Category Archives: Work-Life Balance
Blurring Work and Non-Work Boundaries: Two Sides to the Story (IO Psychology)
The rapid advancement of communication technologies (CTs) in recent years is widely believed to be one of the main drivers behind changes in work. The ease and availability of CTs allows employees unprecedented access to information, people, and most importantly, their work from anywhere and at anytime. While previous generations of workers “stopped the clock” at 5:00pm, many modern employees continue to check-in to work after traditional work hours – leading to blurry work-non-work boundaries. Researchers have predicted both positive and negative outcomes to result from this shift in working hours. Specifically, using CTs to check-in to work after hours, may be a sign of greater commitment to the organization, or high job involvement and ambition on the part of the employee. But, the negative side of greater time spent working is less time for non-work activities possibility resulting in work-family conflict.
Researchers Boswell and Olson-Buchanan were interested in examining the effects of checking-in on work during non-work hours from the perspective of the organization, the employee, and the employee’s spouse. Specifically, they recorded after-hours CT usage, both spouses’ perceptions of work-family conflict, and levels of the employee’s affective organizational commitment to the organization, ambition, and job involvement.
The results showed that highly ambitious employees who are greatly involved in their work are more likely to use CTs for longer time periods after work hours then employees who lack ambition and job involvement. Interestingly, however, employees spending a greater number of hours connecting to work after hours are not more committed to their organizations. Based on this, it seems that highly determined employees (i.e., ambitious and involved) are using CT after hours to “get ahead” rather than because they feel loyal or obligated to the organization.
However, there does seem to be a price to getting ahead by utilizing CTs during non-work hours – employees who spent greater time using CTs to connect to work during traditional “family time” experienced greater levels of work-family conflict as reported by the employee and by the employee’s spouse. Specifically, employee use of CTs after work explained an additional 2% of the variance in work-family conflict from the perspective of the employee and an additional 13% from the perspective of the spouse, suggesting that the employee may not fully realize the negative impact of his/her CT after hours usage from the perspective of his/her spouse.
Taken together, although employees may willingly engage in CT usage after traditional work hours to get ahead, this activity results in negative work-family balance implications from the perspective of the employee and, to a greater extent, from the perspective of the employee’s spouse. Organizations can help employees by discouraging after-hour and weekend email communication. More realistic an option may be to employ family-friendly practices and policies designed to decrease work-family conflict such as flex options or child-care benefits.
Working too much? Spending lots of time with family? You’re probably not sleeping enough
Topic: Work-life Balance
Publication: Personnel Psychology (WINTER 2012)
Article: Borrowing from sleep to pay work and family: Expanding time-based conflict to the broader nonwork domain
Authors: Barnes, C. M., Wagner, D. T., & Ghumman, S.
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin
Pretend for a minute that you have a lot you want to do today. This is probably not a difficult task. You have important projects to get done for work, you want to spend time with family and friends, and you really would like to get a decent night’s sleep. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to get everything done. So what do you do less of?
Research in the work-life balance literature mainly focuses on time spent at work and time spent with family. In other words, if you spend more time at work, you spend less time with family, and if you spend more time with family, you probably spend less time working. But what about other important activities that you do, like sleep?
Christopher Barnes and his colleagues recently found that people tend to take time away from sleep so that they can spend more time working and with family. This is probably not a surprise to you. In fact, spending more time working and with family has an increasingly negative effect on time spent sleeping. In other words, if you spend a little extra time at work, you probably won’t lose much sleep. But if you spend a lot of extra time at work, you will probably lose quite a bit of sleep.
Some of the top people in your organization are probably spending significantly more time working than do others in your company, and this likely means that they’re taking some time away from sleep in order to work extra. Getting insufficient sleep obviously has many negative consequences, so over time their performance may actually decrease due to sleep deprivation. Therefore, don’t force your top performers to work much longer hours, and maybe try to support those who are working overtime. You can provide coffee at work, allow for scheduled naps, and make sure your employees aren’t working too much. Your employees will thank you for it.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Family_g212-Family_p36583.html
Everybody Wins: The Power of Engagement in Promoting Work-Family Facilitation (IO Psychology)
Topic: Work-Life Balance, Engagement
Publication: Human Relations (SEP 2012)
Article: Work Engagement and Work-Family Facilitation: Making Homes Happier Through Positive Affective Spillover
Authors: Satoris Culbertson, Maura Mills, & Clive Fullager
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
For many years, researchers in IO psychology have focused on the negative outcomes, such as stress and health problems, that can be associated with employees balancing work and family demands. However, within work-family research, one area that has become more popular over the past several years is work-family facilitation, which examines how work and family demands, rather than competing with one another, can actually be beneficial and make an individual more effective in both the work and family domains.
The authors of a recent paper examined the impact of work engagement on work-family facilitation. Collecting data on a daily basis over the course of two weeks from over 50 individuals, the researchers found that both work engagement and work-family facilitation appear to vary considerably from day to day. More importantly, the researchers also found that daily work engagement had a positive relationship with family life, such that employees who were more engaged with their work tended to have more positive experiences both at work and at home.
One of the main findings of this study is the notion that work engagement may be best conceptualized as a state-like construct, as opposed to a more permanent trait-like construct; this finding suggests that organizations can influence work engagement through workplace policies and interventions. This capability for organizations to influence engagement is especially important in light of this study’s other main finding; namely, that engagement appears to enhance work-family facilitation. So, through improving engagement, organizations may be able to positively impact work-family facilitation for their employees as well, thus providing a number of benefits to everyone involved.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Are you being treated badly by coworkers? It might just be affecting your home life (IO Psychology)
Topic: Counter-Productive Work Behavior, Work-Life Balance, Stress
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior (MAY 2012)
Article: You cannot leave it at the office: Spillover and crossover of coworker incivility
Authors: M. Ferguson
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin
Do you have a coworker who is rude to you? Ignores you? Is condescending to you? If so, that’s called coworker incivility and it is probably not only affecting your satisfaction with and performance at work, but also your home life.
In a recent study, Meredith Ferguson investigated if and how coworker incivility affects the marital satisfaction of both the target of workplace incivility and the target’s partner. She was also interested in the role that stress might play in the spillover effects from coworker incivility.
Ferguson collected data from 190 workers and their partners. She found that coworker incivility led to stress that transferred to the family domain; both the target and the target’s partner reported lower levels of marital satisfaction due to the extra stress. The target’s partner also experienced more family-to-work conflict, probably because the partner was taking on more responsibilities to help alleviate the stress of the target.
From an organizational perspective, several implications from this research should be noted. In addition to poor organizational outcomes (e.g., lower work satisfaction, absenteeism), coworker incivility can also lead to negative effects for the target’s home life. In turn, having work-to-family conflict can lead to family-to-work conflict; in other words, negative spillover from workplace incivility may spill back to the organization. Therefore, organizations should take coworker incivility seriously, explain unacceptable behavior, and actively discourage it. They also could provide employee assistance programs for employees who are suffering stress from coworker incivility so that spillover and negative outcomes are reduced.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Bring Your Partner to Work Day (Human Resource Management)
Topic: Work-Life Balance
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior
Article: The costs and benefits of working with one’s spouse: A two-sample examination of spousal support, work-family conflict, and emotional exhaustion in work-linked relationships
Authors: Halbesleben, J. R. B., Wheeler, A. R., & Rossi, A. M.
Reviewed by: Larry Martinez
Unlike many years ago, it is commonplace for both partners in a relationship to have full-time jobs. But spouses working together? Many would argue that most couples need a break from each other (no matter how much in love they are). Halbesleban and colleagues (2012) investigated just under what conditions there are benefits and negative consequences (in regards to reported emotional exhaustion) for these “work-linked” couples.
These authors predicted that because spouses who work together have a greater understanding of each other’s jobs and a greater ability to actually help each other at work, they should both experience higher levels of support from one another. However, at the same time, these couples may also experience more strain between work and family responsibilities (work/family conflict) because there isn’t a clear boundary between these two domains.
Indeed, in two samples (one American and one Brazilian) work-linked couples reported higher levels of support and lower levels of time-related conflict. However, these individuals also reported higher levels of behavior-related conflict (in the US) and strain-related conflict than those that were not linked. Together, it seems that work-linked couples can support each other better and feel that they manage their time better, but also have a harder time balancing work and family duties and negative emotions.
This research is unique because highlights both the positive and negative aspects of working with your partner. In doing so, it offers recommendations for organizations managing their paired-up employees. For instance, one might encourage their employees to share their work experiences with their significant others and/or invite family members to employee events. We know from other research [link to turnover/embeddedness blog here] that being embedded in one’s job and community can reduce turnover, and more strongly integrating the family into the organization (while still managing the negative aspects listed previously) is one way of doing that.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
A Bad Boss Can Ruin Your Marriage
Topic: Conflict, Stress, Work-Life Balance, Workplace Deviance
Publication: Personnel Psychology
Article: The Fallout from Abusive Supervision: An Examination of Subordinates and Their Partners
Authors: Carson, D. S., Ferguson, M., Perrewé, P. L., & Whitten, D.
Reviewed By: Katie Bachman
Maybe this can be filed in the “Well, Duh” folder, but new research has shown that bad bosses can mess up your relationships at home. “What?,” you say, “stress from work means that I’m not my best at home?!” Yeah. If you are one of the unfortunate people to have an emotionally abusive supervisor (one that gets mad at you for no reason, belittles you in front of people, etc.), you can end up taking that stress home with you in the form of work-family conflict. To make matters worse, that conflict that you’re experiencing affects your spouse or significant other and makes them tense. Then, the snowball gets a little speed from your partner’s tension by affecting important family outcomes (like staying together). Bottom line: an abusive supervisor isn’t just a pain at work for you – you end up taking that negativity home with you, which hurts your family.
Bad bosses exist, so is there anything we, the supervised, can do about it? The authors of this article say that organizations and human resource departments should do what they can to stamp out abusive supervision (easy-peasy, right?). Beyond that, on the front lines, I think the best you can do is try to keep work and home stress separated. There’s no quick fix for this problem, but maybe just knowing that bad supervision spills over into your family’s lives can help you keep from passing on the bad mojo.
Supervisor support can tip work/family balance into equilibrium
Topic: Work-Life Balance
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior (online pre-publication)
Article: A comparison of types of social support for lower-skill workers: Evidence for the importance of family supportive supervisors.
Authors: Muse, L. A., Pichler, S.
Reviewed by: Larry Martinez
Most of what we know from organizational research is based off of samples of either convenience samples (mostly college students) or white-collar employees (e.g., nurses, accountants, managers). Most research does not specifically target blue-collar or lower level employees, despite the fact that the majority of jobs are at lower levels. This is especially true in work/family balance literature. In addition, few studies examine simultaneously how work interferes with family AND how family interferes with work. However, Muse and Pichler (in press) focused on these issues directly.
Lower skilled workers may be especially prone to not being able to utilize public and/or organizational policies that could help relieve stress between work and family obligations because they often face lower job stability and less bargaining power than highly skilled workers. However, the results of this study suggest that these types of support are also critical for lower skilled workers.
Work-Life Spillover has a Positive Side?
Topic: Work-Life Balance
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (SEP 2010)
Article: Meta-Analytic Review of the Consequences Associated with Work-Family Enrichment
Authors: L. A. McNall, J. M. Nicklin, A. D. Masuda
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood
With the increasing number of dual-income earning couples, organizations are taking more of an interest in work-life balance practices. Much research on work-family conflict has linked high conflict to low job satisfaction, low life satisfaction, high stress levels, increased health complaints, and greater turnover intentions. However, a smaller body of research has taken a spin to work-life balance by examining the potential, positive effects of work-family spillover know as work-family enrichment (e.g., improving the quality of work or family experiences). As with work-family conflict, enrichment is thought to stem from two primary sources: work influencing family (WFE) attitudes and behaviors and family influencing work (FWE) attitudes and behaviors.
The current meta-analysis examines both work and family domains as sources of enrichment (WFE and FWE), by investigating both domains’ effects on work-related outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment), non work-related outcomes (i.e., family satisfaction, life satisfaction) and health-related outcomes (i.e., physical / mental health). The results reveal that overall, both WFE and FWE are positively associated with positive work outcomes, non work-related outcomes, as well as health-related outcomes. This suggests that enrichment in one domain does indeed have a positive effect on other areas of life.
Relax! Weekend Recovery Does a Career Good!
Topic: Work-Life Balance, Stress
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior (NOV 2010)
Article:The weekend matters: Relationships between stress recovery and affective experiences
Authors: Fritz, C., Sonnentag, S., Spector, P. E., & McInroe, J.
Reviewed by: Charleen Maher
Admit it. We all look forward to the weekend after a long week at work. Here’s another reason to look forward to it: Research finds that it’s important to emotionally recover from stressful work demands. A recent study by Binnewies et al. (click here for the IOATWORK review) found that mentally detaching oneself from work, relaxing, and engaging in non job-related tasks during the weekend helps employees feel recovered during the following work week. This leads to better self-reported performance and citizenship behaviors as well as increased initiative to complete work tasks. These are positive outcomes for organizations, but when it comes to employees, there are more specific emotional benefits to consider.
The current study by Fritz et al. examined the effect of several types of weekend recovery experiences on both positive and negative feelings. Relaxation during the weekend increased positive feelings (joviality, serenity, self-assurance) and decreased negative feelings (fear, hostility, sadness) by the end of the weekend. Engaging in mastery experiences (activities that promote challenge and provide opportunities to learn new skills) during the weekend was related to increased positive feelings (joviality, serenity, self-assurance). Finally, psychological detachment (mentally distancing oneself from work) was also related to increased positive feelings (only joviality and serenity) by the end of the weekend.
The weekend isn’t always full of positive recovery experiences, however.
Go Ahead, Take That Vacation – It’s Good For You…and Your Company!
Topic: Burnout, Wellness, Work-Life Balance
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior (JAN 2011)
Article: How long do you benefit from vacation? A closer look at the fade-out of vacation effects
Authors: J. Kuhnel and S. Sonnentag
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger
We all look forward to vacations and other extended breaks from our hectic work schedules, and fortunately, the case is building for the importance of these hiatuses from work. Research suggests that because normal work demands drain our limited physical and mental resources, employees need sufficient time to recharge their batteries if they are to operate at full capacity on the job.
Research by Kuhnel and Sonnentag (2011) shows that vacation time can positively impact employees’ psychological well-being when they return to the job. In their study of German teachers, vacation time was favorably related to work engagement and burnout after returning to work. In other words, after returning from vacation, teachers tended to report high levels of work engagement and low levels of burnout. The benefits of vacation time, however, dropped off after about one month back on the job.
But why exactly do the benefits of vacations wear off over time? The authors found that job demands (e.g., student behavior problems, time pressures in this particular study) counteract the positive benefits of vacation time over time. Said another way, while vacations help us recharge our batteries, job demands begin to take their toll and drain our limited resources after some time back on the job. However, the authors found that experiencing leisure time following vacation helps preserve the positive effects of vacation on employee well-being.
Results such as these highlight the importance of taking vacation time.
