1-Individual-level explanations
a-Reduction of work-life conflict
Interference between work and non-work responsibilities has a number of negative outcomes that have been well established. In terms of job attitudes, employees reporting high levels of both work-to-life and life-to-work conflict tend to exhibit lower levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Behavioural outcomes of both directions of conflict include reduced work effort, reduced performance, and increased absenteeism and turnover. Both work-to-life and life-to-work conflict have also been associated with increased stress and burnout, cognitive difficulties such as staying awake, lack of concentration, and low alertness, and reduced levels of general health and energy. While the majority of work-life balance research focuses on employees' family responsibilities, there are also a number of studies that recognize commitments to friends and community groups, expanding the affected population to virtually all employees. The implications for organizations are clear: work-life conflict can have negative repercussions for employee performance.
According to the business case as espoused by many firms and government bodies, these costs to organizations can be avoided by implementing programs to help employees manage their work-life conflict. This view proposes that work-life balance practices will assist employees in balancing their work and family demands, which can in turn lead to enhanced employee productivity and significant business improvements. By enabling employees to schedule their time in order to better balance competing demands from work and from home, and by helping employees to procure third-party assistance with caregiving responsibilities, such practices are intended to reduce or eliminate levels of work-life conflict, and thereby augment employee performance and organizational effectiveness.
There is mixed support in the literature for this proposition.When rating the work-family policies available to male executives, it is found that more comprehensive benefits were associated with lower work-to-life conflict, but not life-to-work conflict. Researchers also found a significant, negative association between the availability of work-life practices and work-to-life conflict, while another identified a negative relationship between perceptions of the usefulness of organizational work-life practices and work-to-life conflict. Use of flexible working hours is associated with lower levels of work-to-life conflict and non-directional work-life conflict. Perceived control served as a mediating mechanism by which family-supportive policies influenced a non-directional measure of work-life conflict, and family supportive organizational perceptions mediated the link between use of work-life practices and work-to-life conflict.
On the other hand, no effects of work-life practices on employees' work-life conflict levels. Similarly, no any association between provision of an onsite childcare centre and levels of work-life conflict. Providing work-life practices does not necessarily entail a reduction in levels of staff work-life conflict, then, and even where this is the case, there is a dearth of research investigating the mediating role of work-life conflict in the link between work life practice provision and organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, much of the research literature groups a number of work-life practices together when relating provision or use to attitudinal or behavioural outcomes. This only clouds the issue of whether such a variety of work-life practices can be expected to produce similar effects. Research on boundary theory and role transition suggests that because workers have different preferences for integration versus segmentation of work and family roles, certain work-life practices may be ineffective in reducing inter-role conflict if they do not cater to a worker's particular values, needs, or preferences for managing multiple roles. For example, participating in telework arrangements has been shown to benefit some workers, whereas for others—particularly those with greater family responsibilities—it appears to blur the boundaries between work and home.
Another issue is that availability of work-life practices is often measured, as opposed to actual use of such practices. This, however, brings us to another potential explanation for the link between work-life practices and organizational performance. Even when the practices are not used and therefore no reduction in work-life conflict is achieved, the mere presence of such practices can effect a number of beneficial outcomes to the organization in the form of positive job-related attitudes. We shall begin to explore these in the following section.
While work-life conflict is generally held to be a mediator in the link between provision of practices and performance outcomes, this proposition remains untested. Existing research designs often neglect to distinguish between practice availability and practice use, and largely fail to differentiate among work-life practices, rendering it difficult to reach conclusions regarding their common or distinct effects.
b-Improved job-related attitudes and perceptions of organizational support
With regard to job attitudes, use of and satisfaction with work schedule flexibility has been associated with increased organizational commitment and reduced turnover intentions, and voluntary reduced hours have been linked to greater job satisfaction, loyalty, and organizational commitment. Employees who benefit from childcare centres, referral services and other family-supportive practices report higher levels of commitment to the organization. A meta-analysis reveals that flexible work schedules had positive effects on both job satisfaction and satisfaction with work schedule. In a study of the ‘virtual office’, participants attributed an increase in job satisfaction to increased flexibility in the location and timing of their work. Teleworkers also reported higher levels of job satisfaction. Telework was associated with increased job satisfaction and reduced intentions to turnover, with these relationships partially mediated by lower levels of work-life conflict.
Availability of work-life balance practices, independent of actual use, appears to produce similarly positive results in terms of work-related attitudes. For instance, the availability of organizational resources, including flexible work hours, has been linked to job satisfaction and organizational commitment for women and for all employees with family responsibilities, regardless of whether or not these resources are being used. Similarly, the presence of flexible time policies and childcare assistance was associated with employee loyalty for those with family responsibilities.
Availability of work-life balance practices has also been related to increased affective commitment and decreased turnover intentions. Parental leave, childcare information and referral, flexible work hours, and financial assistance with childcare predicted both increased affective commitment to the organization and decreased turnover intentions among all employees, not just users of the practices.
Moderators of the practice availability—job attitude link are identified by some research. The provision of flexible work hours will be positively related to organizational commitment only if employees perceive the flexibility as increasing their control over their time. Similarly, the availability of flexible work arrangements was associated with increased organizational commitment only when employees perceived their supervisors to exhibit transformational leadership behaviours, including individual consideration.The impact of work-life practice availability on organizational commitment was moderated by gender and by practice use. For women, the availability of work-life practices had a positive relationship with commitment, mediated by perceived organizational support. For men, however, the availability of flexible schedules was positively related to commitment only when men's use of this practicewas high. When use of flexible schedules was low, the availability of this practice was negatively related to commitment. Similarly, for men, the availability of work-life practices was associated with higher organizational commitment only when perceived organizational support was high. For women, there was a positive link between practices and commitment regardless of levels of perceived organizational support.
These results can be interpreted using social exchange theory. When treated favourably by the organization, employees will feel obliged to respond in kind, through positive attitudes or behaviours toward the source of the treatment. Using the provision of work-life balance practices as an indicator of favourable treatment, employees will reciprocate in ways beneficial to the organization—increased commitment, satisfaction with one's job, and citizenship behaviours. The availability of work practices designed to assist employees with managing their responsibilities at home may also increase employee perceptions of organizational support, particularly if these work-life balance practices are seen as being useful. Perceived organizational support can also be used as an indicator of favourable treatment, prompting reciprocal positive actions from employees. Perceptions of the organization as being family-supportive mediated the link between work-life practice availability and both affective commitment and job satisfaction.
This interpretation is, however, not without criticism. In the context of the psychological contract—the individual employee's subjective belief in the reciprocal obligations between the employee and the organization —it is possible that employees may not feel obliged to ‘repay’ their organization's provision of work-life practices with an increase in positive, work related behaviours or attitudes. Instead, they may perceive that access to such practices is an entitlement, rather than an example of favourable treatment. It is difficult to estimate the extent to which employees construe such practices as favours versus rights. Perceived entitlement to such practices is not widespread among employees, particularly those in nations with low levels of statutory regulations concerning the balance of work with family or personal commitments. For instance, study participants in Ireland and the UK did not feel entitled to employer support for child care, and perceived entitlement to flexible hours or parental leavewas contingent upon the participants' view of whether such practices were practical for the organization, in terms of time, operation and costs. Given the current absence of compelling data to demonstrate perceived entitlement to work-life practices, therefore, the social exchange explanation for the positive effects of work-life practices among non-users cannot be discounted.
The provision of work-life practices has the potential to generate improved attitudinal and behavioural outcomes among employees independent of practice use. While this process is widely held to occur via social exchange, research has not yet explicitly tested this proposition, nor the possibility that national context (in the form of varying statutory regulations) may moderate the link between provision of practices and employee perceptions of organizational support.
c- Use of practices
The influence of work-life practices on organizational effectiveness may be compromised by practices that fail to achieve their intended aims. An issue frequently cited in accounts of work-life practice implementation is lack of use. Research conducted amongst organizations in the UK suggests that employees often remain unaware of their work-life entitlements following the implementation of work-life balance practices. For example, in a survey of 945 employees in six different organizations across three sectors of employment (local government, supermarkets, and retail banking), it is found that 50% of employees were unaware of the family friendly practices offered by their organizations.
Even when employees are fully informed of the practices available to them, many display a reluctance to use them. Relative to female employees, few men make use of family leave, choosing instead to take vacation or other discretionary days off upon the birth of a child or other family-related event.A study refers to this as the ‘invisible daddy track’; if colleagues and superiors are not aware that an employee is taking time off work for family reasons, he is less likely to be accused of having competing priorities and less likely to be perceived as uncommitted to his job. Gender role theory may help to explain this phenomenon. In examining perceptions of citizenship behaviours among male and female employees who either took family leave or did not, female employees were not rated differently regardless of their use of family leave. Men who took family leave, however, were rated as being less likely to help their co-workers, to work overtime, and to be punctual than men who did not take family leave, even in the presence of identical job performance ratings.Gender role theory proposes that men are expected to place work before family, and are thus not viewed as being good organizational citizens when they take leave.
Use of work-life leave provisions is low among staff with career aspirations due to the belief that taking such leave will be interpreted as a lack of commitment to the organization.As men progress up the managerial career ladder, they exhibit a reduced tendency to use the paternity leave towhich they are entitled. The provision of work-life practices improved employees' organizational commitment, but only to the extent that employees felt free to use the practices without negative consequences to their work lives— such as damaged career prospects. Similarly, although 95% of American law firms have a part-time employment policy, only 3% of lawyers have used it due to fear of career derailment.
The perception that using work-life balance practices will have a negative impact on their career prospects appears to be a powerful demotivator for employees' use of these practices. This perception is reinforced by organizational cultures unsupportive of work-life balance issues.Implementation attributes including supervisor support for use and universality of practice availability will affect the degree to which work-life practices are seen by employees as fulfilling their work-life needs and signalling support from the organization. Organizations featuring an entrenched long-hours culture and unaccommodating attitudes among managers and co-workers tend to discourage employees from making use of the work-life practices ostensibly available to them. As puts it, “putting in time—being visibly at work, often for long hours—is seen as a sign of commitment, of loyalty, of competence and high potential, and in many cases as an indicator, in and of itself, of productive output”. Employees who do not give the maximum amount of time possible to the organization are often defined as less productive and less committed, and are therefore less valued than employees working longer hours; this view is reflected in the attitudes of many managers to the promotion of employees working reduced hours or nonstandard schedules.
Employees are often demonstrably concerned that using flexible working arrangements will damage their promotion prospects and perhaps their relationships with co-workers and managers. These concerns are not always unfounded. Frequent telework has been associated with professional isolation, impeding professional development activities such as interpersonal networking, informal learning, and participating in mentoring relationships. Some work-life practices, such as voluntary reduced hours, are frequently unavailable in upper-level professional and managerial work. However, when they are available to professionals and managers, their use is often associated with career derailment.As time spent at theworkplace is often used as an indicator of employees' contributions and commitment to the organization, participation inworklife practices that make employees less visible (such as telework, flexible hours, or family leave) has been associated with lower performance evaluations, smaller salary increases, and fewer promotions.
There is an increasing amount of research supporting the notion that workers who make use of work-life practices suffer negative perceptions from colleagues and superiors. Employees who used work-life balance practices were perceived by co-workers as having lower levels of organizational commitment, which was thought to affect the subsequent allocation of organizational rewards such as advancement opportunities and salary increases. A study among 107working MBA students, in which participants were given a packet of materials designed to simulate the personnel file of a female employee in an accounting firm who was seeking a promotion to senior manager. It is found that participants perceived the job candidate who was using flexible work hours as being less committed to her job, less suitable for advancement, less ambitious, and less desirous of advancement, despite no differences in her perceived capability compared to a candidate not using a flexible schedule. This finding was consistent with that accountants working flexible schedules were perceived to be less likely to be promoted and more likely to leave the firm.
Moving from perceptions to reality, a survey of 11,815 managers in an American financial services organization showed that managers who took leaves of absence, both family and illness-related, received fewer subsequent promotions and salary increases than those who did not take leave, even after controlling for performance ratings. Regardless of type of leave, length of absence, or when leave was taken, managers who took multiple leaves of absence received fewer rewards than managers who took only one leave of absence. It is therefore not surprising that work-life practices tend to be under-utilized by male employees, single employees, and career-oriented mothers , and that apprehension of negative career consequences for using practices has been associated with increased levels of work-life conflict.
For those employees who are aware of the practices available to them and who wish to make use of them, other obstacles may exist. Despite managerial discretion being built into a number of work-life practices and codified in staff handbooks, awareness of statutory family leave provisions is variable and often quite poor among line managers, who frequently have limited training in work-life related human resource policies. Similarly, supervisors generally had poor awareness of work-life practices in their organization, and this influenced their ability to refer employees to these practices. Factors completely unrelated to employees' requests to use work-life practices can have a profound influence on the likelihood of those requests being granted. For example, female managers are more likely than male managers to grant requests for alternative work. Supervisors with greater parental responsibility have been found to exhibit more flexibility in helping employees balance their work and home commitments, while supervisors with a greater need for control have been found to display less flexibility in this regard.
Managerial support and the work-life climate of an organization may moderate the link between work-life balance practice provision and both employee use of practices and perceptions of organizational support. If management is unsupportive of employees' efforts to balance work and personal responsibilities, and workers anticipate career penalties should they make use of the available practices, organizations may find that perceptions of organizational support are not enhanced and outcomes such as improved citizenship behaviour and organizational performance are thus unrealized. Fear of harming their career prospects may discourage employees from using the work-life practices on offer, which in turn may nullify some of the intended beneficial effects of those practices.
