Work-Family Conflict: A Proven Remedy Maintains Worker Performance

 

Until recently, we had a lot of anecdotal evidence that programs designed to reduce work-family conflict did good for the worker and for the organization. But anecdotal evidence is not enough for you whether you want to

• start or enlarge such an effort
• leverage an existing program in your project.

Now there has been a significant large study to give objective evidence whether a "work/life" program can work and what the results can be (abstract here). The study showed that benefitsof such programs to the organization do indeed exist. (They are not merely the good wishes of the HR department.)

Here is a key point: These benefits primarily accrue from employees having more control over their schedules. Employees who have work conflicts due to home or family responsibilities were able to work these out with more flexible schedules. When employees have worked out the conflicts, they are able to perform better at work. You like better worker performance in your project, right?

You can now more confidently leverage in your project any work-family balance programs, especially those features that support flexible individual work schedules.  When planning and executing your project, build in flexibility for individual worker's schedules and promote it during your project. There are several previous posts in The Eye on the topic of work/life programs.

This is the first of a few quick posts on recent sociological studies that are relevant to better project management.