Family Supportive Supervision Around the Globe

Family-supportive supervision (FSS) refers to the degree to which employees perceive their immediate supervisors as exhibiting attitudes and behaviors that are supportive of their family role demands (Hammer, Kossek, Zimmerman, & Daniels, 2007; Kossek, Pichler, Bodner & Hammer, 2011: Thomas & Ganster, 1995). A growing body of research suggests that leaders\u27 and supervisors\u27 social support of employees\u27 needs to jointly carry out work and family demands is important for general health and job attitudes, such as satisfaction, work-family conflict, commitment, and intention to turn over (Hammer, Kossek, Anger, Bodner, & Zimmerman, 2009; Kossek et al., 2011). Thus, employee perceptions of FSS are critical to individual well-being and productivity (Hammer, Kossek, Yragui, Bodner, & Hansen, 2009). [excerpt

Implementation of Economic Impact Analysis: The Lessons of OSHA

Recently, a plethora of concern has surfaced regarding the large and rapidly increasing costs of government regulation and its impact upon the economy and the free market system. Much of this displeasure has focused on a seemingly ideal target-The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA was established in 1970 amidst widespread optimism that it would greatly enhance the employee work environment. This hope, however, was premature; in fact, many commentators argue that, in the ten years since its creation, OSHA has done little to further its objective of improving safety and health in the workplace, despite the large compliance costs it has generated. This article will first review recent cases concerning the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act); the Benzene, Cotton Dust, and Coke Oven Emissions decisions, and then examine the feasibility of OSHA using cost-benefit analysis in promulgating new standards for industry

Desperately Seeking Sustainable Careers: Redesigning Professional Jobs for the Collaborative Crafting of Reduced-Load Work

Reduced-load (RL) work, a flexible customized form of part-time work in which a full-time job is redesigned to reduce the hours and the workload while taking a pay cut, can enable sustainable careers. Yet previous research suggests mixed results, with RL work facing implementation hurdles such as insufficient workload reduction, and stalled careers often adversely affecting women and caregivers. This study, therefore, focuses on the implementation of sustainable RL work and sheds light on key issues under-examined in prior studies: 1) the job redesign tactics that supervising managers implement to reduce workloads, and 2) shared responsibilities at the job and organizational levels. Drawing on the literature on sustainable careers, work redesign, and job crafting, we analyze 86 qualitative interviews with managers who experimented with RL work, HR experts, and executives in 20 organizations that were early adopters of RL work. We identify differentiating and integrating work redesign tactics that either reduced or reshuffled workloads. Next, we propose a three-stage process of collaborative crafting of RL work, in which employees, managers, and employers share responsibilities to strengthen the work redesign tactics and manage cultural expectations to support RL implementation. We provide implications for future research and practice

Crafting Lives That Work: A Six-Year Retrospective on Reduced-Load Work in the Careers and Lives of Professionals and Managers

Presents findings from interviews conducted from November 2002 to November 2003 to learn how professionals who had chosen to work less, for family and other reasons, would continue to make choices over time to achieve their desired lifestyle