marital dissatisfaction. Then, we offer a critical review of the recent actions taken by some employers and policymakers to address this issue. We observe some progressive changes in both the public and private sector in regard to family leave policies, flexible work arrangements, childcare support, and fertility benefits, but these policy initiatives still fall short of supporting gender–egalitarian arrangements for working families. We conclude with a discussion of how researchers could better evaluate and increase the effectiveness of workplace initiatives.
To clarify how work and non-work role conflicts are processed and produce psychological change, we propose an integrative theory of work-family conflict (WFC) episode processing. We clarify ambiguities around the meaning of WFC, overcome questionable research assumptions, make testable counter-normative predictions, reconcile “levels” and “episodes” WFC conceptions, and explain how WFC can even have a net positive effect for the person. In the model, a trigger event causes a perceived WF role incompatibility and a negative change in core affect, prompting either a scripted response or controlled sensemaking. In the latter, cognitive appraisals and secondary affect ensue, causing a choice of a coping/resolution response. Responses are reinforced/punished, and possibly, consciously evaluated. Episodes end with the potential storage of outputs in long-term memory. State inputs to an episode condition processing and memory storage. Stored episode outputs can thereafter become inputs to future episodes and/or cause longer-term change in role performance, satisfaction, and well-being. After describing these processes, we suggest new directions for WFC research and practice.
Pandemik COVID-19 yang ketika ini masih belum reda telah menyebabkan gangguan drastik dalam kehidupan seharian masyarakat bukan sahaja di Malaysia malahan di seluruh dunia. Dalam usaha untuk mengurangi penularan pandemik ini, beberapa negara telah melaksanakan arahan kawalan pergerakan serta penutupan premis perniagaan dan organisasi. Akibatnya banyak sektor pekerjaan dalam pelbagai bidang terjejas ekoran arahan yang telah dikeluarkan oleh pemerintah masing-masing. Senario ini juga telah menyebabkan gangguan besar berlaku dalam kalangan pensyarah yang sedang berkhidmat di Politeknik Premier Malaysia. Pandemik telah mengubah serta merta lanskap kehidupan namun mereka harus tetap menggalas tanggungjawab sebagai pensyarah walaupun perlu bekerja dari rumah. Bagi memastikan institusi ini masih boleh dikawal dalam suasana ketidakpastian yang melampau, tenaga kerja berprestasi tinggi yang mampu memberikan perkhidmatan yang luar biasa adalah penting. Oleh itu, kajian ini dijalankan adalah bagi mengenalpasti samada strategi bekerja dari rumah serta keseimbangan kerja dan kehidupan mempengaruhi prestasi kerja dalam kalangan pensyarah politeknik premier semasa pandemik COVID-19. Selanjutnya, kajian ini akan melihat pengaruh kesan moderasi perbezaan jantina terhadap hubungan di antara pembolehubah tersebut. Melalui Teori Boundary, pengkaji mengandaikan dapatan kajian akan dapat menunjukkan, pekerja berdasarkan jantina akan dapat menyeimbangkan antara peranan di tempat kerja dan bukan peranan tempat kerja yang dapat menunjukkan prestasi yang lebih baik, seterusnya menggalakkan strategi dan proses dalam meningkatkan keseimbangan kerja dan kehidupan di organisasi. Reka bentuk kajian secara tinjauan akan dilaksanakan menggunakan kaedah kuantitatif berbentuk deskritif. Instrumen soal selidik secara atas talian (Google Form) akan diedarkan dalam kalangan pensyarah politeknik premier. Data akan dianalisa menggunakan perisian Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) versi 22.0.
To estimate the return on investment (ROI) of a workplace initiative to reduce work-family conflict in a group-randomized 18-month field experiment in an information technology firm in the United States.
Intervention resources were micro-costed; benefits included medical costs, productivity (presenteeism), and turnover. Regression models were used to estimate the ROI, and cluster-robust bootstrap was used to calculate its confidence interval.
For each participant, model-adjusted costs of the intervention were $690 and company savings were $1850 (2011 prices). The ROI was 1.68 (95% confidence interval, -8.85 to 9.47) and was robust in sensitivity analyses.
The positive ROI indicates that employers' investment in an intervention to reduce work-family conflict can enhance their business. Although this was the first study to present a confidence interval for the ROI, results are comparable with the literature.
Using data from a 2005 survey of U.S. workers, we find that a high percentage of employed men and women report that work interferes with nonwork life. This research offers three main contributions: (1) we document the social distribution of work-nonwork interference across social statuses and dimensions of stratification; (2) we develop a conceptual framework that specifies the influence of a comprehensive set of work resources and demands on interference and their contributions to its social distribution; and (3) we advance a " stress of higher status" perspective to understand the paradoxical influence of some work conditions on work-nonwork interference. Findings generally support both the demands hypothesis and the stress of higher status hypothesis, with patterns from both factors contributing substantially to the social distribution of worknonwork interference. This article refines and elaborates the job demands-resources model with insights from border theory.
For decades, leaders and scholars have been advocating change efforts to improve work-life relationships. Yet most initiatives have lacked rigor and not been developed using scientific principles. This has created an evidence gap for employer support of work and personal life as a win-win for productivity and employees' well-being. This paper examines the approach used by the U.S. Work Family Health Network (WFRN) to develop an innovative workplace intervention to improve employee and family health. The change initiative was designed to reduce organizationally based work-family conflict in two contrasting contexts representative of major segments of today's U.S. workforce: health care employees and informational technology professionals. The WFRN Intervention (called STAR) had three theoretically based change elements. They were: 1) increase job control over work time and schedule; 2) increase supervisor social support for family and job effectiveness; and 3) improve organizational culture and job design processes to foster results orientation. Seven practical lessons for developing work-life interventions emerged from this groundbreaking endeavor.
An examination of the literature on conflict between work and family roles suggests that work-family conflict exists when: (a) time devoted to the requirements of one role makes it difficult to fulfill requirements
of another; (b) strain from participation in one role makes it difficult to fulfill requirements of another; and (c) specific behaviors required by one role make it difficult to fulfill the requirements of another. A model of work-family conflict is proposed, and a series of research propositions is presented.
Little research has examined the relationship between work-family conflict and alcohol or cigarette use among women. Building on affect regulation theory and recent research on work-family conflict and negative emotions, this study tested a model relating work-family conflict to heavy alcohol use and cigarette use via domain-specific (i.e., job- and family-related) and general negative affect. Data were obtained through household
interviews with a random sample of 366 employed mothers of adolescents. As hypothesized,
work-family conflict was indirectly related to both heavy alcohol use and cigarette use via negative
affect.
The common finding in the work–family literature that workplace scheduling flexibility reduces work‐to‐family conflict may not be generalizable to service occupations with intense client demands. This qualitative analysis of stockbrokers finds that brokers in firms granting scheduling flexibility experience more work‐to‐family conflict than those in the firm with scheduling rigidity. Although brokers in the latter firm lose autonomy from their employer (and earning potential), bureaucratic rigidity buffers them from client pressures that intrude on family life. This finding should be tested in other occupations requiring extensive client interactions in a 24‐hour economy.
This paper describes a series of intervention projects in the conditions and design of work geared to increasing gender equity in organizations and the ability of employees to integrate their working lives with their personal lives. It shows that approaching work with a work–family lens tends to lead to changes in the temporal conditions of work, in what has come to be known as flexibility in the workplace. With a gender lens, more nuanced aspects of the institutions governing the workplace come into sight allowing the possibility of greater actual change in the way that work is designed and accomplished, thus leading to a better fit between the current workforce and the workplace. Although such intervention projects are being done in multiple countries, the discussion is most relevant to the USA, with its limited – almost non-existent – national support for the reconciliation of work and family needs.
Using data from the 2002 National Survey of the Changing Workforce, this article examines the effects of schedule control and job autonomy on two forms of work-home role blurring: receiving work-related contact outside of normal work hours and bringing work home. Schedule control is associated positively with the frequency of receiving contact and bringing work home, although those effects are stronger among men. Job autonomy is associated positively with contact among men only, but it is associated positively with bringing work home among both women and men. Schedule control and job autonomy also modify the association between these forms of role blurring and work-to-home conflict: (1) contact is associated positively with work-to-home conflict among individuals with low job autonomy; and (2) bringing work home is associated positively with work-to-home conflict among individuals with greater schedule control. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings for the linkages among gender, work conditions associated with control, and the work-home interface.
New forms of work organization have spread throughout much of the corporate world. Critics warn that team systems may encourage workers to internalize managerial definitions of their work situations, and-as a result-strengthen management's hegemony over them. This article presents an ethnographic analysis of four manufacturing plants in which team initiatives have been introduced. The findings cast doubt on the hegemony thesis. Analyzing data bearing on the degree of managerial legitimacy, the salience of class boundaries, and instances of worker defiance in both traditionaland team-based production areas, I find only occasional evidence of increased worker integration or incorporation within a nascent managerial regime. Indeed, by drawing attention to the limited authority that workers were actually allowed, team systems tended to heighten worker suspicion and distrust and to foster patterns of solidarity that were difficult for managers to control. The most significant feature of the new production concepts may not be their siren-like appeal, but rather the tensions and contradictions they introduce into work organizations. In fact, such concepts provide workers with subtle yet strategic resources with which to renegotiate the boundaries of managerial authority.
This study compares work–family policy use among low wage, predominately female call center workers and their more highly paid managers. Both formal policies and the informal work–family arrangements that employees negotiate with their supervisors were examined. Consistent with the work devotion perspective, it was found that formal work–family policies are more widely used among hourly workers than managers, and those with better performance evaluations are less likely than their otherwise similar coworkers to use formal work–family policies. The ability to negotiate informal work–family arrangements and use them as a supplement to formal policies is also important to workers in this study, especially women with children and those providing care to people with special needs. Access to informal arrangements may be limited to the high performers, however. Overall, this research suggests that the work devotion framework, which derives from studies of elite workers, may be more broadly applicable than previously assumed.
We developed a measure of work–family culture (i.e., the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values regarding the extent to which an organization supports and values the integration of employees' work and family lives) and examined its relationship to work–family benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work–family conflict. Using survey data from 276 managers and professionals, we identified three dimensions of work–family culture: managerial support for work–family balance, career consequences associated with utilizing work–family benefits, and organizational time expectations that may interfere with family responsibilities. As predicted, perceptions of a supportive work–family culture were related to employees' use of work–family benefits. Both work–family benefit availability and supportive work–family culture were positively related to affective commitment and negatively related to work–family conflict and intentions to leave the organization. In addition, the three culture dimensions were found to have unique relationships with these behaviors and attitudes.
Recently, scholars have demonstrated the importance of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB), defined as behaviors exhibited by supervisors that are supportive of employees' family roles, in relation to health, well-being, and organizational outcomes. FSSB was originally conceptualized as a multidimensional, superordinate construct with four subordinate dimensions assessed with 14 items: emotional support, instrumental support, role modeling behaviors, and creative work-family management. Retaining one item from each dimension, two studies were conducted to support the development and use of a new FSSB-Short Form (FSSB-SF). Study 1 draws on the original data from the FSSB validation study of retail employees to determine whether the results using the 14-item measure replicate with the shorter 4-item measure. Using data from a sample of 823 information technology professionals and their 219 supervisors, Study 2 extends the validation of the FSSB-SF to a new sample of professional workers and new outcome variables. Results from multilevel confirmatory factor analyses and multilevel regression analyses provide evidence of construct and criterion-related validity of the FSSB-SF, as it was significantly related to work-family conflict, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, control over work hours, obligation to work when sick, perceived stress, and reports of family time adequacy. We argue that it is important to develop parsimonious measures of work-family specific support to ensure supervisor support for work and family is mainstreamed into organizational research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
This article analyzes the effects of workplace social
context on managers' and professionals' use of work-family policies in a
financial services corporation. These official policies are ambiguous and
contested and, as institutional theory implies, may fail to become fully
implemented. We use a multilevel model to determine the individual-level
and work group-level factors that affect respondents' policy use. In
addition to individual-level factors, the social context of the work
group affects employees' decisions to use work-family policies. We find
support for our hypotheses stressing the social resource of power and
protection: employees are more likely to use these policies if they
work with powerful supervisors and colleagues, who can buffer them from
perceived negative effects on their careers.
The present research builds theory regarding how use of flexible work practices (FWPs) affects employees' career success. We integrate theory on signaling and attributions and propose that managers interpret employees' use of FWPs as a signal of high or low organizational commitment, depending on whether managers make productivity or personal life attributions, respectively, for employees' FWP use. Managers' perceptions of employees' commitment, in turn, shape employees' career success. Field- and laboratory-based studies provide strong support for the hypothesis that FWP use results in career premiums when managers make productivity attributions and some support for the hypothesis that FWP use results in career penalties when managers make personal life attributions.
Although research consistently finds a relationship between work-family conflict and employee health, the role of health-related behaviors such as diet and exercise have been overlooked. The present research examines the links between both directions of work- family conflict—family interference with work (FIW) and work interference with family (WIF)—with several health-related behaviors (physical activity, fatty food consumption, and healthy food consumption) and with multiple indicators of physical health (overall health, health disorders, and body mass). Based on a sample of 246 employed individu- als, path analysis demonstrates that FIW was associated with less physical activity and with eating more high fat foods. In addition, WIF was associated with eating fewer healthy foods. Fatty food consumption related to body mass and overall health, whereas physical activity related to overall health and health disorders. The findings represent an initial step toward a better understanding of the process linking work-family conflict with employee physical health.
The purpose of this article is to put group-randomized trials (GRTs) in context in terms of other kinds of designs and in terms of the terminology used in other fields, to summarize their development in public health, to characterize the range of public health research areas that now employ GRTs, to characterize the state of practice with regard to the design and analysis of GRTs, to consider their future in public health research, and to review the steps required to plan a new GRT.
Noting a phenomenon that might seem to recall a previous era, The New York Times Magazine recently portrayed women who leave their careers in order to become full-time mothers as "opting out." But, are high-achieving professional women really choosing to abandon their careers in order to return home? This provocative study is the first to tackle this issue from the perspective of the women themselves. Based on a series of candid, in-depth interviews with women who returned home after working as doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and other professions, Pamela Stone explores the role that their husbands, children, and coworkers play in their decision; how womens efforts to construct new lives and new identities unfold once they are home; and where their aspirations and plans for the future lie. What we learncontrary to many media perceptionsis that these high-flying women are not opting out but are instead being pushed out of the workplace. Drawing on their experiences, Stone outlines concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for womenand mento attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018167
The wrenching decision facing successful women choosing between demanding careers and intensive family lives has been the subject of many articles and books, most of which propose strategies for resolving the dilemma. Competing Devotions focuses on broader social and cultural forces that create women’s identities and shape their understanding of what makes life worth living.
Mary Blair-Loy examines the career paths of women financial executives who have tried various approaches to balancing career and family. The professional level these women have attained requires a huge commitment of time, energy, and emotion that seems natural to employers and clients, who assume that a career deserves single-minded allegiance. Meanwhile, these women must confront the cultural model of family that defines marriage and motherhood as a woman’s primary vocation. This ideal promises women creativity, intimacy, and financial stability in caring for a family. It defines children as fragile and assumes that men lack the selflessness and patience that children’s primary caregivers need. This ideal is taken for granted in much of contemporary society.
The power of these assumptions is enormous but not absolute. Competing Devotions identifies women executives who try to reshape these ideas. These mavericks, who face great resistance but are aided by new ideological and material resources that come with historical change, may eventually redefine both the nuclear family and the capitalist firm in ways that reduce work–family conflict.
How do Family and Medical Leave Act rights operate in practice in the courts and in the workplace? This empirical study examines how institutions and social practices transform the meaning of these rights to recreate inequality. Workplace rules and norms built around the family wage ideal, the assumption that disability and work are mutually exclusive, and management’s historical control over time all constrain opportunities for social change. Yet workers can also mobilize rights as a cultural discourse to change the social meaning of family and medical leave. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from social constructivism and new institutionalism, this study explains how institutions transform rights to recreate systems of power and inequality but at the same time also provide opportunities for law to change social structure. It provides a fresh look at the perennial debate about law and social change by examining how institutions shape the process of rights mobilization.
Did mandatory busing programs in the 1970s increase the school achievement of disadvantaged minority youth? Does obtaining a college degree increase an individual's labor market earnings? Did the use of the butterfly ballot in some Florida counties in the 2000 presidential election cost Al Gore votes? If so, was the number of miscast votes sufficiently large to have altered the election outcome? At their core, these types of questions are simple cause-and-effect questions. Simple cause-and-effect questions are the motivation for much empirical work in the social sciences. This book presents a model and set of methods for causal effect estimation that social scientists can use to address causal questions such as these. The essential features of the counterfactual model of causality for observational data analysis are presented with examples from sociology, political science, and economics.
Flexible work accommodations provided by employers purport to help individuals struggling to manage work and family demands. The underlying model for change is accommodation-helping individuals accommodate their work demands with no changes in the structure of work or cultural expectations of ideal workers. The purpose of this article is to derive a Work Redesign Model and compare it with the Accommodation Model. This article centers around two change initiatives-Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication and Results Only Work Environment-that alter the structure and culture of work in ways that enable better work and better lives. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.
The authors develop and test a moderated mediation model that accounts for employee emotions (psychological contract violation), employee motivation (revenge cognitions), employee personality (self-control), and context (perceived aggressive culture) in the relationship between psychological contract breach and workplace deviance. In Sample 1, involving 146 hospitality workers and their peers, the authors found support for a conditional indirect effect of psychological contract violation in predicting workplace deviance via revenge cognitions for those employees who perceive a high as opposed to low aggressive work culture. In addition, they found that at high levels of perceived aggressive work culture, the conditional indirect effects of psychological contract violation in predicting workplace deviance via revenge cognitions were statistically significant for those employees with low as opposed to high self-control. These results were replicated in Sample 2 using an independent sample of 168 hospitality workers in a different cultural context. Overall, the results suggest that self-control and perceived aggressive culture, taken together, influence the enactment of deviant acts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Stress caused by conflict between work and home demands has long been thought to have an adverse influence on family life. Using a sample of 337 couples derived from a longitudinal study of families living in the rural midwest, this study examines the influence of work-family conflict on marital quality and marital stability as it is mediated through psychological distress and quality of marital interaction. We conducted analyses using structural equation modeling procedures, and attempted to control method-varieance biases through the use of multiple informants and multiple methods. Results showed that work-family conflict resulting from husbands' and wives' employment is related positively to the psychological distress of each, and that psychological distress affects marital outcomes both directly and indirectly through its association with greater marital hostility and less marital warmth and supportiveness.
The CONSORT statement is used worldwide to improve the reporting of randomised controlled trials.Kenneth Schulz and colleagues describe the latest version,CONSORT 2010,which updates the reporting guideline based on new methodological evidence and accumulating experience.To encourage dissemination of the CONSORT 2010 Statement,this article is freely accessible on bmj.com and will also be published in the Lancet,Obstetrics and Gynecology,PLoS Medicine,Annals of Internal Medicine,Open Medicine,Journal of Clinical Epidemiology,BMC Medicine,and Trials.
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing experiment has proven to be an important intervention not just in the lives of the poor, but in social science theories of neighborhood effects. Competing causal claims have been the subject of considerable disagreement, culminating in the debate between Clampet-Lundquist and Massey (2008) and Ludwig et al. (2008). This paper assesses the debate by clarifying analytically distinct questions posed by neighborhood-level theories, reconceptualizing selection bias as a fundamental social process worthy of study in its own right rather than as a statistical nuisance, and reconsidering the scientific method of experimentation, and hence causality, in the social world of the city. I also analyze MTO and independent survey data from Chicago to examine trajectories of residential attainment. Although MTO provides crucial leverage for estimating neighborhood effects on individuals, as proponents rightly claim, I demonstrate the implications imposed by a stratified urban structure and how MTO simultaneously provides a new window on the social reproduction of concentrated inequality.
Workers' ability to control their work schedules and hours varies significantly among industrialized countries. We integrate and extend prior research from a variety of literatures to examine antecedents of control and worker outcomes. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data for 21 countries from the 1997 ISSP Work Orientations Survey supplemented with national indicators developed from a variety of sources, we find that control is associated with country characteristics (affluence, welfare state generosity, union coverage, and working-time regulations), worker attributes (being male, being older, and being better educated), and job characteristics (working part-time, being self-employed, having higher earnings, and having more advancement opportunities). We also examine the relationship of control to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and strain-based work-family conflict. Generally, low levels of control are linked to negative outcomes for workers, especially for women, an effect sometimes modulated by country-level policy measures.
Benefits that enable employees to manage better their work and personal lives are an important form of compensation offered by some but by no means all organizations. Using data from the 1996 National Organizations Study, the authors test three theoretical perspectives (internal economic, external economic, and institutional pressures) on the existence of four family-friendly benefits in U.S. establishments. These theories are not opposing, and the authors find support for each: Different benefits are provided in response to different pressures. Furthermore, although most organizations had one familyfriendly benefit in 1996, these benefits have not been universally adopted.
A rising share of employees now regularly engage in working from home (WFH), but there are concerns this can lead to “shirking
from home.” We report the results of a WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel agency. Call
center employees who volunteered to WFH were randomly assigned either to work from home or in the office for nine months.
Home working led to a 13% performance increase, of which 9% was from working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick
days) and 4% from more calls per minute (attributed to a quieter and more convenient working environment). Home workers also
reported improved work satisfaction, and their attrition rate halved, but their promotion rate conditional on performance
fell. Due to the success of the experiment, Ctrip rolled out the option to WFH to the whole firm and allowed the experimental
employees to reselect between the home and office. Interestingly, over half of them switched, which led to the gains from
WFH almost doubling to 22%. This highlights the benefits of learning and selection effects when adopting modern management
practices like WFH. JEL Codes: D24, L23, L84, M11, M54, O31.
“Is Anyone Doing the Housework?” (Bianchi et al. 2000) was motivated, like much of the research on housework, by a desire to better understand gender inequality and social change in the work and family arena in the United States. During the 1990s, Arlie Hochschild’s (1989) influential book, The Second Shift, provided the dominant assessment of the gender division of labor in the home (Konigsberg 2011): men were unwilling to share the burden of work in the home and thus employed women came home to a “second shift” of housework and childcare, increasing gender inequality. Her rich qualitative study was based on a small sample of unknown generalizability, however (Milkie, Raley, & Bianchi 2009).
The collection and release of the large and nationally representative 1987–88 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) unleashed a flurry of housework articles in the quantitative sociological literature. The NSFH had the advantage of reports of housework from both members of a couple and husbands’ and wives’ assessments of fairness in the household division of labor, but these data could not provide the trend analysis critical to the understanding of social change that time diary data collections allowed. “Is Anyone Doing the Housework?” used the NSFH but also presented analysis of the only nationally representative data available – time diaries – with which to assess trends in housework and broaden the discussion of how women and men might be reallocating time in the home during a period of rapid change in women’s work outside the home.
The citation count in Google Scholar stands at 910 citations (as of April 20, 2012), with those citations continuing to the present.1 In the article, we showed that the gender division of labor in housework became more equal over this period, in part because men increased their time in housework but more importantly because women dramatically decreased the time they spent in these activities. Men increased their propensity to do housework and the increase was not a result of change in population composition, whereas for women it was a mix of decreased likelihood of doing housework but also an increase in the proportion of women least likely to spend time in housework (e.g., employed women). We compared time diary data to the NSFH, demonstrating that the NSFH survey questions resulted in estimates that were about 50 percent higher than time diary estimates but that both data sources yielded similar conclusions about the gender gap in housework. Finally, using the NSFH data, we provided a multivariate description of the correlates of wives’ housework time, husbands’ housework time and the gender gap in housework time of married couples. The findings remain relevant today, save the need for the update of trends provided here.
Using time diary data for 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995, our observation window on housework was one in which the pressure on women to “shed load” to accommodate increased market work was high and in which the pressure on men to “pick up some of the slack” was perhaps also high. Our data analysis spanned the 1970–90 period of greatest labor force increases for U.S. women, particularly married women with young children. Subsequent trend analyses of women’s labor force participation, housework and childcare in the 1990s showed much less increase and a leveling off in rates by the end of the 20th century (Sayer 2005; Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson 2004), causing some to argue that the gender revolution was over (Cotter, Hermsen, & Vanneman 2011).
Table 1 updates trends in men’s and women’s weekly hours of housework through 2010, the most recent data we have available at this writing. Panel A and B show estimates for the two universes we used in the original article: all individuals, aged 25 to 64 years and the subset of married individuals in these age ranges. Table 1 also adds a universe that was not the focus of our 2000 article – Panel C on married parents. This group became a major focus of our subsequent work.
Women’s time in housework declined throughout the 1965–2010 period, with the most sizable declines between 1965 and 1985. Men’s housework time...
Background:
Despite a wealth of evidence showing that behavioural family intervention is an effective intervention for parents of children with behavioural and emotional problems, little attention has been given to the relationship between parents functioning at work and their capacity to manage parenting and other home responsibilities. This study evaluated the effects of a group version of the Triple-P Positive Parenting Program (WPTP) designed specifically for delivery in the workplace.
Method:
Participants were 42 general and academic staff from a major metropolitan university who were reporting difficulties managing home and work responsibilities and behavioural difficulties with their children. Participants were randomly assigned to WPTP, or to a waitlist control (WL) condition.
Results:
Following intervention, parents in WPTP reported significantly lower levels of disruptive child behaviour, dysfunctional parenting practices, and higher levels of parental self-efficacy in managing both home and work responsibilities, than parents in the WL condition. These short-term improvements were maintained at 4-months follow-up. There were also additional improvements in reported levels of work stress and parental distress at follow-up in the WPTP group compared to post-intervention.
Conclusions:
Implications for the development of 'family-friendly' work environments and the prevention of child behaviour problems are discussed.
This research proposes and tests a new theoretical mechanism to account for a portion of the motherhood penalty in wages and related labor market outcomes. At least a portion of this penalty is attributable to discrimination based on the assumption that mothers are less competent and committed than other types of workers. But what happens when mothers definitively prove their competence and commitment? In this study, we examine whether mothers face discrimination in labor-market-type evaluations even when they provide indisputable evidence that they are competent and committed to paid work. We test the hypothesis that evaluators discriminate against highly successful mothers by viewing them as less warm, less likable, and more interpersonally hostile than otherwise similar workers who are not mothers. The results support this “normative discrimination” hypothesis for female but not male evaluators. The findings have important implications for understanding the nature and persistence of discrimination toward mothers.