Facilitating an organization to embrace a work-life effectiveness culture: A practical approach.

Abstract

As noted in the articles throughout this special issue, researchers consistently demonstrate the value and benefit of addressing work-life issues in the workplace. What can psychologist-managers do to create a work environment where employees believe they are valued as whole individuals who contribute to work and also have lives outside of work? How do organizations foster a culture and climate supportive of work-life effectiveness? The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical approach for developing strategies and solutions that will help organizations embrace a work-life culture. The phases of the approach evolved from synthesizing best practices with actual experiences in assisting organizations transform their cultures to be great places to work. One particular case example is used to illustrate the phases, which can stimulate discussions about implementing a process for building a work-life culture in other organizations.One day while I was working as director of work-life, a manager called me to share her success in helping an employee achieve work-life effectiveness. The manager, Sarah, had attended a workshop titled "Why Work-Life Matters to Managers/Supervisors." This workshop is designed to help managers/supervisors understand organizational, departmental, and individual strategies and solutions for effectively managing work and life responsibilities. Sarah's story was about her top-performing employee Tom. She noticed a recent change in Tom's behaviors including increased tardiness and frequent use of sick leave. Sarah also noticed occasional mistakes and lack of focus, highly unusual for Tom. She admitted that prior to attending the workshop, she would have assumed Tom developed a bad attitude, did not care about his job, and became lazy. Before Correspondence should be sent to Laura L. Koppes, Chair,

Making sense of women as career self‐agents: Implications for human resource development

“…Koppes (2008) referenced a Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) panel, which predicted that "family and life interests will play a more prominent role in people' s lives" and "employees will demand increases in workplace flexibility in order to pursue life interests" (p. 181). We conducted a brief exploration of career goals to expose the forces driving this demand.…”

“…Training should start at the top of the organization and cascade down through the ranks. If HRD hopes to change a culture, then senior leaders must first understand how flexibility helps the bottom line (Koppes, 2008). Senior leaders must attend training that explains the organizational benefits of family-friendly policies (Rogier & Padgett, 2004) and they must embrace and be active participants in the cultural shift.…”

Caring for Our Child Welfare Workforce: A Holistic Framework of Worker Well-being

“…In organizations, work-life effectiveness could mean the implementation of practices and policies that are responsive to the work-life needs of employees (Koppes & Swanberg, 2008), including assisting workers in managing their time (e.g., flexible scheduling), providing resources for worklife demands (e.g., childcare options in the community), providing financial assistance (e.g., tuition reimbursement), and offering direct services to the worker (e.g., on-site medical services, fitness facility; Koppes, 2008). Although work-life effectiveness has been minimally studied in CW, evidence from previous research points to work-family conflict as a challenge in the profession.…”

Flexibility for women returners in Cyprus: a competency‐based approach

“…If unemployed women who want to resume employment are a potential strategic resource, organizations must adopt managerial competencies that are supportive of recruiting and retaining them (Schwartz, 1989; Blum et al , 1994). Given these women's preference for work‐family balance, organizations should experiment with various policies and practices to identify and adopt those that fit with the corporate culture and support women's life‐balancing efforts (Almer et al , 2003; Edwards and Robinson, 2004; Kossek and Lee, 2008; Koppes, 2008). Such policies may include equal opportunity (Brewer, 2000; Wirth, 2001), FWA (Guy, 1993), and affirmative action policies (Wirth, 2001; Atkinson and Hall, 2009).…”

“…A number of studies have demonstrated that flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are increasingly part of a strategic decision by organizations to respond to the changing needs of both their markets and their workforce (Böheim and Taylor, 2004; Koppes, 2008; Cahuc and Carcillo, 2011; Russell and McGinnity, 2011). For instance, organizations with a greater range of FWAs have higher perceived performance and can better meet the dual goals of increased service and work‐life balance (Bailyn et al , 2001; Eaton, 2003; Perry‐Smith and Blum, 2000).…”