Influences on employee perceptions of organizational work–life support: Signals and resources☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Perceptions of organizational work–life support
Perceptions of organizational work–life support reflect employees' global assessment of the extent to which their employer respects and supports their desire to successfully combine work and nonwork roles and intends to help them do so. Perceptions of organizational work–life support add value above and beyond other components of work–life support, for example, by facilitating the effective implementation of flexible work options. Research has found that employee perceptions of organizational
Theoretical framework
We draw on two theories, organizational support theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, to develop arguments that workplace factors affect employees' perceptions of organizational work–life support through two primary mechanisms: (a) by leading employees to interpret aspects of the organizational environment as signals of organizational supportiveness and (b) by helping employees to develop and conserve resources that are useful in meeting work and nonwork demands. Organizational
Work hours
The number of hours an employee works constitutes a primary demand of any job, and long work hours are a reality in many contemporary workplaces. In the terms of COR theory, time is among the most highly valued personal resources. The greater the number of hours a person works, the less of this precious resource he or she has to devote to family and personal life. In addition, long work hours can drain other vital resources, such as energy, that are needed in nonwork roles. Consistent with this
Data and sample
We used data from the Age & Generations Study, a study conducted by the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College in 2007–2008, to test our hypotheses. The 2025 respondents worked in 13 departments (with an average response rate of 55.3%) within the nine participating organizations, representing multiple industries (education, health care, retail, finance, insurance, and pharmaceuticals). Employees in this sample were 60% female, 40% male, and 41 years old on average. Seventy-three percent
Results
The results of the hierarchical linear models appear in Table 2. With regard to the control variables, those with elder care responsibilities perceived their organizations to be significantly less supportive than those with without elder care responsibilities, while those with a high school degree or less perceived their organizations to be significantly more supportive than those with a graduate degree. Gender, age, marital status, and parental status were nonsignificant.
Hypothesis 1, that
Discussion
Previous research has identified employee perceptions of organizational work–life support as an important predictor of multiple personal, family and job-related outcomes, but has not thoroughly investigated its antecedents; our study helps to fill this gap. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that demands and resources in the work environment contributed to perceptions of organizational work–life support. Employees who worked longer hours were less likely to perceive their organization as
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Cynthia Thompson and Sara Moorman for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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Cited by (0)
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The research reported here was supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program on Workplace, Work Force and Working Families to the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.
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We would like to thank Cynthia Thompson and Sara Moorman for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article.