Affiliations: Ivey School of Business, University of Western
Ontario, London, ON, Canada | Sprott School of Business, Carleton University,
Ottawa, ON, Canada | Faculty of Business, Brock University, St.
Catharines, ON, Canada
Note: [] Corresponding author: Linda Duxbury, Sprott School of Business,
Carleton University, 915 Dunton Tower, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada. Tel.: +1
613 520 2385; Fax: +1 613 520 2532; E-mail: linda_duxbury@carleton.ca
Abstract: BACKGROUND: A review of the literature determined that our
understanding of the efficacy of flexible work arrangements (FWA) in reducing
work-family conflict remains inconclusive. OBJECTIVE: To shed light on
this issue by examining the relationship between work-to-family conflict, in
which work interferes with family (WFC), family-to-work conflict, in which
family interferes with work (FWC), and four work arrangements: the traditional
9-5 schedule, compressed work weeks (CWWs) flextime, and telework. METHODS: Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 16,145 employees with dependent
care responsibilities. MANCOVA analysis was used with work arrangement as the
independent variable and work interferes with family (WFC) and family
interferes with work (FWC) as dependent variables. Work demands, non-work
demands, income, job type and gender were entered into the analysis as
covariates. RESULTS: The more flexible work arrangements such as flextime
and telework were associated with higher levels of WFC than were fixed 9-to 5
and CWW schedules. Employees who teleworked reported higher FWC than their
counterparts working a traditional 9-to-5 schedule particularly when work
demands were high. CONCLUSIONS: The removal of both temporal and physical
boundaries separating work and family domains results in higher levels of
work-family interference in both directions. The results from this study
suggest that policy makers and practitioners who are interested in improving
employee well-being can reduce work-family conflict, and by extension improve
employee mental health, by focusing on the effective use of traditional and CWW
schedules rather than by implementing flextime and telework arrangements.
Keywords: Control, demands, human resource management, karasek
