Galinsky Ellen, Sakai Kelly, Wigton Tyler
Families and Work Institute, New York City, USA.
Future Child. 2011 Fall;21(2):141-61. doi: 10.1353/foc.2011.0019.
Ellen Galinsky, Kelly Sakai, and Tyler Wigton explore the "time famine" among American workers-the continuing sense among employees of not having enough time to manage the multiple responsibilities of work and personal and family life. Noting that large shares of U.S. employees report feeling the need for greater workplace flexibility to enable them to take better care of family responsibilities, the authors examine a large-scale community-engagement initiative to increase workplace flexibility voluntarily. Using the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce as a primary source of data, the authors begin with an overview of the prevalence of flexibility in today's American workplace. They track which categories of employees have access to various flexibility options, as well as the extent to which employees with access to various types of flexibility use those options. Findings from the study indicate that the majority of employees want flexibility but that access to it varies, with more advantaged employees--those who are well educated, have high salaries, and work full time, for example--being doubly advantaged in having greater access to flexibility. A number of employers, say the authors, tend to be skeptical of the value of workplace flexibility and to fear that employees will abuse it if it is offered. But the study data reveal that most employees use flexibility quite conservatively. When the authors use their nationally representative data set to investigate correlations between access to workplace flexibility and a range of workplace outcomes especially valued by employers--employee engagement, job satisfaction, retention, and health--they find that employers as well as employees can benefit from flexibility. Finally, the authors discuss When Work Works, a large, national community-based initiative under way since 2003 to increase voluntary adoption of workplace flexibility. The authors detail the conceptual basis of the project's design, noting its emphasis on flexibility as one component of effective workplaces that can benefit employers, employees, and communities alike. Galinsky, Sakai, and Wigton conclude by drawing lessons learned from the project and briefly discussing the implications of using research to bring about workplace change.
埃伦·加林斯基、凯莉·酒井和泰勒·威格顿探讨了美国员工中的“时间饥荒”现象，即员工持续感觉没有足够时间来兼顾工作、个人及家庭生活的多重责任。作者们指出，很大一部分美国员工表示需要更大的工作场所灵活性，以便能更好地履行家庭责任，在此基础上，他们研究了一项大规模的社区参与倡议，该倡议旨在自愿提高工作场所的灵活性。作者们以2008年全国劳动力变化研究作为主要数据来源，首先概述了当今美国工作场所灵活性的普遍程度。他们追踪了哪些类别的员工能够获得各种灵活性选项，以及能够获得各类灵活性的员工使用这些选项的程度。研究结果表明，大多数员工都希望有灵活性，但实际获得的情况各不相同，例如，更具优势的员工——那些受过良好教育、高薪且全职工作的员工——在获得更大灵活性方面具有双重优势。作者们说，许多雇主往往对工作场所灵活性的价值持怀疑态度，并担心如果提供灵活性，员工会滥用。但研究数据显示，大多数员工使用灵活性时相当保守。当作者们利用他们具有全国代表性的数据集来调查获得工作场所灵活性与一系列雇主特别看重的工作场所成果（员工敬业度、工作满意度、留任率和健康状况）之间的相关性时，他们发现雇主和员工都能从灵活性中受益。最后，作者们讨论了“工作有成效”项目，这是一项自2003年以来一直在进行的大规模全国性社区倡议，旨在促进工作场所灵活性的自愿采用。作者们详细阐述了该项目设计的概念基础，指出其强调灵活性是有效工作场所的一个组成部分，对雇主、员工和社区都有益。加林斯基、酒井和威格顿最后总结了从该项目中吸取的经验教训，并简要讨论了利用研究推动工作场所变革的意义。
