[The following chapter is taken from From Work-Family BALANCE to Work-Family INTERACTION Changing the Metaphor and is reproduced by permission from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.] To purchase this book please visit www.erlbaum.com.
Enhancing Work-Family and Work-Life Interaction: The Role of Management
Susan Elaine Murphy
Claremont McKenna College
David A. Zagorski
Claremont Graduate University
Today’s organizations have more than a passing interest in retaining their productive employees. Company estimates put turnover costs, including recruiting and selecting, at about $10,000. An additional 2% of an employee’s salary goes to training (Van Buren & King, 2000). Especially in lean times, organizations cannot afford to lose those employees on whom they rely most. To compete for qualified employees, many organizations have continued to offer non-job benefits that help them attract and retain these top performers. These benefits include both work-family and/or work-life employee accommodations. Although many organizations offer these programs, the promised benefits do not always materialize. Many researchers and organizations speculate as to the reasons for the shortcomings of the programs, although some evidence suggests that the strongest predictor of the efficacy of these programs is how they are implemented and supported throughout all levels of organizational management (Nord, Fox, Phoenix, & Viano, 2002).
Efforts to address work-family conflict began as a set of initiatives to give employees more control over their home life, and included the widespread use of the flexible working hours, or flex time. Currently, about 29% of full-time and salary workers have flexible work schedules, which is nearly double the proportion of 10 years earlier (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001). Interestingly, for about 11% of employees a flexible schedule was part of a formal program, while for other employees it was discretionary. The proportions of employees utilizing these programs vary greatly by occupations. The data showed that while 45.5% of executive, administrative, and sales personnel vary their work hours, the figure is much lower for hourly employees.
Another major method for improving work-family balance was the introduction of cafeteria-style benefit programs that allowed employees to craft their benefits package to meet their specific needs and family status. In 1997, 13% of medium and large organizations offered these types of flexible benefits as compared to only 5% ten years earlier (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001). Job sharing, time off for caring for sick children, and on-site day care facilities are a few more of the ways in which corporations tout their “family friendly” status to prospective employees. In 2000, 12.8% of all civilian workers (employees of state and local government and private industry) had access to child care resources and referral service, with only 4% of these same workers having access to on-site or employer sponsored day care centers.
The need for work-family benefits occurs at a time when many statistics suggest that U.S. employees are working harder than ever. U.S. employees work more hours than any other industrialized country. In the past decade alone, U.S. workers have added 58 hours per year to their work schedules (Brady, 2002). Compared to European countries, the average U.S. worker takes 13 days of vacation versus about 33 days (Engle, 2003). The impact of this additional workload is reflected in current attitudes toward work. A survey by TrueCareers reports that 70% of workers feel they have no balance between their work life and home life (Armour, 2002; see also Cascio & Young, Chapter 4, this volume). Combine these statistics with the major changing demographic shift in the increasing number of working mothers, increases in dual-earner families, and single-parent households (Barnett, Chapter 11, this volume), and you have an increasingly pressure-filled situation. Moreover, these changing statistics and increased feelings of overwork do not just affect women. Relatively equal percentages of women and men are concerned with work-family issues (Galinksy & Bond, 1998). In fact, when surveyed, equal numbers of men and women said they would turn down promotions to accommodate family responsibilities (Milkie & Peltola, 1999). In addition, men are increasing the amount of time they devote to childcare and other home responsibilities, and work-family issues will become an even more critical issue for organizations as they work to keep their valuable human assets (Bond, Thompson, Galinsky & Prottas, 2002). (See Riggio & Desrochers, chap. 12, this volume for a discussion of the changing attitudes of men toward work and family issues.)
In light of these various factors affecting work, employers face a number of challenges in understanding and remedying work-life issues. One of the challenges in addressing work-life conflict is getting past the misconception of what Friedman, Christensen, and Degroot (1998) call the “zero sum game” of employee benefits. Rather than focusing exclusively on the costs to the organization, organizations should instead focus on how benefits can not only help the organization attract and retain employees, but can impact the bottom line. In fact, work-life balance was among the three most important factors considered by job applicants in accepting a new position (Galinsky, Bond, & Friedman, 1993). Greenblatt (2002) notes that in McKinsey & Company’s book, The War for Talent, work-life balance factors account for more than two thirds of those work characteristics rated absolutely essential to attracting and recruiting talent. Other authors have gone so far as to suggest that corporations have a social responsibility to foster work-life balance (Drucker, 2002; Jones, 2003).
Another employer challenge in the work-life area is the shift in focus from work-family balance to work-life balance. This shift is reflected in organizational policies that now look to address balance issues for employees without families (Grover & Crooker, 1995; Hall, 1990) and attempt to meet the needs of increasing numbers of unmarried employees. Business Week (Conlin & Hempel, 2003) reported that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, “married-couple households -- the dominant cohort since the country's founding -- have slipped from nearly 80% in the 1950s to just 50.7% today.” Furthermore, the latest census data shows that married couples with kids make up only 25% of all households, and 42% of the workforce is unmarried. These changes are sure to affect the way in which employers decide on the how and why of benefit options.
A third challenge for employers is defining what constitutes an effective work-life outcome for an individual. Most of the current thinking implies that employees are attempting to achieve a life in which each realm of their lives is in balance or at least not in conflict. As the title of this volume suggests, balance may not be an appropriate goal. The term balance might suggest that employees are giving less effort to their work and nonwork domains in some sort of a compromise. In the research literature on conflict resolution between parties, the optimal solution for resolving conflict is one of collaboration because compromise results in each party giving up something. Collaboration occurs when a win- win solution is achieved (i.e., solution that allows both sides to get more and give up nothing.) As noted by Greenhaus, Collins, and Shaw (2003), a number of researchers have used other terms such as accommodation, compensation, resource drain, segmentation, spillover, work–family conflict, work–family enrichment, and work–family integration to explain the nature of the relationship between these two spheres of employee life. (See Greenhaus et al., 2003, for an extensive discussion of different conceptualizations of balance.) In this edited volume, we are using the term interaction to suggest that a collaborative solution occurs where work and nonwork life integrate in such a way that both sides are enhanced (See Halpern & Murphy, Chapter 1 this volume).
Reducing work-life conflict and increasing work-life interaction is currently a priority for many companies, whereas for others it will become increasingly important for establishing competitive advantage and for ensuring a productive workforce. Many of the challenges surrounding work-family and work-life interaction imply that organizations will need to define more broad-reaching methods for accommodating individual needs for employees to achieve effectiveness in both their work and personal lives. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the organizational support structures to ensure intended utilization of work-life benefits. In addition, the chapter demonstrates how managers and leaders can assist employees in increasing the effectiveness of the interaction of their work and home life. We will first outline some of the important findings regarding work-life conflict and work performance, followed by a brief summary of some steps organizations are currently taking, and concluding by offering the next steps organizations can take.
Background on Causes and Consequences of Work-Life and Family Conflict
The study of work-family conflict was initially based on the assumption that work and family were two separate, incompatible, and therefore, competing roles individuals attempted to fulfill (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). More recent research has considered the multiple ways in which an individual’s work and nonwork life interact. Some of these theories now take into consideration possible benefits that can transfer between one domain to the other. Even though the transfer can be positive, overwhelmingly the view is that many factors in the work place do in fact cause work and nonwork to be in conflict with one another, and therefore, results in many negative consequences. In this next section we briefly overview some of the causes of work/nonwork life conflict, its consequences, and research on the efforts by organizations to reduce the conflict.
Causes
Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) define work-family conflict as “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (p. 77). Work-life and work-family conflict becomes an issue for organizations as employees attempt to fulfill roles in the workplace and roles at home that may be in conflict. Researchers have identified three different types of conflict. Time-based conflict occurs when time demanded by family competes with work activities. Individuals who have inflexible work schedules and working women experience the greatest time-based conflict. Strain-based conflict occurs when stress from one domain spills over into another. In other words, when the stress of household duties, relationship problems, and the needs of children interfere with work, or when work stress spills over into home life. The bidirectional nature of work-family conflict has been investigated in a number of studies. For example, Frone, Yardley, and Markel (1997) distinguished the conflict that arises from work interfering with family life (work-to-family; WTF conflict) from the type of conflict that occurs when family life interferes with work (family-to-work; FTW conflict). The third type of conflict, role behavior conflict, occurs when the way a person has to behave at work conflicts with the way they need to behave at home. For example, a caring compassionate mother may have to be strict and bottom-line oriented in the work place.
In addition to different conflict causes, such as time-based, strain-based, and incompatible roles, certain job features are more likely to cause strain, stress reactions, or burnout. For example, stress-inducing job characteristics include jobs that are challenging and require long hours, give no employee control over work time or work processes, consist of a heavy workload, or jobs in which employers have unlimited access to their employees. For example, Families and Work Institute (Bond, et al., 2002) revealed that 32% of employees surveyed say they are contacted outside work hours about work matters regularly; 28% are contacted occasionally, and 40 % report this never happens. Most companies recognize technology as one of the drivers of increased work-life conflict. Cellular phones, pagers, and email make employees accessible around the clock every day of the year (See Jackson, Chapter 10, this volume.)
Another issue driving incompatibility between work and home is that the paradox that in these times of job instability, people seem to be turning to their families for security and work is becoming less important. For example, as reported by Cascio and Young (Chapter 4, this volume), according to the Society for Human Resource Management in 2002, 70% report that they would rather spend time with their families than at work; in 2000, the proportion was only 54%. Some attribute this renewed emphasis on family and personal life and reordering of priorities such that family is seen as more important than work to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 (Armour, 2002). Many articles and books conclude that people seem to be calling a kind of a time-out and asking, “What is really important to me? And why I am here?” (Shellenbarger, 2002).
In addition to the need to care for families or other life demands, many workers must provide care for their elderly parents or other elderly relatives. Most likely, the increased numbers are directly related to the fact that the largest group of employees come from the baby boom generation and are facing the stress of elder care. Some individuals in the baby boomer group, those who waited to have children until they were older, are actually sandwiched between concerns for child care in addition to elder care, adding even more stress to their lives. Care for children and elderly dependents causes high levels of family domain stress. Employers are becoming increasingly aware of this employee need. A survey by Hewitt Associates in 1999 showed 47% of large companies offered elder-care benefits compared to 20% in 1993 (Mendels, 2001).
In understanding the causes of work-life conflict, it is important to consider individual differences. As much research suggests, one person’s stress is another person’s motivation. Individual differences in personality, coping styles, or other resources will determine how two individuals react to the same stressor or the same occurrences of work to family or family to work conflict.
Consequences
According to the American Stress Institute, stress is estimated to cost U.S. businesses approximately $300 billion per year because of lower productivity, higher absenteeism, turnover, alcoholism, and medical costs (McShane & Von Glinow, 2003). Work-family conflict has been shown to be positively associated with overall life stress (Parasuraman, Greenhaus, & Granrose, 1992) and increased turnover intention (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, & Collins, 2001). In another study, Frone (2000) showed that both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict produced mood, anxiety, and substance dependence disorders. In one study, working mothers were found to have significantly higher levels of stress hormones after work than fathers or women who were not mothers (Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser, 1999). Kossek and Ozeki's (1998) meta-analytic review found that both WTF and FTW conflict were negatively related to job and life satisfaction. The FTW conflict can be even more devastating to families. For example, a recent study of adolescents showed that parents’ work-related stress led to problem behaviors in adolescents, through more conflict at home and less positive adjustments (Crouter & Bumpus, 2001). These children tended to withdraw from the family.
Some employees hold specific expectations for balancing work and family. In their eyes, not meeting these expectations may violate the psychological contract. Psychological contracts in organizations consist of an individual’s beliefs about the nature of the exchange relationship between employers and employees (Rousseau & Parks, 1993). The two types of contracts, transactional and relational, vary in the degree of commitment between the employer and employee. The transactional type is short term and primarily an exchange of pay for work, whereas the relational psychological contract is reflected in a longer term relationship characterized by mutual obligations between employer and employee. Research suggests that employees in the latter type of psychological contract exhibit job behaviors that go above and beyond the call of duty, otherwise known as organizational citizenship behaviors (Organ, 1990; Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie, 1997). Robinson and Morrison (1995) found that if the psychological contract is violated and trust is broken, the individual is less likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors. Psychological contract violations have two implications for work-life conflict. First, the rapid increase in work-life benefits may lead many employees to take them for granted, and to perceive a violation of the implicit contract when they are not offered. Consequently, these employees may engage in fewer organizational citizenship behaviors. Second, employees may perceive psychological contact violation if the organization has a work-life policy in place, but the organizational culture or management discourages employees from using such benefits.
Employers may need to accommodate various strategies for combining work and family life effectively. What are the options? In a qualitative study of women executives in television, Ensher, Murphy, and Sullivan (2002) found that women used three types of tactics in dealing with work and family and only one resembled balance as traditionally described. Some women chose to be exclusively career-focused, eschewing any kind of a family or personal life. The strategy of putting career first is similar to the one described in a controversial book by Hewlett (2002). Alternatively, others used a sequential focus in which early in their career they showed exclusive dedication to a career, and then after 10 to 15 years focused on personal and family life by cutting back on assignments or switching to part time. Some planned to re-enter the workforce eventually at their previous pace, whereas others were not sure. Cardozo back in 1986 called this “sequencing.” The third group was composed of women who were simultaneously career- and family-focused, (what many people envision when working toward balance), and reported that they were taking more of a compromise-based approach to work-family balance. Each of these three strategies came with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Less research has described their attempts of men to reconcile the competing demands of family and work, but as Kimmel (1993) noted, the corporate man of today is much less likely to have a stay-at-home wife than was his corporate boss, but is simultaneously more likely to be interested in being an involved father. This new organizational man also finds that organizations are not set up to meet the seemingly contradictory needs for both a challenging career and involved fatherhood. A number of popular books have addressed these issues for men. Some research has looked at differences between men and women in how they cope with these issues, but have not found many differences. For example, Anderson, Coffey, and Byerly (2002) found no difference between men and women with respect to work-to-family and family-to-work outcomes. Hall (1990) mentioned the “invisible mommy and daddy tracks” that arise when men and women keep their fast track jobs by using informal strategies to attend to nonwork duties. Behson (2002a) found that some of the informal employee work accommodations to family included arranging for a coworker to switch duties, working through lunch, and leaving work early but completing tasks that night.
Effectiveness of Efforts to Reduce Work-family Conflict
In offering these various benefits to reduce work-family or work-life conflict, companies want to know if they are actually effective. A number of studies in the 1990s looked at the bottom line effectiveness with mixed results. CCH, Inc., recently found that “programs such as a compressed workweek that increase work time flexibility are among the most effective strategies to combat unscheduled absences--a problem that costs some large companies as much as $1 million a year in lost productivity” (Weber, 2003, p. 26). The study also found that job sharing, alternative work arrangements and telecommuting were also effective.
Other research has focused on the relationship of different work arrangements to affective outcomes such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Scandura & Lankau, 1997). For example, Families and Work Institute data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (Bond, et al., 2002) indicate that companies that offer greater work-life supports have employees who report higher job satisfaction, higher levels of commitment to the organization, and a greater likelihood of remaining in their jobs. In addition, employees with supervisors who were supportive of their employees’ family and personal lives were highly satisfied with their jobs. Moreover, the study revealed that employees with more access to flexible work arrangements were more loyal and willing to work harder than required to help their employers succeed.
Beyond tangible accommodations such as paid parental leave and telecommuting, there are both formal and informal practices in every workplace regarding the acceptable use of family friendly options (Anderson, et al., 2002). Case in point: Autodesk, a software development firm, has relatively few formal policies related to work-life balance, but its employees consistently rate it among the most family-supportive companies in America because the company’s managers are willing to work with employees individually to determine customized solutions to their work-life balance challenges (Business Week, 1997). Whether accommodations are formal or informal, however, the availability of benefits alone is not enough to guarantee an effective work-life program (Pleck, 1989).
Role of Management in Assisting Employees in Addressing the Competing Demands of Work and Nonwork Life.
Organizational leaders and managers at all levels play three critical roles with regard to implementation and success of work-life policies: agenda-setters, gatekeepers, and role models. An organization’s top management, in conjunction with the Human Resource department, is responsible for introducing and administering benefit policies, or in other words, setting the agenda. They may also act as gatekeepers by putting up roadblocks for employee utilization of benefits, for example, by requiring employees to obtain multiple levels of approval to use a benefit. Or they may serve as role models when they engage in efforts to improve their own personal situations (Milliken, Martins, & Morgan, 1998). First line supervisors and managers have a large effect on whether individuals actually feel comfortable using the policies set out by top management, and may have input into what policies are adopted. Also, the more first-line supervisors refuse to support a policy, the more that value will be manifested in the overall organizational culture. Although efforts at the top management or first-line supervisor/manager level are somewhat overlapping, the distinction is important for addressing problems in fully implementing work/family/life benefits. In the following two sections, we delineate the way in which organizational management and manager/first-line supervisors can improve the use and effectiveness of the policies.
Organizational/Top Management Level: Agenda Setting
At the top level of organizational functioning, executives make decisions to help the organization adapt to competitive pressures (Zaccaro & Klimoski, 2001). In addition, top leaders and managers also have a direct influence on developing and sustaining the organization’s culture, which consists of the shared values and norms that distinguish one organization from another (Schein, 1996). Starrels (1992) noted that “corporate culture may either advance or thwart the development and effectiveness of work-family programs” (p. 261).
With respect to organizational culture, the challenge for leaders then is to create a “family-friendly” or “balance-supportive” environment. Thompson, Beauvais, and Lyness (1999) found that supportive work-family culture was related to higher levels of benefits utilization, higher affective commitment, reduced employee turnover, and lowered self-reported levels of work-life conflict. A number of additional studies have identified the importance of organizational context--including climate and culture--in the employee’s ability to balance work and family (Bailyn, 1997; Bond, Galinsky, & Swanberg, 1998). Over and over, culture emerges as a key element---Business Week (1997) noted in their annual survey of corporate work-life balance programs: “Lacking visible support from the top, work-family efforts can quickly be crippled.”
Schein (1996) offered one framework for understanding how top management, as well as first -line supervisors or managers affect organizational culture, which in turn affects the success of work-life programs. Top management and leaders can use five primary mechanisms for “embedding and reinforcing” an organization’s culture. Foremost among these is attention, which refers to communication about priorities and values by what a leader asks about, measures, comments on, praises, and criticizes. Additional mechanisms include reactions to crises, role modeling, allocation of rewards, and criteria for selection and dismissal. Employees look to these signals regularly to affirm their understanding of the organization’s culture of unwritten rules and norms. For work-family or work-life benefits, it is readily apparent which aspects are supported by the organization through these very mechanisms.
Terms like “overtime culture” (Fried, 1998) and “work devotion” (Blair-Loy & Wharton, 2002) have been coined to describe the unspoken corporate norm that regardless of an organization’s official policies regarding work-life integration, long hours and impression management are often seen as the true keys to advancement (Bankert & Googins, 1996; Lizotte, 2001). Hill, Miller, Weiner, and Colihan (1998) suggested that for leaders to truly embrace work-life balance, the workplace must shift from a “face-time culture” to a “results-oriented culture.” Bailyn (1997) believes that the way in which managers define “control” has an effect on work-family balance (i.e., whether managers choose to focus on recording attendance as opposed to productivity.)
What types of organizations have come the farthest in offering the types of management initiatives and support needed for employees to experience work-life balance? In companies where turnover costs are high, such as many types of professional organizations, there are more initiatives to balance work and home life. Some research suggests that companies adopt family friendly policies to signal their own adaptation to societal norms and pressures (Goodstein, 1994). Therefore, it is expected that large organizations, or those with professional reputations, might be first to offer these programs. Overall, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries lead the way. Service industries for the most part fall behind other types of organizations, with a few exceptions such as Marriott Corporation (see chap. 6, this volume). Those with more hourly workers are less likely to provide work-life policies (Bond, et al., 2002) despite research that indicates that work-family policies, like flexible work arrangements, are positively associated with lowered turnover (Bond, 2003a, 2003b) and increased job satisfaction, which both impact an organization’s bottom-line. There is also a trend that larger companies offer more benefits, although, so do some of the very small organizations.
One interesting statistic shows that the proportion of top executive positions filled by women will predict whether or not a company offers these types of benefits. Specifically – 82% provide traditional flex time if half or more of top positions are filled by women, versus 56% of firms with no women in top positions (Bond, et al., 2002). Disney Channel President Anne Sweeny is in the position to make decisions about family issues and encourages parents to take time off from work to accompany their children to the first day of school (Ensher, et al., 2002). She is an agenda- setter in her position to influence the culture of her organization, and as a working mother has a better understanding of the family needs as opposed to traditional male executives. A study conducted in 1994 showed that in a sample of executives, predominantly males, 53% had wives that did not work outside of the home, and that on the whole, the executives spent very little time with their families and a disproportionate amount of time at work (Judge, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1994). As this trend changes we may see more support for other home arrangements from the top levels of management as the agenda setters have experiences trying to reconcile different domains of their lives, we expect to see changes in organizational culture.
Finally, work-family support may not be enough for employees, however. Behson (2002b) found that more general organizational context was more strongly related to job satisfaction and affective commitment than were the actual work-family policies. He studied the effects of general perceived organizational support, perceived fair interpersonal treatment, and overall trust in management on the typical outcomes researchers investigate for work-family culture and family-supportive organization perceptions. His findings, however, did corroborate that specific work family policies make a difference for employees with families and especially for those who chose to use the policies. The implications of his findings suggest that the type of organizational values such as concern for employees, etc., may be needed in conjunction with family-friendly policies to bring about effectiveness in work and home life domains.
Managerial and Supervisory Support
Leaders throughout the organization can also consciously or unconsciously influence the effectiveness of corporate work-life policies by displaying what Thompson, et al. (1999) term “support sensitivity.” This trait manifests itself whenever managers and other opinion leaders throughout the company encourage or discourage employee participation in benefits such as flextime or telecommuting, or by reinforcing cultural norms that favor “face time” or “overtime culture” above bottom-line results (Perlow, 1997; Starrels, 1992; Thompson, Thomas, & Maier, 1992). Employees who take advantage of family-related leave policies, for example, are often seen as uncommitted (Greenhaus et al., 2003), and are subject to negative career consequences such as lower performance ratings, proportionally smaller salary increases, and decreased promotional opportunities (Lobel & Kossek, 1996; Perlow, 1997). If benefit usage is punished, no matter how subtly, employees are unlikely to use them (Allen, 2001).
In further analyses of the Thompson, et al., study, they examined three aspects of work-family culture: organizational support, career consequences, and managerial support. They found that beyond the influence of demographic variables, only one of the three elements—managerial support—contributed significantly to the variance in benefit usage. They suggest that day-to-day managerial support may be the most critical cultural variable in employees’ decisions to use family-based workplace benefits, and more recent findings by Zagorski (2004) found that this is true of all forms of work-life accommodations, not only those related to dependent care.
As noted by one researcher (Behson, 2002b), it is important to distinguish between the generic term management, which might entail multiple levels of management, or managers a number of levels above the employee, and the employee’s direct supervisor or manager. Although one might hope that a supervisor would be supporting the policies of the larger organization, this may not always be the case. Therefore, while many supervisors will follow policy in an organization, and even go so far as to be supportive of employees in utilizing a benefit, it takes effective leadership to balance the needs of their employees with the needs of the organization.
What does a supportive supervisor look like? According to Pitt-Catsouphes (2002), workplace relationships that are “respectful of employees’…work-life responsibilities are an essential component of balance-friendly workplaces.” Similarly, a nationwide study commissioned by Canada’s Department of Labour (2003) found that 70% of employees surveyed attributed problems with their respective companies’ work-life balance programs to treatment by their immediate supervisors. Their primary complaints concerned managers who did not treat employees respectfully, failed to see people as a priority, or barred employees from using work-life accommodations. Conversely, successful programs were associated with managers who were supportive and approachable, understanding of the importance of balance—often from first-hand experience, and willing to give workers the option of flexibility.
To corroborate these nonempirical findings, a wealth of recent research has emphasized the role of first-line supervisors, whose supportiveness has been directly linked to reduced stress and interrole conflict and improved physical health (Burke, 1988; Thomas & Ganster, 1995), decreased turnover (Allen, 2001), and increased employee productivity, citizenship, job satisfaction, and family functioning (Clark, 2001; Galinsky & Stein, 1990; Repetti, 1987). Supportive supervisory attitudes and behaviors have also been linked to increased use of work-life benefits (Thomas & Ganster, 1995), higher perceptions of organizational fairness, and greater satisfaction with the company’s overall efforts to help employees balance work and personal matters (Zagorski, 2004). Thomas and Ganster (1995) suggested two mechanisms by which leader support contributes to positive outcomes for employees. The first proposes that supervisory supportiveness engenders a sense of control over limited resources; the second posits that supportive attitudes increase perceived social support and thereby decrease employees’ experience of work-life conflict (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1987).
In recent research by Zagorski (2004), a list of 26 items related to work-family culture was presented to survey participants. He found that seven of the nine items that were most strongly related to the success of work-life balance programs were related to supervisory attitudes and behaviors. The strength of the relationship between employees’ ratings of supervisory supportiveness and their overall satisfaction with employee-sponsored work-life programs was nearly twice as strong as that between actual benefits and satisfaction. Similarly, 5 of the 7 items most strongly related to the perceived fairness of work-life programs had to do with treatment by supervisors, not overall organizational factors. In addition, Hartwell (2003) found that physicians with high psychological contract fulfillment believe that their organizations have fulfilled their supervisory relationship obligations to them to a much greater extent than those with low psychological contract fulfillment.
Can all leaders be helpful in this additional task of management? Current theories of leadership may help demonstrate what types of leaders may be effective in assisting employees in reducing work and family conflict. For example, Leader Member Exchange (LMX) is a well-researched theory of leadership that views leadership as a dyadic relationship between a leader and each of his or her direct reports (Graen & Scandura, 1987). The quality of these relationships can range from high to relatively low. Individuals in high-quality relationships find a supervisor who treats them with loyalty and trust, rather than merely as part of a transactional exchange of work for money. In fact, these higher quality relationships are somewhat more like a mentoring relationship. Research evidence from a recent study showed that employees involved in mentoring relationships had reduced work-family conflict (Nielson, Carlson, & Lankau, 2001). One would expect that individuals involved in higher quality relationships would have supervisors who helped them reconcile the competing demands of home and work. This type of supervision requires a wealth of relational skills that help not only in managing people day-to-day, but also in situations in which work and nonwork life collide (Uhl-Bien, 2003).
Transformational leadership theory is another type of leadership that describes leaders who possess the skills to help understand and to respond to the specific needs of an employee. According to Bass and his colleagues (Bass & Avolio, 1994), a leader who is considered transformational is engaged in a number of behaviors that would facilitate encouraging employees to have balance. The theory utilizes four dimensions: individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. Leaders who use individualized consideration would be more likely to recognize the unique work-life needs of each employee.
Hartwell and Torbert (2004) described leadership practices that can help to create work environments that support professionals hoping to reduce work-family conflict. Specifically, they suggest that leaders must be able to meet employees at the psychological level and correct incongruities between employees’ and managements’ beliefs. Based on adult developmental theory, they describe the Strategist type of leader (Fisher, Rooke & Torbert, 2003) as one who intuitively appreciates the value of communicating openly with employees so that they can be sure there is an alignment in their understanding of each other’s goals and terms.
Regardless of the theoretical lens, enhancing a supervisor’s leadership skills is important. Future research should consider LMX, transformational leadership, and strategist-type leadership as three possible theories to determine what types of leaders are more likely to support their subordinates. Understanding what types of managers or supervisors can assist employees is the first step. The second step is making it clear to all managers that it is an organizational priority by including some measure of commitment to their employees’ work-life balance in their performance reviews.
Putting Lessons into PracticeGiven the crucial role of leaders at all levels of the organization in creating and sustaining a workplace culture that is conducive to work demands and life-family demands, what are the take-home lessons?
1. The foremost task for organizations is to understand the importance of personal and organizational benefits (See Cascio & Young, Chapter 4, and Maslach, chap. 8, this volume) and to make work-life programs a strategic priority. The next step is to create a menu of benefits that is based on employee focus groups, competitive benchmarking, and an eye toward fairness.
2. Once those benefits are in place, the biggest challenge is to fulfill the commitment to the policies by examining the way in which work is completed. This means challenging leaders to shift the organization’s focus from time-oriented to task oriented (Bailyn, 1997), to reexamine long-standing priorities about how, when, and where jobs must be performed, and to guarantee that employees who choose flexible options will not be punished.
3. Another important method for ensuring balance or integration is to establish clear communication that gatekeepers at all levels must follow. At the most basic level, this means being explicit about the company’s expectations and accommodations. As one respondent in the Canadian Department of Labour’s survey (2003) wrote, “I would like to get something in writing from the company to describe the policy for flextime, personal days, sick days. Employees would be much happier if they were clear on the company’s standpoint because they could take needed time off without guilt.” Even more important is a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with employees about the importance of work-life balance, helping them to establish reasonable boundaries between work and nonwork domains, and making sure that employees are aware of their options—both formal programs and informal solutions (Behson, 2002a). As mentioned previously, effective leaders should have these communication skills in their behavioral repertoire.
4. Because first-line supervisors appear to be the linchpin in an effective balance program, the selection and development of managers must be handled with care (Thomas & Ganster, 1995). Supervisors must be trained to manage and motivate workers in non-traditional arrangements, to be more accommodating during family crises (Galinsky & Hughes, 1987), to deal effectively with employees’ balance concerns, and to administer policies appropriately and fairly (Allen, 2001). The Canadian workforce survey (2003) concluded that “When work-family programs are applied unevenly and denied to many, they only serve to further demoralize an already beleaguered workforce.” Conversely, leaders who are proficient in dealing with balance issues reap the reward of loyalty.
Some organizations are taking the lead by recognizing the role that supervisors play and setting up policies to ensure that they do not become a roadblock in the process. One study by the Families and Work Institute in Boston (Bond, et al., 2002) found that 55% of the participants surveyed said that their organizations encouraged supervisors to be supportive of employees with family problems; 66% reported equal support from both the supervisor and the organization; 43% reported that their organizations in fact trains supervisors to provide support; and 56% reported that their organizations consider how well supervisors manage the work-family issues of employees within the formal performance appraisal system. These numbers are quite encouraging. Moreover, according to Business Week’s (1996) corporate work-life survey, supervisors at First Tennessee National Corporation who were rated by their subordinates as supportive of work-family balance retained their employees twice as long as those were seen as less supportive.
5. Just as any working adult, leaders have limited resources, and they often benefit when the responsibility for managing schedules shifts to the workgroup rather than to supervisors (Bailyn, 1997). The critical message for leaders? Walk the talk. Most people see their managers as role models. When managers take advantage of benefits, they are telling employees that it is okay to use benefits. This also means that leaders must be careful to avoid playing the martyr and sending out mixed messages, such as sending employees home early on Fridays and then complaining about the long weekend they had to spend in the office.
6. Perhaps the most important lesson for leaders is that they must understand their workforce and be sensitive that each employee has unique balance needs. For example, although men and women report similar levels of work-life conflict (Burden & Googins, 1987), they may choose to resolve their respective role strains by choosing to adopt one of a variety of coping strategies, ranging from avoidance to problem solving to seeking social support. In dealing with workplace stress, men tend to favor a problem-solving approach, whereas women use social support in concert with other solutions. Rosario, Shinn, Morch, and Huckabee (1988), however, noted that under identical types of stress, gender differences in coping strategies often vanish. Generational differences are equally important to consider. A recent book by Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas (2002) provides an interesting narrative of the different values and corresponding needs of three generations: Generation Y (those born between 1979-1994); Gen X (those born between 1965-1978); and Boomers (those born between 1946-1964); distinctions that are important for organizations to consider in designing work life policies. Beyond gender roles and generational differences, workplace demographics also affect how organizations should consider benefits. Organizations also need to use a “life cycle” approach based on employee demographics to anticipate when employee family concerns such as children or elder care would occur.
Cultural factors can also influence employees’ perceptions of supportiveness. Zagorski (2004) found that non-White employees felt less safe than their White counterparts in discussing nonwork issues in the workplace, and reported that their immediate supervisors were more critical of their efforts to balance work and nonwork concerns. Although work-family supports were designed originally to help ease the competing demands of working parents, it may be employees without children who are most susceptible to the influence of management support. Zagorski (2004) also found that after factoring out all other demographic and job-related variables, the willingness of childless employees to request access to work-life benefits was heavily dependent on the level of supportiveness of their immediate supervisor. Working parents, on the other hand, were comparatively immune to supervisory attitudes, suggesting that employees without children may be receiving cultural messages that their nonwork needs are viewed as less legitimate than those of working parents. As the number of childless employees increases, this disparity becomes increasingly relevant.
The Next Steps
Even if we can identify all of the elements of supportive cultures, from sensitive leaders to relevant programs, can we find ways to ensure that they are optimized? If we can find the magic formula to create a workplace climate that allows employees to find the optimal integration of work and life roles, can we design longitudinal studies to measure the effects—both on employees and on the organization---over time? How do we identify and train supervisors who will encourage their employees to integrate their work and nonwork roles while still helping the company remain competitive? And finally, can change be both top-down and bottom-up, as Thompson, Beauvais, and Lyness (1999) suggested? Can leadership in work-life interaction truly come from all levels? (See Purkey, Molina, Klein, Pires, chap. 6, this volume for a discussion of organizations that tried different approaches emanating from different levels.) As Business Week (1997) noted, “Programs…are relatively easy to slap into place. Cultural change is far more compelling, but far tougher, too.”
In this chapter, we focused on the causes and consequences of work and nonwork conflict, and outlined the role of management in helping employees achieve effectiveness in both the work and nonwork realm of their lives. We did not focus on the many pressures, which even in the presence of a supportive supervisor, that nevertheless make it very difficult to “do it all” or “have it all”. Today’s world of working is increasingly becoming more rapid-paced and more complex. As Robert Reich (2000), former U.S. Secretary of Labor, noted, work is changing in ways we cannot even anticipate. To benefit organizations, and ultimately society in the end, it is important that employers anticipate employee needs and help them determine realistic methods for bringing together their work and nonwork lives successfully.
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