{"id":5725,"date":"2016-03-01T15:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=5725"},"modified":"2016-02-29T14:01:53","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T19:01:53","slug":"work-family-fit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2016\/03\/01\/work-family-fit\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing “Work-Life Balance” to “Work-Family Fit”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"R\/DV\/RS<\/a>
R\/DV\/RS via Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWork-family balance\u201d is a phrase that many of us are all too familiar with, and competition between workplace and family demands are a \u201cgiven\u201d for many people, but particularly for parents. Flexibility is key—and it\u2019s a luxury that many workers don\u2019t have when office culture and workplace norms prioritize \u201cwork\u201d over \u201cfamily\u201d in self-presentation and conduct.<\/p>\n

Research by U of MN sociologist Phyllis Moen<\/a> and MIT sociologist Erin Kelly<\/a>, whose work with five coauthors was published in the most recent issue of the\u00a0American Sociological Review<\/a><\/em>, shows how consciously changing such workplace culture is a win for families and<\/em> offices, as explored in a New York Times article<\/a> by Claire Cain Miller.<\/p>\n

Miller describes how the team’s\u00a0innovative experiment simulated a new type of workplace culture for those in the experimental group, while it was business as usual for the control group:<\/p>\n

Workers in the experimental group were told they could work wherever, and whenever, they chose so long as projects were completed on time and goals were met; the new emphasis would be on results rather than on the number of hours spent in the office. Managers were trained to be supportive of their employees\u2019 personal issues and were formally encouraged to open up about their own priorities outside work—an ill parent, or a child wanting her mom to watch her soccer games. Managers were given iPods that buzzed twice a day to remind them to think about the various ways they could support their employees as they managed their jobs and home lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the study, both the experimental employees and<\/em> their children were sleeping better than those in the control group. Employers might also be interested to know that retention rates and desire-to-stay were higher in the experimental group.<\/p>\n

Though having management and bosses openly discuss and respect the struggles of work-family balance goes against the grain of office norms, this research shows that these boundaries aren\u2019t doing anyone favors. Shifting toward a conceptualization of this dynamic with vocabularies like \u201cwork family fit\u201d—which doesn\u2019t treat work and family as competitors in a zero-sum-game—could help workers and companies alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWork-family balance\u201d is a phrase that many of us are all too familiar with, and competition between workplace and family demands are a \u201cgiven\u201d for many people, but particularly for parents. Flexibility is key—and it\u2019s a luxury that many workers don\u2019t have when office culture and workplace norms prioritize \u201cwork\u201d over \u201cfamily\u201d in self-presentation and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2027,"featured_media":5726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55,33],"tags":[39112,20796,26925,39114,39113,4374,27102,76,14936,40251],"class_list":["post-5725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","category-health","tag-culture","tag-flexible-work","tag-flexible-working-policies","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-parenting","tag-well-being","tag-work","tag-work-life-balance","tag-workplace-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2016\/02\/532076662_55fac597b9_z-e1456772374713.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2027"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5725"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5728,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions\/5728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}