Effects of employer-sponsored work/family policies and programs on companies, careers, and families.

Abstract

All U.S. based employees of a company considered to be among the most family-friendly companies in America were surveyed electronically at each of the company's job sites in the Fall of 1997. The analyses for this study are based on the responses of 545 employees with children ages 6 through 12 (for analyses involving flexible schedule supports) and 389 employees with children under the age of 6 (for analyses involving child care service supports).

The findings indicate that flexible supports have a greater effect on the outcome measures than service supports. However, rather than the greatest impact on outcomes coming from the policies/programs themselves, the largest direct effects came from co-worker and supervisor supportiveness, and these effects were observed for 8 and 9 of the 10 dependent variables. The conditional model received modest support, primarily with regard to the varying effects of formal policies/programs according to the degree of informal supportiveness of the respondent's work environment. However, when interaction effects were observed, it was the case that formal supports were of greatest benefit when informal supports were absent rather than when the climate for use was supportive. These findings have implications for those concerned with work/family policies and programs and organizational climates, and point specifically to the need for greater attention toward co-worker and supervisor awareness and support of employees' responsibilities both as workers and as parents, in addition to instituting formal work/family policies and programs

This study examines the relationships between employer-sponsored work/family policies/programs and outcomes of importance to companies (i.e., dependability, job performance, organizational commitment), to employees' careers (i.e., job satisfaction and progress, work hours and schedule satisfaction, and work role conflict), and to families (i.e., marital satisfaction, parental satisfaction, family free-time conflict, and family scheduling conflict). Included in the conceptual model developed for this study is the proposition that the effects of policy/program usage will vary according to individual's degree of dependent care responsibility within their own family as well as the informal climate of the organization, specifically, whether co-workers and supervisors are supportive of work/family policy and program usage.