Work Family Polices

Marks and MacDermid define role balance as ‘‘the tendency to become fully employed in the operation of every role in one_s total role system, to approach every typical role and role partner with an attitude of attentiveness and caution. Put otherwise, it is the exercise of that evenhanded alertness known sometimes as mindfulness’’ (Marks & MacDermid, 1996, p. 421). All the same, they also note that this expression of full engagement reflects a status of ‘‘positive’’ role balance, in contrast to negative role balance in which people are fully disengaged in every part. Although Marks and MacDermid (1996) are understandably more concerned with positive role balance than negative role balance, they recognize that it is important to separate the two concepts.

Other students have defined work–family balance or work-life balance in a way similar to the Marks and MacDermid_s (1996) creation of positive role balance. For example, Kirchmeyer views living a balanced life as ‘‘achieving satisfying experiences in all life domains, and to do so requires personal resources such as energy, time, and commitment to be well distributed across domains’’ (Kirchmeyer, 2000, p. 81, italics added). In a similar vein, Clark views work–family balance as ‘‘satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict’’ (Clark, 2000, p. 349).

According to Kofodimos, balance refers to ‘‘a satisfying, healthy, and productive life that includes work, play, and love’’ (Kofodimos, 1993; p. xiii). Study-family struggle is defined as inter-role conflict in which responsibilities of the employment and family lands are non compatible (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). Study-family conflict occurs when participation in the family role is made more difficult by participation in the work role, thus the term “work-family conflict.” Previous research indicates that work-family conflict correlates to lower overall job satisfaction (Kossek and Ozeki, 1998) and other negative dispositions, such as emotional exhaustion (Boles et al., 1997) and greater propensity to go forth a position (Good et al., 1988).

Higgins, Duxbury and Irving (1992) establish that the struggle between work and family roles diminish. Employees' perceptions of quality of work life and the quality of family life which, in turn, can impact organizational outcomes such as productivity, absenteeism and turnover. They indicate that arrangements could possibly reduce work-family disputes by providing alternative employment arrangements. Study-family practices are specified in this study as any welfare or working conditions that an organization has in place that assists an employee to balance the areas of family and work (Bardoel et al., 1998). A number of noted researchers (Bardoel et al., 1991; Goodstein, 1994; Ingram and Simons, 1995) have reported that responding to the increasing requirements of work.

Family balance is a major challenge for many organizations, one that has been relatively under explored. Employment and Family workplace policies enable parents, principally, to balance the needs of family- rearing while either keeping their jobs or keeping up a link with the world of careers and paid work. The work and family, workplace agenda have been described as including: leave and hours flexibility entitlements to allow retention of employment while redistributing some time from the workplace to home; provision of childcare services to redistribute some tasks from the home to the public sphere and policies to facilitate labor market re-entry after a child rearing absence. Work–family policy availability may enhance work attitudes through greater family support. Organizational perceptions, whereas policy, as may pertain to attitudes through reductions in work-to-family conflict (Beauregard & Henry, 2009; Glass & Finley, 2002). To our knowledge none exist. No research has simultaneously examined the procedures through which policy availability and function relate to employee work attitudes.

In organizations, three major types of work-family policies have been established to assist employees in “balancing” their work and family lives, including flexible work options, family leave policies, and dependent-care benefits1 (Morgan & Milliken, 1992). We reason that calling for a communicative perspective allows for an examination of how such work-family benefits are enacted through discourse and interactions about the policy because the intent of work-family policies does not come into fruition until they are put into activity.

Work-family benefits provide a rich context to study policy for various reasons. Firstly, “work-family balance” became a hot career issue starting in the 1990s (Lobel, 1991), and over the past decade, work-family benefits have been a rising trend in terms of personnel policies (Mitchell, 1997; Osterman, 1995). Yet widespread organizational culture change toward work and family is not automatically achieved by implementing family-friendly policies in the workplace (Lewis, 1997). This becomes important because research proves that a supportive work-folk culture is significantly related to benefit utilization and work positions, such as organizational commitment, intention to leave the system, and less work-to-family conflict—beyond the mere availability of work-family benefits (Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, 1999).

Organizational work-family policies have been developed to contain the greater care commitments of employees with family responsibilities, thereby assisting employees to simultaneously fulfill their responsibilities both at work and at home. Models of work, household policies include part-time work, career break schemes, parental leave, flexible hours arrangements and compressed work weeks (Ministerial Task Force on Work and Family, 2002). To date, adult females with dependent children have been by far the largest demographic group to use these arrangements (Charlesworth, 1997), notwithstanding the availability of these selections to all players.