When I hear about all the great results companies are getting from their work-life flexibility programs, I have to wonder why so many companies do not have a program in place. The Harris-Decima survey found that only 46% of respondents worked for companies offering flexibility options, and my own survey in 2008 documented the same thing.
One possible explanation is that people are mired in traditional models of the workplace that no longer fit the contemporary environment. The myth that people still seem to believe is that the person who is available 24/7, who is in the office 70, 80 hours per week, and who never takes any time off is the most productive worker. Best also if employees never become ill, never become disabled, and never have to have a baby.
Not only is this “ideal” not the reality, in fact we are accumulating more and more evidence that people who strive to fulfill this myth are not the most productive in the workplace. I’ve seen at least a dozen studies that document what we call a work-family facilitation effect. Work-family facilitation means that having a full family life is beneficial to a person’s performance on the job. So the new evidence says that the best performer is not the person who is working 24/7, but rather, the person who devotes themselves to family as well as career.
This more balanced model of work-family facilitation shows us that people learn new skills by being highly active in family life, skills such as time management, making decisions, and managing people. Having children means you learn how to encourage, coach and develop the talents of others, and this is a very valuable skill for managers and professionals. In a family, you have to be a team player, and more jobs require working in teams than ever before.
Being present for your family and active in your community results in the added benefit of building social capital. Social capital means having good relationships with a set of people who can provide you with support, information, skills, and resources. When people have a strong social network, they can apply the additional skills, knowledge and information to their work activities, resulting in higher performance and potential benefits to the employer.
Having a full life outside of work also buffers people from the stress of the workplace, leading to positive health benefits. When we are happy in other areas of life, that helps us to gain perspective about the difficulties and challenges at the office. Stress is known to be a major cause of physical health problems, so reduced stress for employees means less absenteeism and lower health insurance costs for the employer.
Given this evidence of a significant work-family facilitation effect, my view is that employers should stop seeking people who are willing to make themselves available at work 24/7 to the detriment of the rest of their lives. The best workers are people who consider family and community to be important, not individuals who are willing to sacrifice family and community in pursuit of money and career.
About the Author: Alison M. Konrad, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Richard Ivey School of Business
Alison M. Konrad, Ph.D., joined the Richard Ivey School of Business, U. of Western Ontario in 2003 as a Professor of Organizational Behavior and holder of the Corus Entertainment Chair in Women in Management. Alison’s current work focuses on organizational diversity initiatives and making workplaces more inclusive. She has done consulting work with CBC Radio, CBC Television, the Stratford Festival, Pillar Non-Profit Network, the Toronto Regional Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC), Colleges Integrating Immigrants to Employment (CIITE) and several other organizations. Alison has more than 15 years experience teaching of HR and business management teaching experience and was Co-Editor of the Sage Handbook of Workplace Diversity, published in 2006. Alison has published over 60 articles and chapters on topics relating to workplace diversity.
