Workplace flexibility and its relationship with work-interferes-with-family
| Date | 13 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-01-2019-0048 |
| Pages | 149-166 |
| Published date | 13 November 2019 |
| Author | Michael Halinski,Linda Duxbury |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Workplace flexibility
and its relationship with
work-interferes-with-family
Michael Halinski
School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, and
Linda Duxbury
School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing from the workplace flexibility and coping literatures, the purpose of this paper is to
re-conceptualize the workplace flexibility construct as a coping resource that may help prevent work-
interferes-with-family (WIF) from arising and/or assist employees manage such interference when it has
occurred. A measure capturing this re-conceptualized view of flexibility is developed and tested using two
samples of dual-income employees with dependent care demands.
Design/methodology/approach –In Study 1, the authors use LISERL to develop and test a new multi-
dimensional measure of workplace flexibility (n
1
¼6,659). In Study 2 (n
2
¼947), the authors use partial least
squares, a component-based structural equation modeling technique, to test a model that posits workplace
flexibility that helps employees cope with WIF.
Findings –This research provides support for the idea that workplace flexibility helps employees cope with
WIF by: preventing interference (i.e. negatively moderating the relationship between work hours and WIF),
and managing interference that has occurred (i.e. negatively moderating relationship between WIF and
perceived stress).
Originality/value –This study highlights the complexity of the relationship between workplace flexibility
and work-to-family interference and offers guidelines on how employers and employees can use the
workplace flexibility measure developed in this study.
Keywords Quantitative, Coping, Work–life balance (WLB), Family-friendly practices
Paper type Research paper
Over the past several decades, several significant demographic and social changes have
made it more challenging for employees to balance work and family demands. As more
women work, men are taking on more responsibilities at home and spending more time in
dependent care activities (Bianchi, 2011). Increased divorce and remarriage rates have also
complicated things for families who now must determine how best to share dependent care
responsibilities across households (Cherlin, 2009). Post-graduate rates are increasing as
are the number of employees who are required to balance work, dependent care and
graduate school (Bianchi, 2011). Finally, the number of employees who juggle paid
employment and caregiving for one or more elderly dependents is increasing concomitant
with increases in life expectancy and the tendency for men and women to delay having
children until their early 30s (Duxbury and Higgins, 2017). These demographic shifts
suggest that the issue of work–life conflict is more complex than in the past, as employees
struggle to fulfill their responsibilities at work while also engaging in childcare and/or
eldercare (Bianchi, 2011; Duxbury and Higgins, 2017).
Work–family conflict is “a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the
work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect”(Greenhaus and
Beutell, 1985, p. 77). Work–family conflict has been conceptualized to include two different
constructs which differ with respect to directionality (Allen et al., 2013): the work role
can interfere with the family role (work-interferes-with-family (WIF)), or the family role can
interfere with the work role (FIW). Both WIF and FIW have been found to be problematic
Personnel Review
Vol. 49 No. 1, 2020
pp. 149-166
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-01-2019-0048
Received 31 January 2019
Revised 6 June 2019
Accepted 8 June 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
149
Workplace
flexibility
for employees and organizations alike (Eby et al., 2005). Organizations concerned with their
employees’ability to balance work and family demands and their consequences of such
imbalance have responded by implementing flexible work arrangement (FWA) policies/
programs within their workplace (e.g. Shockley and Allen, 2007). FWAs are “options that
allow work to be accomplished outside of the traditional temporal and/or spatial boundaries
of a standard workday”(Rau, 2003, p. 112). Organizations that implement FWAs assume
that these policies will provide employees with the workplace flexibility they need to
manage family demands in a manner that decreases WIF and FIW (Allen et al., 2013).
Workplace flexibility refers to “the ability of workers to make choices influencing when,
where, and for how long they engage in work-related tasks”(Hill et al., 2008, p. 152).
Although scholars in the area commonly theorize FWAs give employees the flexibility they
need to balance work and family demands, empirical studies investigating the benefits of
using FWAs are inconsistent with authors reporting positive (e.g. Way et al., 2015) and
negative (e.g. Hyatt and Coslor, 2018) outcomes. These inconsistencies may be caused by
inappropriate operationalization of the workplace flexibility construct (Allen et al., 2013)
and/or definitions of the workplace flexibility construct which are overly broad and
ambiguous (Thompson et al., 2015; Allen et al., 2013; Hill et al., 2008).
To address theseissues, we use theory from theworkplace flexibility (Hillet al., 2008; Allen
et al., 2013) and coping (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984, 1991) literatures to: re-conceptualize the
workplace flexibility construct to make it more applicable to researchers and practitioners
working in the work–lifearena, and elucidate the relationship between work demands, WIF,
perceived stress and our re-conceptualized view of workplace flexibility. Drawing from the
coping literature, we define workplace flexibility as the perceived ability to change where,
when and for how long one works “to manage specificexternal and/or internal demands that
are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person”(Lazarus and Folkman,
1991, p. 210). This conceptualization positions workplace flexibility within the coping
literature and implies that workplace flexibility may be one way to cope withstressors at the
work–family interface.
This manuscript contributes to the workplace flexibility literature in two ways. First, by
drawing from copingtheory to develop a multi-dimensional measure of workplace flexibility,
we respond to scholarswho call for expanded conceptualization and operationalization of the
workplace flexibility construct (Allen et al., 2013; Thompson et al., 2015; Hi ll et al., 2008).
Second, by examining the impact of workplace flexibility on the relationship between work
demands and WIF as wellas the relationship between WIF and perceived stress, we explore
the idea that some of the inconsistencies in the literature on how the use of FWA impacts
work–life balance might be attributed to the overfocus on preventing WIF rather than
managing it.
Study 1: re-conceptualizing workplace flexibility
While our review of the literature identified considerable diversity with respect to how
researchers have defined the workplace flexibility construct (Hill et al., 2008; Matthews and
Barnes-Farrell, 2010; Cañibano, 2011), we also uncovered three areas of agreement. First,
most researchers theorize that workplace flexibility depends on workers having the ability
to choose when and/or where they perform their work. Hill et al. (2008), for example, describe
workplace flexibility as the ability of workers to make choices about when and where they
work and argue that workplace flexibility should be viewed as a continuum. Similarly,
Allen et al. (2013) use resource theory to argue that workplace flexibility occurs when
employees have discretion over when and/or where they consume their work resources.
Second, various researchers acknowledge that workplace flexibility is a function of both
the employee and the employer, which implies that the provision of FWAs does not ensure
that they will be used. Shockley and Allen (2007), for example, distinguish between the
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