Higgins Christopher, Duxbury Linda, Julien Mark
Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Work. 2014;48(1):69-81. doi: 10.3233/WOR-141859.
A review of the literature determined that our understanding of the efficacy of flexible work arrangements (FWA) in reducing work-family conflict remains inconclusive.
To shed light on this issue by examining the relationship between work-to-family conflict, in which work interferes with family (WFC), family-to-work conflict, in which family interferes with work (FWC), and four work arrangements: the traditional 9-5 schedule, compressed work weeks (CWWs) flextime, and telework.
Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 16,145 employees with dependent care responsibilities. MANCOVA analysis was used with work arrangement as the independent variable and work interferes with family (WFC) and family interferes with work (FWC) as dependent variables. Work demands, non-work demands, income, job type and gender were entered into the analysis as covariates.
The more flexible work arrangements such as flextime and telework were associated with higher levels of WFC than were fixed 9-to 5 and CWW schedules. Employees who teleworked reported higher FWC than their counterparts working a traditional 9-to-5 schedule particularly when work demands were high.
The removal of both temporal and physical boundaries separating work and family domains results in higher levels of work-family interference in both directions. The results from this study suggest that policy makers and practitioners who are interested in improving employee well-being can reduce work-family conflict, and by extension improve employee mental health, by focusing on the effective use of traditional and CWW schedules rather than by implementing flextime and telework arrangements.
文献综述表明，我们对灵活工作安排（FWA）在减少工作与家庭冲突方面的功效的理解尚无定论。
通过研究工作对家庭的冲突（其中工作干扰家庭，即WFC）、家庭对工作的冲突（其中家庭干扰工作，即FWC）与四种工作安排之间的关系，来阐明这一问题。这四种工作安排分别是：传统的朝九晚五工作制、压缩工作周（CWW）、弹性工作时间以及远程工作。
对16145名有抚养责任的员工样本进行假设检验。采用多变量协方差分析，将工作安排作为自变量，工作干扰家庭（WFC）和家庭干扰工作（FWC）作为因变量。将工作需求、非工作需求、收入、工作类型和性别作为协变量纳入分析。
与固定的朝九晚五工作制和压缩工作周相比，诸如弹性工作时间和远程工作等更灵活的工作安排与更高水平的工作干扰家庭（WFC）相关。远程工作的员工报告的家庭干扰工作（FWC）高于实行传统朝九晚五工作制的员工，尤其是在工作需求较高时。
消除分隔工作和家庭领域的时间和物理界限会导致双向的工作与家庭干扰水平升高。本研究结果表明，对改善员工福祉感兴趣的政策制定者和从业者可以通过关注传统工作制和压缩工作周的有效利用，而非实施弹性工作时间和远程工作安排，来减少工作与家庭冲突，进而改善员工心理健康。
