Temporal Workplace Flexibility and Associated Work-Life Outcomes for Professionals

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.

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Flexibility and Work-Life Interference in Australia

Journal of Industrial Relations ◽

10.1177/0022185610390297 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 53 (1) ◽

pp. 65-82 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Natalie Skinner ◽

Barbara Pocock

Keyword(s):

Work Life ◽

New Right ◽

Life Outcomes ◽

Employee Survey ◽

The Third ◽

The Right ◽

The Relationship

This contribution examines the relationship between flexibility and work—life interference. It analyses requests for flexibility in Australia just prior to the enactment of a new ‘right to request’ such flexibility, utilizing a large employee survey that shows that around a fifth of employees requested flexibility, most requests were agreed, and work—life outcomes were much better amongst those whose requests were fully agreed. Women were twice as likely as men to have sought flexibility, with one in two mothers of preschoolers, one in three mothers of children under 16 and a quarter of women without children having made requests. Parenting made no difference to men’s rate of request-making. Findings suggest that the right may be particularly beneficial to the third of all workers who have not made requests for flexibility yet are not content with current arrangements. There is a case to extend the right beyond parents, and for stronger appeal rights.

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Temporary employment and work‐life balance in Australia

Journal of Family Research ◽

10.20377/jfr-357 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 214-248

Author(s):

Inga Laß ◽

Mark Wooden

Keyword(s):

Fixed Effects ◽

Temporary Employment ◽

Work Life ◽

Work Life Balance ◽

Life Outcomes ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Temporary Employees ◽

Life Balance ◽

Worker Characteristics

While it is often believed that temporary forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, casual work and temporary agency work, provide workers with more flexibility to balance work and private commitments, convincing empirical evidence on this issue is still scarce. This paper investigates the association between temporary employment and work-life balance in Australia, using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey for the period 2001 to 2017. In contrast to previous studies, we compare results from pooled cross-sectional and fixed-effects regressions to investigate the role of time-constant unobserved worker characteristics in linking temporary employment and work-life outcomes. The results show that, after accounting for job characteristics and person-specific fixed-effects, among women only casual employment is unequivocally associated with better work-life outcomes than permanent employment. For men, we mostly find negative associations between all forms of temporary employment and work-life outcomes, but the magnitudes of these associations are much smaller and mostly insignificant in fixed-effects models. This result suggests that male temporary employees have stable unobserved traits that are connected to poorer work-life balance.

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When Firms Restructure: Understanding Work-Life Outcomes

Work and Life Integration ◽

10.4324/9781410611529-18 ◽

2004 ◽

pp. 139-161

Keyword(s):

Work Life ◽

Life Outcomes

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Work-Life Outcomes in Australia: Concepts, Outcomes and Policy

Work Less, Live More? ◽

10.1007/978-1-137-11537-9_2 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 22-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Barbara Pocock ◽

Natalie Skinner ◽

Philippa Williams

Keyword(s):

Work Life ◽

Life Outcomes

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Workplace flexibility: a key to work–life integration

Handbook of Work–Life Integration Among Professionals ◽

10.4337/9781781009291.00025 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 269-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

E. Jeffrey Hill ◽

Hope M. Morrison

Keyword(s):

Work Life ◽

Workplace Flexibility

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Bridging the research–practice gap: Developing a measurement framework for work–life initiatives

Journal of Management & Organization ◽

10.5172/jmo.837.14.3.239 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 239-258 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

E Anne Bardoel ◽

Helen De Cieri ◽

Susan Mayson

Keyword(s):

Resource Management ◽

Human Resource Management ◽

Human Resource ◽

Strategic Human Resource Management ◽

Work Life ◽

Life Outcomes ◽

Human Resource Professionals ◽

Resource Based View ◽

Measurement Framework ◽

Practice Gap

AbstractResearch in human resource management has advocated the development of a systematic process of measurement that enables managers to obtain and evaluate evidence about the performance of work–life initiatives, in both financial and non-financial terms. We apply the resource-based view of the firm, within the context of strategic human resource management literature, and conduct qualitative research in focus groups with human resource professionals and managers from 27 medium to large organisations operating in Australia. Our research explores what organisations are currently measuring with regard to work–life outcomes, how they are measuring it, and what they would like to measure. Integrating the practitioners' perspective with academic literature, we develop a framework of measurement for work–life initiatives.

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