An examination of the antecedents and consequences of the use of family-friendly benefits.

Over the last 30 years, there has been an increase in the number of dual-career couples, single parent families, and workers with eldercare responsibility (Eby et al., 2005). Given these changes have occurred at the same time that the number of hours employees work has increased (Glass and Finley, 2002), it is not surprising that the amount of attention given to work-family issues has increased. As noted by Eby et al., much of this research attention has focused on work-family conflict (i.e., work activities interfering with family matters). Such conflict has been shown to be negatively related to employee attendance, satisfaction, and performance (e.g., Hammer et al., 2003).

In contrast to the attention given to work-family conflict, as noted by Boles, Howard, and Donofrio (2001), relatively little attention has been given to family-work conflict (i.e., family responsibilities interfering with work activities), and even less attention has been given to whether the use of family-friendly employment benefits (e.g., flexible work hours) is linked to a reduction of family-work conflict (Boyar et al., 2003). We find this lack of research attention surprising given that it is likely that family responsibilities (e.g., caring for a sick child, taking an elderly parent to the doctor, spending time with a spouse, participating in a school carpool) may have detrimental effects on such important work-related variables as employee attendance, punctuality, dissatisfaction, and turnover, and given that providing family-friendly benefits may help employees cope with family demands (readers interested in a detailed discussion of the causes and consequences of family-work conflict are referred to an excellent review article by Eby et al. (2005)).

Not only have there been few studies that have addressed family-work conflict and the influence of offering family-friendly benefits on such conflict, criticisms of the limited research which does exist have been raised (Eby et al., 2005). One criticism involves the heavy reliance of past research on cross-sectional data gathering. A second criticism is that past studies have been somewhat atheoretical in nature. A third criticism is that, rather than looking at the effects of using a specific family-friendly benefit (e.g., on-site child care), researchers generally have measured overall benefit usage (i.e., a composite scale reflecting the use of several benefits was created). The use of such a global benefit usage scale makes it impossible to determine which specific benefits may be particularly helpful for reducing family-work conflict.

In this study, we attempt to advance research on family-work issues by addressing concerns that have been raised with previous studies. More specifically, our study tested a theoretical model of both hypothesized antecedents and consequences of the use of family-friendly benefits. In examining these relationships, we did not rely solely on cross-sectional data. Finally, unlike most previous studies that have focused on overall benefit use, we focused both on overall use and on four specific benefits (i.e., telecommuting, the ability to take work home, flextime, and family leave) that have been hypothesized to have important consequences for reducing family-work conflict and for improving employee satisfaction.

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF FAMILY-FRIENDLY BENEFIT USE

Before discussing the specific hypotheses we tested and the logic that underlies them, it may be helpful to provide a theoretical model that presents an overview of our study. Figure I portrays several factors that we hypothesized as being antecedents of the use of family-friendly benefits or consequences of their use.

[FIGURE I OMITTED]

The first relationship portrayed in Figure I is between an employer providing family-friendly benefits and employees making use of them. Although it may seem obvious that these two variables should be strongly related, past research has not always found this to be the case. For example, Allen (2001) reported a correlation of only .39 (p < .05) between benefit availability and benefit usage (in order to simplify matters, throughout this paper, no p-value is provided if a correlation does not attain a p < .05 level). Thompson, Beauvais, and Lyness (1999) reported a correlation of only .28 (p < .05) between benefits being provided and being used. One reason this relationship may not be stronger is discussed in the next section which addresses the importance of reporting to a family-supportive supervisor.

Hypothesis 1: Employee reports of an employer providing family-friendly benefits will be positively and significantly correlated with their use.

As a way to reduce conflict between family and work responsibilities, employers have provided family-friendly benefits. However, the results of recent research (see Eby et al., 2005) suggest that providing such benefits is not sufficient. For example, Thompson et al. noted that "even where formal work-family policies and programs are in place, managers may subvert them by refusing to allow their employees to participate or by applying the policies unevenly" (1999: 393). Alternatively, a manager may allow an employee to make use of a family-friendly benefit an organization offers while at the same time sending a message that the employee's career will suffer. In earlier research dealing with supervisor supportiveness (e.g., Geiger, 1989), it was common for researchers to focus on whether a supervisor supported the use of a specific benefit offered by an organization. More recently, researchers typically have focused upon the overall family-supportiveness of a supervisor. For example, Allen defined a family-supportive supervisor as one who "is sympathetic to the employee's desires to seek balance between work and family and who engages in efforts to help the employee accommodate his or her work and family responsibilities" (2001: 417). We adopted this more general perspective of supervisor supportiveness of the use of family-friendly benefits in our study. In summary, although only a few studies have addressed the relationship between supervisor support and the use of family-friendly benefits, two studies that have done so (i.e., Allen, 2001; Thompson et al., 1999) documented a relationship between these two variables. Given these findings and the logic supporting the importance of a supervisor being committed to balancing work and family responsibilities, we offer the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2: Reporting to a family-supportive supervisor will be positively and significantly associated with the use of family-friendly benefits.

Past research on family-friendly benefits has primarily focused on the effects of their use on work-family conflict rather than on family-work conflict. Surprisingly, this research has shown benefit usage to only have a modest negative relationship with reports of work-family conflict. For example, Allen (2001) reported a correlation of -.09 (p < .05). Such a modest association may, at least partially, result from supervisors only half-heartedly supporting the use of such benefits (e.g., although flextime is used, meetings are scheduled after children have arrived home from school). In terms of benefit use and family-work conflict, we could find only one study that examined this relationship. O'Driscoll, Poelmans, Spector, Kalliath, Allen, Cooper, and Sanchez (2003) reported a non-significant correlation of -.07 between these variables. Given this finding, we are hesitant to predict a negative relationship between benefit usage and family-work conflict. Nevertheless, Figure I reflects this relationship. We included this prediction in our model since it seems logical that the use of the four family-friendly benefits we examined (e.g., flextime) should reduce reports of family-work conflict,

Hypothesis 3: The use of family-friendly benefits will be negatively and significantly correlated with reports of family-work conflict.

As reflected in Figure I, we hypothesized that, in addition to its indirect effect via benefit usage, reporting to a family-supportive supervisor would have a direct effect on family-work conflict. This prediction is based upon our assumption that a supportive supervisor may influence the degree of family-work conflict experienced by a host of informal actions he or she takes (e.g., scheduling a person's work hours to accommodate family responsibilities, allowing an employee to leave work to take an elderly parent to the doctor). Behson (2005) recently has provided an excellent discussion of how informal actions taken by a supervisor (i.e., actions that do not reflect formal organizational benefits) can influence work-family conflict (unfortunately, he did not measure family-work conflict). In terms of past research that is relevant, O'Driscoll et al. (2003) found that family-supportive supervision was negatively correlated (r = -.31, p < .05) with family-work conflict.

Hypothesis 4: Reporting to a family-supportive supervisor will be negatively and significantly related to reports of family-work conflict.