Human Resource Practices as Predictors of Work-Family Outcomes and Employee Turnover

Drawing on a non-random sample of 557 dual- earner white collar employees, this paper explores the relationship between human resource practices and three outcomes of interest to firms and employees: work-family conflict, employees’ control over managing work and family demands, and employees’ turnover intentions. We analyze three types of human resource practices: work-family policies, HR incentives designed to induce attachment to the firm, and the design of work. In a series of hierarchical regression equations, we find that work design characteristics explain the most variance in employees’ control over managing work and family demands, while HR incentives explain the most variance in work-family conflict and turnover intentions. We also find significant gender differences in each of the three models. Our results suggest that the most effective organizational responses to work-family conflict and to turnover are those that combine work-family policies with other human resource practices, including work redesign and commitment-enhancing incentives

Gender, Family and Career in the Era of Boundarylessness: Determinants and Effects of Intra- and Inter-organizational Mobility

Changes in patterns of long-term employment make understanding the determinants of different career forms increasingly important to careers research. At the same time, the rise of dual-earner families demands greater attention to the ways in which gender and family characteristics shape careers than has been paid by traditional research. This paper addresses these issues, examining the determinants and consequences of intra-organizational and inter-organizational mobility, using a sample of employees from dual-earner couples. We find significant gender differences in these different types of career mobility, and in the effect of family relations on different forms of mobility. Women experience more inter-organizational mobility, while men experience more intra-organizational mobility. Having more children positively influences men’s intra-organizational mobility, but increases interorganizational mobility for women. Marital instability increases intra-organizational mobility among women, but has no effect among men. Each form of mobility has distinctive effects on objective and subjective indicators of career success for both men and women. Moving between organizations tends to depress earnings, but has no effect on how successful people feel in their careers. Job changes within an organization increase earnings, but have a negative effect on perceived success

Work-Life Integration: Challenges and Organizational Responses

Discussion of organizational responses to the challenges dual-earner couples face in integrating their work and family lives and of the effectiveness of various workplace characteristics and organizational initiatives for supporting such work-life integration. Development of a comprehensive model of organizational family responsiveness that incorporates work-life policies, traditional human resource incentives, and work redesign in the context of a workplace culture that facilitates the full implementation of these policies, as well as tests of that model.Work_life_integration_no__16Batt.pdf: 6788 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020