11-26-2024
Work-life flexibility is the ability to have control over where, when and how long you work. As a manager, you are likely to supervise employees with jobs that vary in their access to work-life flexibility. For example, some jobs allow individuals to control when they work (e.g., work schedules). Others enable control over work boundaries such as location and connectivity.
From a best practice perspective, managers can have a huge impact on whether policies are implemented in ways that foster control to work flexibly to enable employees to meet work and nonwork demands in ways that improve their work-life balance. However, according to a study that I led and that was published in Human Resource Management, the implementation of a work-life balance policy in organizations has been affected by two key issues.
One is that most organizations tend to believe that they can do little to provide work-life flexibility to employees whose jobs are designed with limited work-life flexibility — the so-called work-life flexibility “have nots,” such as frontline workers directly involved in essential tasks such as customer service, production and service delivery. These individuals are particularly susceptible to burnout due to the low control they can have over boundaries and schedules.
The second issue is that even when employees have greater access to work-life flexibility — the so-called work-life flexibility “haves” — many often do not take advantage of their flexibility to engage more fully in their work and family roles. This could be due to concerns by career-oriented employees about the possible negative consequences of working flexibly on their career advancement, as well as being socialized to put work first over family as an “ideal worker.”
We conducted a training experiment and randomized managers to training conditions. We then surveyed employees in different jobs to see if they experienced any trickle-down benefits from having a trained supervisor regardless of whether they had flexible jobs or not.
Our study found that for individuals with little control over boundaries and schedules, having a line manager who is trained in work-life support reduces emotional exhaustion — a key component of burnout for employees in frontline jobs. Contrary to widespread belief, the research shows that even for employees occupying jobs designed with less work-life flexibility, organizations can take action to create a more supportive work-life context, which helps to mitigate employee burnout. Such support can prevent chronic health stress and turnover.
And for those individuals with greater control over work boundaries, the study found that having a line manager trained in work-life support encourages those with greater work-life flexibility to take advantage of existing work-life balance policies and increases family engagement. This training promotes a work-life supportive context that is likely to positively impact employees, but in different ways, depending on the degree to which their job conditions allow different types of work-life flexibility.
Once you offer a work-life balance policy or think about how to create a work-life supportive organization, it is important to also look at people’s different job demands and constraints. As we move toward increasingly hybrid workplaces, there are some jobs where you have to be on-site, and yet you will be able to experience less burnout by having a supportive supervisor. There are also other jobs where people may have trouble disconnecting, lack boundary control and face challenges in engaging with their families. These people may also be constrained by having a supervisor who is not motivated to enable work-life support. We need to make the workplace work for everybody. Investing in supervisor training on implementing work-life flexibility can benefit all employees.
My co-authors on our paper were Caitlin Porter, an associate professor at the University of Memphis; Lindsay Mecham Rosokha, a clinical assistant professor at the Daniels School; Kelly Schwind Wilson, a professor at the Daniels School; Deborah E. Rupp, a professor at George Mason University; and Jared Law-Penrose, a Purdue PhD alum and professor at Le Moyne College. More on the study is available here.
Ellen Ernst Kossek is the Basil S. Distinguished Professor of Management at the Daniels School of Business. She was elected president of the Work-Family Researchers Network and is a Fellow of several organizations, including the Academy of Management, an honor given to the top 1% of AOM members. She has won numerous award for research, teaching, and service excellence to advance gender equality, inclusion, and organizational support for work-life flexibility.
