to the firm, but employees sent their answers in a stamped, addressed ..... laboral en las comunidades autónomas', Cuadernos de Relaciones ... Cegarra, J.G. (2010), 'GAP de conocimiento en el sector sanitario: aplicación práctica a UHD'.
GAPS BETWEEN MANAGERS’ AND EMPLOYEES’ PERCEPTIONS OF WORK LIFE BALANCE
ABSTRACT Research on work life balance (WLB) practices has increased in recent years. Academics affirm that the implementation of WLB practices helps to achieve better organizational results and improve employee outcomes such as higher satisfaction, commitment and reduce turnover intentions. However, some authors have argued that there are differences between the availability of WLB practices in companies and employees’ perceptions of access to such practices. The literature is sparse on the differences in perceptions between managers and employees in relation to WLB and its effects. Using two samples of 229 managers and 511 employees from the same firms, this paper contributes to our knowledge of the existence of the perception gaps between managers and employees and their influence on the take-up of WLB. Implications for academics and practitioners are discussed.
KEYWORDS: Work life balance, perception gap, usage.
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GAPS BETWEEN MANAGERS’ AND EMPLOYEES’ PERCEPTIONS OF WORK LIFE BALANCE
1. INTRODUCTION
Work life balance (WLB) research has increased dramatically over the last 10 years (Budd and Mumford, 2005; Greenhaus, 2008). Different motives have promoted the implementation of WLB practices in firms, such as the incorporation of women into the labour market and the existence of double career couples with children, employees looking for a higher quality of life, problems associated with work-family conflict, the need to take care of elderly people or issues related to gender equality (Cánovas et al., 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007).
WLB practices are popular today because of their potential value for both employers and workers. Employers benefit because they can increase their organizational results through improved employee outcomes, such as commitment, motivation, talent retention and reduced turnover intentions (Nelson et al., 1990; Scandura and Lankau, 1997; Carrasquer and Martín, 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007). On the other hand, employees increase their life satisfaction and general well-being and reduce their work-family conflict (Kossek and Ozecki, 1998; Allen et al., 2000).
However, employees are not equally aware of the availability of WLB practices in their organizations (Yeandle et al., 2002; Budd and Mumford, 2006) and the existence of a knowledge gap regarding the availability of WLB practices and its perception by employees can have an
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influence on several behavioural outcomes such as employees’ take-up or usage of these practices. To date little empirical research has examined the perception gap and its influence on use (Prottas et al., 2007). This paper aims to fill these gaps in the literature.
This paper is structured as follows. First, the literature review examines the importance of WLB practices today, together with an explanation of the existence of knowledge gaps between managers and employees and its possible effects on the practicalities of WLB. Then, we propose a model which is examined empirically. To this end, two related samples (229 managers and 511 employees) from the same firms have been used. Findings are presented and discussed. Finally, contributions and future lines of research are highlighted.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Human resource (HR) management is considered to be crucial for companies to obtain competitive advantages in the market (Wright et al., 1994; Wright and Barney, 1998). Today, WLB practices are highlighted and research on WLB is gaining importance in the academic world (Fleetwood, 2007; Greenhaus, 2008; Rigby and O´Brien-Smith, 2010) due to demographical, societal and cultural changes that have made individuals to face the difficulty of finding balance between their personal lives and their work. Different motives have fostered this challenge such as: changes in the labour market due to women incorporation, the existence of dual career couples and the individuals´ desire to achieve higher levels of quality of life through enjoying free time and leisure activities (Greenhaus, 2008).
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On the other hand, gender values are also changing in the era of the equality gender society. Traditionally, men were devoted to career and job, whereas women were in charge of the children, elderly care and household commitments (Halrynjo, 2009). However, men are now developing their role as fathers and their previous priority to career is today questioned. Men are today expected to focus on other values such as children and family or other alternative lifestyles such as quality of life with leisure time to devote to cultural projects, voluntary commitments and social relationships (Halrynjo, 2009). In contrast, women pursue today being involved in the professional world in order to achieve higher levels of self-realization (Halrynjo, 2009). According to the De Luis et al. (2004), when the traditional values are lost and the gender roles are not so clearly separated, individuals may experience more difficulties to balance their work and their non working life: men trying to fulfill their family responsibilities who try to perform in the job as others without family responsibilities, and women interested in developing their professional career while feel that house and children care are her own duties.
For all the above, understanding the individuals´ need of balance between work and personal lives has become one of the pivotal concerns of work and family academics. WLB is defined in the literature as the “individuals´ ability, with independence of age and gender, of finding a life rhythm that allow them to combine their work with other responsibilities, activities or aspirations” (Felstead et al., 2002).
When employees cannot find balance for their work and non-working life, they experience an inter-role conflict. This conflict is defined in the WLB literature as an interference of work and family/personal roles that creates tension or problems to the individuals or as the direct result of
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incompatible pressures from the individual’s work and family/personal roles” (Moen et al., 2008).
Regarding the family and personal role it includes caring for children, the sick or the elderly, non-caring domestic work (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc), consumer work (shopping) or home maintenance (Collins, 2007). According to Hyman et al., (2003) individuals´ pressures of life have increased dramatically over the last decades generating tension and complexity into the household life of workers, particularly when both members of the couple work and there are dependent children or elderly to take care of. The personal role also demands time for leisure activities, resting or social life.
On the hand, the labour role demands employees highly committed to their organizations, which it is translated into managers´ expectations for their employees to work long hours and prioritising work over personal life (Hyman et al., 2003; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007). What is more, over the last years of economic uncertainty, organizations have faced challenges derived from the financial crisis, organizational restructuring, and intensive competition in the business environments that has fostered 24 hours services that negatively affect WLB of employees. Technological advancements such as tele-working make employees to be available for the organizations even during their “holidays” or “weekends”. Moreover, due to the economic crisis and perceived insecurity in the labour market, employees feel they need to demonstrate their commitment to their organizations by a continual presence at the workplace (Hyman et al., 2003).
According to the literature, work and family interferences provoke a great source of psychological distress for employees, families and organizations (lower commitment, 5
satisfaction, higher intentions to leave the firm, lower business results, etc.) (Scandura and Lankau, 1997; Lourel et al., 2009). Hence, in order to cope with the employees´ inter-role conflict, companies and official institutions have promoted the implementation of WLB initiatives in organizations in recent years to foster employees’ personal balance.
WLB practices are defined in the literature as “any employer sponsored benefit or working condition that helps an employee to balance work and non-work demands” (Cascio, 2000). Hence, WLB practices allow employees to enhance their autonomy in the process of coordinating and integrating work and non-work aspects of their lives (Felstead et al., 2002). Authors recognise the existence of around a hundred WLB practices (De Cieri et al., 2005) and there is no clear, widespread approach to classify them (Callan, 2007; Poelmans and Beham, 2008). Among the HR practices that companies could implement to promote WLB among their employees we can find the following: 1) practices that ease the flexible use of time, such as flexitime, annual hours, credits for hours, compressed week, 2) practices that provide spatial flexibility to workers, such as teleworking or video-conferences, 3) time reduction, such as part-time work, shared work, 4) work leave, such as maternity and paternity leave in excess of the official amount, leave of absence, and 5) employee assistance and counselling programmes (Cascio, 2000; De Luis et al., 2002).
Although the literature recognizes several negative effects of WLB practices, such as higher work load on co-workers and coordination problems (Carrasquer and Martin, 2005; Poelmans and Beham, 2008), the vast majority of the literature stresses that WLB practices help both employees and organizations to obtain benefits. Among these benefits, the firm improves its corporate image in the market as it is seen to be socially responsible (Benito, 2007). There are other more tangible 6
benefits such as reduction of absenteeism, lower stress levels, higher levels of productivity and performance and greater quality of life, satisfaction and commitment among employees (Nelson et al., 1990; Scandura and Lankau, 1997; Carrasquer and Martín, 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007). In addition, WLB practices are considered key for retaining and attracting highly qualified professionals (men and women) (Benito, 2007; Harrington and Ladge, 2009). Several studies found as well that these positive behavioural outcomes on employees occur even when employees do not use these benefits. For instance, Scandura and Lankau (1997) obtained that availability of WLB measures increase job satisfaction on employees, irrespective of usage. Due to its positive effect on employees, the implementation of WLB practices can be expected to increase organizational performance (Nelson et al., 1990; Scandura and Lankau, 1997; Carrasquer and Martín, 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007).
On the other hand, several academics explain that offering WLB practices is perceived by the employees as organizational support to the employees´ personal lives (creating a WLB supportive culture in the firm), which in turn, affect organizational behaviour and results, such as affective commitment (Haar and Spell, 2004). For instance, Allen (2001) found that perception of work life support increase commitment and job satisfaction and reduces turnover intentions. Ngo et al. (2009) presents similar findings in their research conducted in Hong Kong. They obtained that availability of WLB practices affect organizational outcomes through a mediated effect of a WLB supportive culture.
Both direct and indirect effects of WLB initiatives on results (direct relationship between availability of WLB practices on results and the creation of a supportive culture to WLB as a mediator) could be explained under the theories of social exchange theory or the psychological 7
contracts (Scholarios and Marks, 2004). When companies offer WLB practices in the firms, the employees will feel with the obligation to reciprocate in positive and beneficial ways to the organization, increasing their performance, commitment or citizen behaviours (Clarks, 2000). Hence, WLB practices offered by the employer may represent a key aspect in developing the psychological contract between employer and employees due to perceived fair treatment (Scholarios and Marks, 2004).
As a consequence, implementing WLB practices in the companies can enhance organizational results.
However, if employees are not aware of the availability of such WLB practices, they will not be able to generate positive feeling towards the source of such beneficial treatment. Research suggests that workers have limited knowledge of the WLB measures that are offered by their organizations (Prottas et al., 2007) and, hence, they are not always aware of the possibility of using them (Yeandle et al., 2002; Budd and Mumford, 2006). For example, Yeandle et al. (2002) found that 50% of the workers were not aware of the WLB practices offered by their organizations, while Budd and Mumford (2006) found that employees did not perceive WLB practices to be really available in their companies. This means that although WLB practices and the resulting positive feelings that have been created through these practices represent an important antecedent of employee satisfaction, very little is achieved if this gap between what people know and should know is not reduced. In doing so, companies have to formulate that strategy that not only exploits the available knowledge stock, but also permits to reduce the ‘gap of existing strategic knowledge’ which is defined by Zack as: “the difference between the necessary knowledge to develop the pursued strategy and the current knowledge” (1999: p.131). 8
In this study, a “knowledge gap” is defined as the difference between WLB practices implemented by managers and the perception of accessibility to those practices by the employees. We believe that this is an important gap, as the potential for any company to develop is heavily dependent on its ability to maintain an appropriate balance between WLB practices implemented by managers and the perception of accessibility to those practices by the employees, and its effect on usage, thus, companies may be trapped in a suboptimal stable equilibrium. As noted by Prottas, Thompson, Kopelman and Jahn (2007), companies that invest in developing and implementing WLB initiatives in their firms will fail in obtaining potential gains if employees are unable to know about their existence or taking advantage of them by their use.
Although the identification of “knowledge gap” in the development of WLB practices provides many opportunities for SMEs, WLB studies have tended to focus on the organisation’s internal perspectives (e.g. managers) rather than understanding the nature and role of employees of knowledge domains and WLB practices. However, if employees have limited knowledge about WLB practices they will not generate greater organizational commitment, loyalty and increase their performance as the social exchange or the psychological contract theories suggest. Hence, the existence of a perception gap between organization and employees in terms of WLB practices is of key concern for employees and employers.
Experts recommend designing WLB studies adopting a multi-stakeholder approach in order to enhance insights into the topic, as different stakeholders (managers, employees and families) have different interests and motives that affect their perceptions of WLB practices (Hyland and
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Jackson, 2006; Poelmans and Beham, 2008; Harrison et al., 2009; O´Neill et al., 2009). Such an approach was adopted in the present study which analyzed the gap between
Research on the relationship between organizations and employees and has gained great popularity in recent years (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007). The recognition of different perspectives is an important and relevant concern for management. Different perceptions have been found to influence decisions, actions and behavioural outcomes. For instance, employees and managers often do not agree in their perceptions of employee performance, due to their different perspectives (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007).
Following Birkinshaw et al. (2000), we consider that the existence of different perspectives is often caused by the existence of a knowledge gap between the managerial team and the employees. Originally, theory on knowledge-gaps was developed based on research into knowledge transfer and innovation (Persaud, 2001). The “gap” is created by the differences between the knowledge needed to achieve a desired innovation goal and the actual knowledge (Zack, 1999). However, theory on knowledge gaps is today more broadly conceived. Knowledge gaps also exist between various groups of individuals. Tichenor et al. (1970) defined the “differing levels of knowledge across various groups as knowledge gaps”. However, knowledge gaps are not always found between different stakeholders (Mastin, 1998). For example, Gowan et al. (2001) did not encounter differences in perspectives between managers and employees (and costumers) regarding specific issues on service quality.
If we bear in mind that knowledge depends on the context in which information is analyzed, and that knowledge is the result of a learning process, each organizational agent (managers, 10
employees and shareholders) learns in different ways and create his/her own knowledge, given that contexts in which information is interpreted are different. For example, the feeling of a manager changes when he/she becomes a client in his/her organization, or the feeling of an employee changes when he/she uses the services or products of his/her own company. These circumstances indicate discrepancies between what is known and what should be known, or between important and superfluous knowledge. In order to avoid those discrepancies, care must be taken to generate an information system with bidirectional flow (Bernabei et al., 1998). This is a requirement for the effective implementation of all WLB practice, and must be understood as continuous and inseparable processes (Crome et al., 2000).
In relation to the WLB practices, the differences in perceptions between managers and employees can lead to two types of erroneous assessments (Prottas et al., 2007). On one hand, employees may perceive that specific work life benefits are offered by their employers, but in fact they are not. On the other hand, employees might be unaware of WLB practices availability and, hence, underestimate their existence. By now, little empirical research has investigated this question but the existent literature recognises that employees more frequently underestimate the availability of practices in comparison to what HR managers report (Budd and Mumford, 2006).
The literature explains that the existence of different perceptions could be caused by the following factors:
1) WLB practices are not offered equally to all individuals. Hence, the knowledge gap between availability and perceived accessibility can be associated with particular groups. Main beneficiaries of WLB practices are linked to specific job categories, mainly highly qualified 11
individuals from high hierarchical levels in the organization (Carrasquer and Martín, 2005). Moreover, recent research conducted by Budd and Mumford (2006) finds significant differences between categories and gender of employees in the perceived access to WLB practices.
2) Managers can implement WLB practices but do not really support their use. The existence of an organizational culture supporting WLB for employees is a key factor to be considered. In the literature, several authors stress the importance of organizational support for WLB (Anderson et al., 2002; Behson, 2005; Harrignton and Ladge, 2009) in order to be successful in their implementation and use. When the company does not support the employees’ WLB then it is likely that the firm does not communicate with its employees about WLB practices (Harrison et al., 2009). Institutional theory provides an explanation of why organizations, then, offer WLB practices to employees (Budd and Mumford, 2005). According to this theory, managers experience pressure from institutions and trade unions that makes them providing WLB practices. However, their implementation may be more related to a public relations campaign than to real intended benefit offered to employees (Budd and Mumford, 2006). In fact, the literature suggests that frequently managers have a negative attitude towards WLB practices because they are not sure about their effects on results (De Luis et al., 2002; Macinnes, 2005).
3) Accurate knowledge of WLB practices will depend on employees´ motivation for using these practices and their background variables. According to Prottas et al. (2007) individuals will seek out information regarding the availability of WLB initiatives in their firms when they are interested in using them or consider them to be highly valuable. For instance, employees with children will have superior knowledge regarding child care assistance or services than single employees because parents will actively search for policies that provide them with utility. A 12
similar result was obtained by Luchak and Gunderson (2000) with knowledge regarding pension plans for older workers in the organizations.
The existence of different perceptions is expected to generate organizational and behavioral consequences (Birkinshaw et al., 2000). We consider this topic of key importance as employees’ perceptions affect some behavioural outcomes, such as performance, commitment, satisfaction and turnover intentions (Hui et al., 2009). We suggest that employees’ perceptions of WLB will affect their usage.
While it is widely understood that managers and employees have different perceptions about company activities and practices, there has been very little research that looks explicitly at the issue in WLB. A recent exception is the study performed by Budd and Mumford (2006) and in the present research we aim to study their proposed framework.
The model proposed by Budd and Mumford (2006) consists in three levels. In the first level, manager implements WLB practices that are available to their employees. In the second level, employees perceive accessibility to WLB practices at their organization. Values of availability of WLB practices will be close to workers’ perceived availability when no knowledge gap exists between managers and employees. Finally, the usage level is determined by the existence of perceived WLB availability. Whereas the original authors of the model do not provide empirical findings for the last relationship, we aim to examine the entire model.
Insert figure 1 around here
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To test the relationship between WLB availability and perceived availability we propose the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: Mean values of the availability of WLB practices and the perceived availability are different.
Secondly, we propose to examine the effect of perceived availability on usage of WLB practices in Hypothesis 2.
Hypothesis 2: The perceived availability WLB increases the use of WLB practices by employees.
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3. METHODOLOGY
This research uses data from two samples representing the managers’ and the employees’ points of view in a specific industrial sector of activity in the south east region of Spain.
3.1. Data collection and sample description
Data collection was conducted in Spain. In this country WLB initiatives are important for the following reasons: 1) Spain has one of the lowest birth rates in the European Union (De Luis et al., 2002). The literature explains this situation in terms of the fact that women are postponing marriage and maternity in order to consolidate their professional careers. According to Macinnes (2005), 25% of couples have fewer children than they would like because of difficulties in coordinating their work with childcare. 2) As in other countries, there is a increasing number of dual career couples as a consequence of the incorporation of women in the labour market, and therefore the family unit increases the demand for WLB practices (Arroyo, 2007). 3) Workers – women and men – are increasingly demanding a higher quality of life and welfare, and are therefore demanding WLB solutions. 4) Spain is at a disadvantage compared with other countries of the European Union due its long school holidays, long working days and limited possibilities for part-time work arrangements (Macinnes, 2005), 5) Finally, Spain is a country with low levels of institutional support for parents compared to other European countries such as Sweden, Denmark or Finland (Craig et al., 2010).
The metal industry in the Region of Murcia (southeast Spain) was the subject of our data collection. The metal industry in the Region of Murcia has been recognized as being one of the 15
most important industrial sectors of the Spanish economy (INE, 2007a). The metal industry in the Region of Murcia was chosen for two main reasons. Firstly, the latest available official statistics of Spain (www.ine.es) regarding businesses size indicate that the metal industry in Spain and in the region selected are similar, as the sector is composed of small companies with a high percentage of firms under 50 employees (around 95% in both populations). Secondly, employees in the Spanish metal industry constitute 24.2% of all industrial employees, and the percentage is similar for employees in the region that has been selected (20.6%). Hence, we consider the regional results obtained from this research could be of interest to other companies in the sector as findings might be generalized to all the companies in the sector.
The total market in the Region of Murcia for ‘the metal industry’ (including metallurgy, metalworking and machinery building) represents 28 percent of the Region of Murcia gross domestic product (FREMM, 2010), and it employed 16,496 workers in 2007 (26% of the Region of Murcia workers). According to the Industrial Register of Establishments (Carm, 2009) the metal industry in the Region of Murcia is composed of 832 SMEs, of which 96.8% have fewer than 50 workers and, among them, 84.18% have fewer than 10 employees (INE, 2007a). In addition, the metal industry in the Region of Murcia has been the recipient of special attention in the last few years in terms of support for WLB activities implementation. In practical terms, this has been demonstrated through the availability of employment policies that have been actively directed towards the metal industry in the Region of Murcia (FREMM, 2010), which is highly recommended by academics (Harrington and Ladge, 2009).
We made use of a list of 832 SMEs provided by the Industrial Register of Establishments (http://www.carm.es) as an initial sampling frame. All companies were invited to participate in 16
the study, and 263 agreed. Six questionnaires were distributed by personal visits to the companies that agreed. One questionnaire was directed to the managers of the firms and the other 5 questionnaires were to be distributed randomly to 5 employees. They were assured about the strictly scientific and confidential character of the study, as well as the global and anonymous treatment of the data. They were also told that in case of doubt they could contact the researchers who would answer their questions. The managers’ questionnaire was collected in a second visit to the firm, but employees sent their answers in a stamped, addressed envelope to the university, in order to avoid bias in the responses. The employees’ questionnaires were marked so that it could be linked to their manager’s questionnaire. In total, 610 visits were carried out and 229 complete surveys were collected from the managers, giving a response rate of 27.52% of the total number of companies invited to participate (87.07% response rate from the companies that agreed) with a factor of error of 5.5% for p=q=50% and a reliability level of 95.5%. 511 questionnaires from the employees were received at the university. The matched manageremployee sample is composed of 165 cases (as for some companies no employee responses were obtained). Surveying took place over a period of eight months, from March to October 2009.
Survey groups Sample 1. Managers’ questionnaire Managers, as organizational agents, are assumed to represent their firms in the literature on the employee-organization relationship (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007). All companies in the sample were classified according to the European Union classification as SMEs1, with a total number of employees under 250. Most of the firms employ between 10 to 49 individuals: 88.2% 1
According to the European Commission (2003), SMEs have fewer than 250 employees, with an annual turnover not exceeding €50 million euros, and an annual balance sheet total not exceeding €43 million euros.
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of them have fewer than 50 workers and 23.58% fewer than 10. On average companies have been operating for 20 years. Managers are on average 49.5 year old and only 26.2% have studied at the university. The percentage of women in the companies is low (in 60% of the companies lower than 10% and in 90% of the firms lower than 25% of the total workforce). The percentage of employees with temporary work contracts is also low (77.3% of companies with less than 10% of temporary employees). Finally, 70.7% of the firms are family businesses.
Sample 2. Employees’ questionnaire The sample is composed of 58.7% men. The average age of the employees is 35.6 years. 57% of the workers have qualifications below degree level and the other 43% have conducted university (40%) or postgraduate (3%) studies such as a professional masters or doctorate. Regarding their personal status, 70.9% of the employees are married, 24.6% are single and the other 4.5% are separated/divorced. 37,9% of the sample do not have children, 22.6% have 1 child, 31.5% have 2 children, 8% have 3 or 4 children. 56,1% of workers have a partner who also works (dual career couples).
3.2. Measures Measures for the variables resulted from the combination of different items measured on a 7 point scale and are the same measures for both samples.
WLB practices: Academics have identified a wide range of WLB practices (De Cieri et al., 2005). In this research, we have measured WLB practices by asking the respondents if employees in their organizations could make use of the following 18 WLB practices (1= no one, 7= all workers): part time job, job shares, compressed week, flexitime, annual hours, continuous 18
working days, flexible holidays, maternity leave over and above legal entitlement, paternity leave over legal entitlement, leave, non paid extra holidays, absence/leave for child- or dependent-care, some hours teleworking, some days teleworking, total availability of teleworking, videoconferences, information about care assistance centres for dependents or nursery information ( = 0.90). As in the recent study (Budd and Mumford, 2006) we consider the level of “availability” of WLB practices to be linked to the managers’ perceptions, while the “perceived availability” of WLB practices is linked to the responses of the employees.
Usage of WLB practices: Employees were asked to indicate if they were using any of the WLB practices mentioned in the above questions. Answers were given the value 0 if they are not using any WLB practices and 1 if they were using a WLB practice.
3.3. Analysis of the data
In a first step, to examine the perception gaps between managers and employees, we included in the same data base the values for WLB practices from the managers’ and the employees’ points of view. To do this, employees’ responses were grouped by company and the mean value of their WLB perceptions for each company were calculated. We introduced the employees’ values in the managers’ data base, matched by the company name. The final sample used is 165 cases. To compare mean differences we use the T-test for dependent samples as it calculates the differences between the two figures and evaluates if the value is significantly different from zero.
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In a second step, in order to evaluate the second hypothesis, we used only the sample of employees (n = 511) as perceived availability is not randomly distributed between employees (Budd and Mumford, 2006). Hence, to analyze the effect of perceptions on usage, it is more appropriate to examine it from an individual point of view. As the dependent variable is a dichotomy (0,1) logistic regression has been conducted to test hypothesis 2.
Although the measures were taken from the literature, special attention has been paid to the validity and reliability of the measures. Validity has been tested by examining the content and the construct validity. Table 1 provides information regarding the mean values, standard deviations and bivariate correlations between the variables for both samples. For the second sample, frequency analysis reveals that 59,9 % of the employees use WLB practices, whereas 40.1% do not use them.
Insert table 1 around here
The software employed in this research is SPSS 15.0. In the following section, we provide the results obtained from this research.
4. RESULTS.
In Table 2, T test analyses show that a perception gaps exists between managers and employees regarding the availability of WLB practices. According to our data, managers indicate higher level of WLB practice implementation, whereas employees evaluate it as significantly lower. As suggested by previous research, employees do not have complete knowledge regarding the WLB 20
practices availability in comparison with the managers report (Yeandle et al., 2002; Budd and Mumford, 2006; Prottas et al., 2007) Hence, workers underestimate the accessibility to WLB initiatives in their firms. Data confirm that Hypothesis 1 is supported, corroborating the existence of a perception gap regarding the availability of WLB practices and the perception of availability by the employees in the company. In the discussion section we will provide further analysis of this result together with an examination of the possible causes of this perception gap.
Insert table 2 around here
Secondly, we present the findings obtained after testing hypothesis 2. Data from the regression analysis is shown in Table 3 and we confirm the proposed relationship. Although the explained variance of the dependent variable is not high, perceived accessibility is a critical determinant of usage. If employees are required to make decisions on the availability of WLB practices, it is important that they have a true and fair view of what the firm is offering them. We consider that our findings could be of critical importance for other managerial practices or decisions taken inside the firms as the existence of a knowledge gap between managers and employees could be the cause of failure in the implementation of other practices in the organizations.
Insert table 3 around here
The analysis performed also shows that 81.6% of negative answers were successfully predicted by the model, whereas only 32.6% of the affirmative answers were correctly predicted. These are interesting findings of this research. While it seems clear that the lack of perceived availability of WLB practices will reduce the probability of the employees using them, we consider that the 21
final usage of WLB practices might also be influenced by other determinants such as personal motives, working hours, type of work, gender, family obligations, age, need for money, professional aspirations, etc. (Lavoie, 2004; Eikhof et al., 2007).
5. DISCUSSION
This paper examines the gap between the availability of WLB practices in organizations and the perception of availability of those practices by the employees, together with an examination of its effect on employees’ usage. In order to do this, this research adopts a theoretical model developed by Budd and Mumford (2006) that was only partially analyzed by them. In order to examine the entire model, this study adopts a multi-stakeholder approach by using two samples representing the firm (N = 229) and the employees (N= 511) of an industrial sector in Spain. The combined data based is composed of 165 cases.
The findings obtained in this research support both hypotheses. Firstly, we confirm that there is a perception gap between managers and employees regarding WLB availability of practices. This research confirms the empirical finding obtained by Budd and Mumford (2006) and the conclusions obtained in other studies of WLB, as reported in the literature review (Yeandle et al., 2002; Prottas et al., 2007). The existence of a knowledge gap between different stakeholders in the organizations has been previously found by other authors in relation to other managerial practices (Tichenor et al., 1970). However, research regarding WLB knowledge gap in terms of WLB practices is scant, and more research was needed according to different academics (Haar and Spell, 2004; Prottas et al., 2007).
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This research does not investigate the reasons for this difference. However, a review of the literature suggests that the gap arises because WLB practices are not generally offered to all employees. Hence, managers of firms only communicate WLB practices to specific categories of workers. In fact, Budd and Mumford (2006) found differences between gender and employees’ categories in their perceptions of WLB availability. In this research we calculated the mean value of perceptions of employees from each company, including first line managers, middle managers, clerks, technician and operators. Descriptive analysis of the data indicates that around 30% of the sample is composed of high or medium level managers, while the other 70% are technical workers or operators. Although the average value from employees still differs from the availability of practices from the company point of view, it would be interesting for future research to examine the differences in perception gaps between categories of employees, using a larger sample.
Another cause is likely to be that managers do not really support their employees in the achievement of balance in their working and non-working lives. The literature recognizes that the existence of an organizational culture supporting WLB for employees is a key factor to be considered (Harrington and Ladge, 2009). In the literature several authors stress the importance of organizational support for WLB (Anderson et al., 2002; Behson, 2005). As explained in the literature review section, institutional theory might provide an explanation of why employers offer WLB implementation. Managers can suffer from pressure from institutions, unions and workers to provide them, but do not really want their employees to use such beneficial treatment. Doubts regarding their effects on organizational results (De Luis et al., 2002; Macinnes, 2005) can be the cause of such behaviour.
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Thirdly, it is also possible that managers do support the implementation of WLB practices but there is an inadequate communication system inside the organization and this can provoke the differences in perceptions between managers and employees. Some authors explain the existence of knowledge gaps between different groups as a function of the information delivery system (Mastin, 1998). We believe that the implementation of HR practices should be communicated and transferred to employees in order to achieve a common understanding between managers and employees of how the firm manages its workforce. This finding is important in the ongoing debate surrounding the relationship between managers and their employees, and confirms the arguments of authors such as Zack (1999), that a company’s ability to facilitate information sharing and joint sense-making is a key factor in fostering a link between HR policy and business strategy. In view of this, we argue that it is essential to create a model of knowledge sharing which should be oriented to support management on processes of creation, development, and diffusion of WLB practices.
Fourthly, it is also possible that there are differences in knowledge perception of availability regarding the demographical characteristics of the sample, as it has been suggested by Prottas et al. (2007). For instance, some variables than could explain some differences in perceptions by the employees could be having children or dependent children, being members of dual career couples, gender, etc. Regarding these factors, our employees sample is composed on 70.9% of workers that are also married and 62% of them have children and nearly 42% are women. Future research should investigate internal differences in WLB practices knowledge regarding demographical characteristics.
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On the other hand, according to our research perceived availability becomes an important construct. Findings suggest that employers must be aware that how employees perceive managerial practices, such as WLB initiatives, because they can influence on several organizational outcomes, such as the usage of the work life initiatives (hypothesis 2). For instance, a recent research on employees´ WLB knowledge and its effect on behavioural outcomes obtain that WLB availability perception affect employees´ commitment in their firms (Haar and Spell, 2004).
What emerges from our research is that it is not what managers say that is important influence on the decisions made by employees, but what employees perceive to be the case. Future studies should address other possible effects of knowledge gaps inside companies such as organizational results or employee outcomes such as satisfaction, commitment, turnover intentions or citizenship behaviour.
6. CONTRIBUTIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
This research makes several contributions for academics and practitioners. Firstly, an important contribution of this study is the identification of a perception gap between managers and employees obtained from the study of two samples representing different stakeholders in firms. As Prottas et al. (2007) little is known about the accuracy of employees´ knowledge regarding work-family programs and their effects. Hence, we contribute to the literature by adopting a multi-stakeholder perspective, as a number of authors have suggested (Hyland and Jackson, 2006; Harrison et al., 2009; O´Neill et al., 2009; Poelmans and Beham, 2008).
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Secondly, this research improves previous studies by providing a more complete analysis of the perception gaps between managers and employees and its consequences in this arena. We use the model proposed by Budd and Mumford (2006) that has not previously been examined empirically. No prior study we are aware of has analysed it in its entirety.
Thirdly, another contribution of this research is that studies of WLB have predominantly been conducted in large organizations. Although in recent years certain studies have been developed in SMEs (Alegre et al., 2007), the authors suggest investigations should continue to address this area in the future. Consequently, the present study contributes to overcoming this gap. In doing so, this research has considered a very industrialized sector, the examination of which has been suggested before in the context of research into WLB (Harrington and Ladge, 2009).
Most researchers do not provide clear recommendations for companies derived from their empirical studies (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007). Another contribution of this paper is that we provide managerial implications for companies to reduce counter-productive investments and decisions. Implications and recommendations for practitioners derived from this research are as follows:
1) Managers need to evaluate and monitor the knowledge gap existing between them and other employees.
We consider the need to apply a procedure to detect and monitor the knowledge gaps between managers and employees. In recent research in the health sector by Cegarra (2010), based on home hospitalization, the author developed a software application for doctors in order to evaluate 26
their knowledge gaps between desired knowledge of procedures related to home hospitalization and their current knowledge. The program has the advantage of providing instant feedback to doctors regarding their knowledge gaps. Similar programs designed to evaluate and monitor the knowledge gaps between groups in the firms could be developed.
2) Firms need to reduce the knowledge gap between managers and employees.
Today, a firm should guarantee that managers and employees share the same perceptions of practices if it wants to assure organizational success. As Gowan et al. (2001) affirm, “Getting people to see things from a common perspective and to move in a unified direction is a critical challenge for managers. Until a unified approach has been achieved, the organization will be precluded from demonstrating optimal levels of performance”. To achieve that, we suggest knowledge transfer and knowledge transformation.
a. Knowledge transfer Knowledge transfer comprises the transmission of knowledge from the managers to the individuals that interact with them. To improve transfer, the set of elements that contribute to interaction between certain individuals and founders should be considered. Among those elements, the literature identifies formal and informal meetings (Makhija and Ganesh, 1997). Such knowledge can be integrated through the trust relation and common language.
b. Knowledge transformation Organizations that support WLB practices should consider the possibility of distributing materials to their employees. Writing down the availability of WLB practices and their delivery 27
to employees might guarantee that they have accurate information to make decisions based on the explicit information provided by the company (Mastin, 1998). We also recommend increasing the visibility of WLB initiatives by placing a link in the company website or on the company intranet home page, as suggested by Prottas et al. (2007), together with formal communications from top managers highlighting the availability of work-life programs to the employees, in order to increase the workers´ knowledge about these measures.
3) Organizations should foster the usage of WLB practices.
Practitioners are advised to foster the use of WLB practices by their employees. Different studies have found that companies can increase their organizational results based on the implementation of WLB as they increase the commitment and satisfaction of employees and help to achieve higher levels of talent retention (Nelson et al., 1990; Scandura and Lankau, 1997; Carrasquer and Martín, 2005; Hughes and Bozionelos, 2007). In order to increase the use of WLB practices we recommend: 1) Implementation of different WLB options which should be communicated to employees. According to Lavoie (2004), companies should adapt WLB practices to their employees’ individual, personal needs. 2) Explicitly support of WLB practices in the organization, as the existence of a culture that is supportive of WLB is considered a determinant of success (Callan, 2007).
The results of the present study should be interpreted in relation to its limitations. One limitation is the transverse nature of this research, which impedes analysis of the effect of time on the evolution of perception gaps (e.g. the length of time that has passed since the implementation of
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practices). Also, this research was conducted in a specific country and sector of activity, which might prevent the generalization of the results to other sectors or countries.
The limitations of the current research could be addressed in future studies. For example, one line of research would be to develop a longitudinal study that examines the changes in the variables of the study over time, particularly if some recommendations given in this paper are taken into account by the managers of the firms. Another interesting line of research would be to examine other predictors of employees’ use of WLB practices. We encourage future researchers to examine other consequences of the perception gaps between managers and employees for organizational misunderstandings or other management practices and results. Future empirical research should also focus on analyzing the impact of the existence of a culture that is supportive of WLB on the reduction of the knowledge gap between managers and workers. Finally, research should be developed into how to enhance manager-employee relationships in organizations and foster individuals and their families’ quality of life and examine whether it impacts on organizational results or not.
We hope that the present research encourages further theoretical and empirical studies on perception gaps and WLB in order to advance research in this area.
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