Work-life balance policy and practice: Understanding line manager attitudes and behaviors

Work-life balance (WLB) is receiving increasing attention in the human resource management field. Line managers are playing a more active role in HRM decision-making, including work-life balance decisions, with the devolution of human resource management responsibility. Drawing on the theory of plan...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human resource management review 2010-06, Vol.20 (2), p.158-167
Main Authors: McCarthy, Alma, Darcy, Colette, Grady, Geraldine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Human resource management
Line managers
Management theory
Organizational behavior
Studies
Work life balance
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Work-life balance (WLB) is receiving increasing attention in the human resource management field. Line managers are playing a more active role in HRM decision-making, including work-life balance decisions, with the devolution of human resource management responsibility. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, this paper develops a conceptual model explaining what affects line manager WLB policy and practice behaviors and the consequent impact on employee WLB experience in their organizations. Line manager WLB policy involvement, policy awareness, perceived policy instrumentality, and personal policy utilization are variables which are proposed to impact line manager attitudes towards WLB policies. These attitudes, in turn, are proposed to affect three employee WLB policy outcomes: employee WLB policy awareness, policy uptake, and policy satisfaction. The implications for future research and practice are set out.
ISSN:1053-4822
1873-7889
DOI:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.12.001