Work-family management: Reflections on the effectiveness of family-friendly practices and policies

Abstract

All rights reserved. In order to help workers manage the relationship between work and family, organizations can provide several practices and policies, often referred to in the literature as Family-Friendly Practices and Policies (FFPP). Generally, these initiatives can be described in two ways: i) as policies and practices that replace the employee in what refers to family care, as the availability of on-site child care or a support service in caring for the elderly; and, ii) as policies and practices that allow the employees to effectively manage their time with the implementation of flexible work schedules, job-sharing, and telecommuting, among other time and space flexibility initiatives. Nevertheless, the availability of FFPPs is not always successful in reducing the work-family conflict, a reality that is backed by several studies (e.g., Sutton & Noe, 2005) and has raised debate on its usefulness. One crucial aspect in the effectiveness of FFPPs' is the importance played by an organizational family-friendly culture. This chapter aims to contribute to the debate about the effectiveness of FFPPs based on the literature and on a research performed in Portugal. This research was based on a survey administered to 460 workers from three Portuguese organizations in an attempt to identify the FFPPs that were made available by the organizations and the frequency of their use by the employees. This study moreover characterizes the workers that use FFPPs according to gender and the presence of children. The relationship between the use of FFPPs, work-family conflict and the perception of organizational support was also analysed. The results show that men and workers with children tend to use FFPPs more. A positive association between the use of FFPPs, as work-family conflict and the perception of organizational support was also observed. The aim of the discussion is to take a closer look into the belief concerning the benefits of adopting FFPPs' considering the fact that its