cultural support of work/life integration strategies

Copyright 2000 - South-Western College Publishing

Cultural Support of Work/Life Integration Strategies

Is employer support of work/life integration a business issue?


Module 11 - 2

Ice Breaker:• Is support for work/family integration a

business issue? Why or why not?• Form a pair.• If yes, you have five minutes to brainstorm

with a partner as many reasons as it is and jot down these ideas to report out.

• If no, brainstorm as many reasons why not to report out.


Module 11 - 3

Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality Many firms have

cultures where using work/life policies is seen as benefiting the individual far more than the firm.

Meeting employee’s personal needs are not yet seen as meeting customers’ needs

Work/life policies are still largely programmatic • little link to other HR

policies

• little focus on informal cultural issues

• glass ceiling effect


Module 11 - 4

Ending the War Between Work and Family Peter Senge: MIT

professor & author of Fifth Discipline:

In his leadership seminars “finding balance between my work and family” is the number one issue of attendees.

• Successful executives are more likely to work long hours, be willing to make sacrifices to get ahead.

• Also likely to have personal characteristics detrimental to their children strive for perfection,impatience, efficiency)

• Fortune article: Execs.’ children more likely to have emotional and health problems


Module 11 - 5

Changing the Corporate Culture Work/Family Directions

Study• Many firms offer flexible

schedules but barriers to use persist: supervisors & fear about career impact

• Time Bind: We live denial:

– Either dream about the potential balanced future self; minimize our needs or our families’ needs.

1993 Catalyst study• 1/4 of HR managers felt

that use of flexible policies had negative impact on career advancement

32% of employees surveyed at Johnson & Johnson felt using flexibility would hurt careers


Module 11 - 6

Changing the Corporate Culture

Study of 902 women graduates of Harvard law, business & medical school

85% felt that reducing hours of work is detrimental to careers


Module 11 - 7

Common U. S. Work/Life Assumptions: Is there a war between work and family?

Employees cannot be equally committed to the family and the workplace.

The workplace can be designed without regard to employees’ non-work lives.

• Society as a whole doesn’t necessarily benefit when we help individual with family needs.

• Nuturance activities such as child and elder care are mainly the purview of women.

Personal problems should be kept at home.


Module 11 - 8

Common U. S. Work/Life Assumptions

In an individualistic culture, achieving balance between work and family is not necessarily highly valued.

Benefit programs can only satisfy workers and make them happier, they cannot make employees more productive.

Face Time (or hours present at the office) equals output/performance.

Equitable means identical. Families and children are

private matters. The choice to have children is personal and should neither be sanctioned nor discouraged.


Module 11 - 9

Common U. S. Work/Life Assumptions The workplace can be designed without

regard to employee’s non-work lives. When work-family conflicts occur, work

demands must prevail.• Work-family conflicts are seen as special cause

form of variance (a deviance caused by an individual employee’s problem) as opposed to common cause variance (caused by not optimizing the design of workplace systems to accommodate work/life integration issues for all employees.)


Module 11 - 10

Integrating Work/Life Initiatives Into the Corporate Culture

Are basic assumptions of organizational continuous improvement, competitiveness, and work/family change initiatives congruent with each other?


Module 11 - 11

Some Selected Quotations from Managerial Interviews A corporation’s

success depends on a quality, innovative and dedicated workforce: If you don’t get the people thing right, you won’t get the customer thing right.(Dow)

To get high quality, you need to be sensitive to the personal needs that employees have. There should no be a division between personal needs and what is going on on work. (Motorola)


Module 11 - 12

Why Work/Life Matters for the Bottom Line:

• Consistently shown to influence key work and personal outcomes ranging from job, life, and family satisfaction to performance to turnover.

• Growing work-life integration pressures on employees also may affect employers’ ability to realize the potential of their future labor force. Reports indicate that for growing numbers of college graduates about to enter the labor market, nearly half (45%) say that their top consideration in selecting a first employer is the ability to achieve a balance between work and a rewarding life outside of work.

• Increased productivity due to employees’ heightened ability to perform their jobs since they are not distracted by constant dependent care problems.


Module 11 - 13

Why Work-Life Matters for the Bottom Line

• Research also shows that family problems can have major financial costs for employers.

• Data from a national panel study conducted by The University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research indicates that family and marital problems translate into work loss of approximately $6.8 billion per year.

– Work/life programs that are effectively supported by the work culture can also have financial implications for other factors typically not included in benefits calculations: reduced recruiting, training, and related replacement costs, since employees who are satisfied with their work/life situation are less likely to turnover.


Module 11 - 14

Why Work-Life Matters for the Bottom Line

• Linkage of work-life policies to bundles of HR practices indicative of high performance work systems and high employer investments in workers (e.g., extensive selection systems, good training, etc.) has been overlooked by most managers and leading HR scholars.

• Idea of “bundles in strategic HRM: groups of HR practices have congruence and should be adopted as bundles to send employees a coherent HRM message. If policies to invest in employee’s work-life balance needs over the life span are adopted as part of a package of other high-performance HR policies that invest in attracting and keeping the best workers, then employees will be feel valued and will be motivated to stay with the employer over the long term.


Module 11 - 15

Integrating Work/Life Initiatives Into the Corporate Culture Can best be achieved by addressing potential

conflicts and congruencies between work/life interventions and other on-going business initiatives.

Have greatest chance for long term success if they are viewed in terms of their capacity for fostering change in organizational cultural assumptions as opposed to programmatic efforts


Module 11 - 16

Creating Commonalties Like other continuous improvement initiatives:

need to link work/life interventions to other change initiatives and on-going business concerns

Need to diagnose cultural barriers against creating a workplace supportive of individual’s needs

Assess how to make organizational systems work well for all individuals (Reduce common cause variance)


Module 11 - 17

Creating Commonalties Develop a team oriented culture where

workers collaborate to support each other Culture should strive to serve all customers

well -whether external or internal (employees) Diagnosis of core philosophy, and language

and tools used to manage programs may highlight disconnects between work/life programs and other organizational initiatives


Module 11 - 18

Integrating Work/Life Initiatives Into the Corporate Culture Metaphor: Think of the workplace as a

flower garden. Many different seeds are planted and

cultivated In many firms, work/family initiatives and

other major business initiatives (e.g. TQM, teams, diversity) represent important though largely separate patches in the garden.


Module 11 - 19


“You must believe that people are worth developing and that….you have this valuable commodity, this human being who works for you that you want to continuously develop. Hopefully you will gain a long term employee who is flexible, creative, and gives a lot to the organization.” (Corning manager)


Module 11 - 20


“There are very few managers who are really good at managing the human resource and looking at the long term picture of career development, work/family issues and dealing with diversity . When these become integrated things, instead of add-ons, that’s when I think we have gotten close to arriving.” (Corning manager)


Module 11 - 21

Competing Values• Effective managers must manage competing tensions

and paradoxes and offer conflicting messages.• must use both old and new ways of managing: both theory

Y (enlightened management) and theory X (have hierarchy and rules and use the stick if needed).

• We want our organizations to be adaptable and flexible, BUT we also want them stable and controlled.

• We want growth, resource acquisition and external support, BUT we want tight information management and formal communication.

• We want emphasis on the value of human resources BUT we also want emphasis on planning and goal setting.


Module 11 - 22

Competing Value Tension:Work-Family Responsiveness and Business Efficiency Pressures

Mixed messages given to employees on how to balance work with family may be due to the fact that organizations often have to jointly manage competing values.


Module 11 - 23

Human Relations Management Model:

Takes long term view of human resource development that views investment in employees’ work/life integration needs as way to promote productivity through caring about workers .

Model concerned with the development of human resources and longer time lines.

Assumption: if you give an employee some slack over the short term to deal with personal needs, over the long run productivity will be maximized due to higher employee morale and commitment.

The human resources department as the unit that helps ensure employees have a voice in the company, has historically reflected human relations philosophies.


Module 11 - 24

Rational Goal Management Model: Managers in functions other than HR such as

production or marketing, or even top management tend to hold values consistent with the rational goal approach.

Approach is concerned with quarterly maximization of output and shorter time lines.

Under this view, employee needs for company support may be viewed as hurting efficiency over the short run. For example, if an employee takes a leave of absence for personal needs, efficiency is hurt over the short run since s/he is not at work producing.


Module 11 - 25

Most Firms Do Not Manage These Competing Values Very Well Tend to have a predominant cultural

approach to managing work and family: Social Arbiter Approach: Work/Life Issues Are Private

and Employer Should Only Get Involved In Cases of Poor Performance

Whole Persons and Systems Approach: Work-Family Policies Sensitive to the Needs of Workers as Internal Customers Can Serve to Enhance Quality and Cultural Change

Omniscient Organization: Little Separation


Module 11 - 26

Reflecting on Your Work/Life Goals

• Why is it important for managers to self reflect on not only their professional goals relative to work but also

• their personal goals relative to your private and family life?

• Which organizational approach (social arbiter, whole person, or omniscient would you most likely see followed by your future employer to help you achieve them both and why?

cultural support of work/life integration strategies

Documents

hours of work

workfamily conflicts

work demands

family needs

employees nonwork lives

worklife assumptionsin

individual employees

family peter senge