The Influence of Organizational Reconciliation Policies and Culture on Workers Stress Perceptions.
| Autor | Monteiro, Rosa |
| Cargo | Report |
Introduction
Understand how individuals react and deal with the tension between work and family has impacts for themselves and for the organizations where they work (Carlson & Kacmar, 2000; Esson, 2004; Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000; Karkoulian, Srour, & Sinan, 2016; Nohe, Meier, Sonntag, & Michel, 2015; Xie, Shi, & Ma, 2017). At the individual level, the reconciliation difficulties are identified as a source of mental and physical stress, with negative consequences on health, disruptions in the performance of parental roles, anxiety, depression and dissatisfaction. In relational terms it can lead to increased interpersonal conflicts, for example (Xie et al., 2017). At the organizational level, they are associated with decreased productivity, absenteeism, higher turnover, low morale, reduced job satisfaction, stress and burnout and therefore, loss of talents. Promoting conditions of reconciliation and reducing tensions between the different spheres of life, thus becomes not only a way to promote equal opportunities and results for men and women, but also to promote organizational efficiency, estimating its impact in terms of reduced stress and improving levels of satisfaction, motivation and productivity (Esson, 2004; Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000; Karkoulian et al., 2016).
The European Survey Quality of Life in a Changing Europe (Byrne & Pachana, 2011; Lippe, Dulk, Doorne-Huiskes, Lane, & Back-Wiklund, 2009) concluded that Portugal is the European country with lower levels of satisfaction with work-family reconciliation, alongside the UK, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland, and contrasting with Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany (Rodrigues, Barroso, & Caetano, 2010). The Second European Quality of Life Survey (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions [Eurofound], 2009) states that people in Portugal, as in Greece and Italy, have a relatively low level of life satisfaction and happiness and a lower sense of life fulfilment; indeed, with regard to the level and patterns of subjective well-being. Also a recent study of the Portuguese Association of Occupational Health Psychology (Cunha, Pereira, & Cunha, 2014) gives an account of a severe decrease in the levels of engagement and perception of work-family interface in 2008-2013, with a consequent increase of stress and burnout. It also identifies the increased perception of overload and fatigue, with 78% of the individuals of the sample that revealed an intention to leave the job (turnover).
The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working (Eurofound, 2007, p. 5) pointed out the "balance between professional and personal life" as one of the four dimensions analyzed in the study of quality of life at work (being the others, the possibility of skills development, contractual and employment security, health and wellness in the workplace). Similarly, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work identifies the "poor work-life balance" (Brun & Milczarek, 2007, p. 9) as one of the ten predictors of psychosocial risks at work. This along with other emerging risks related to the reconciliation such as the new contractual forms and job insecurity, the aging of the working population, the intensification of work, and forms of offensive behaviour, in the context of crisis and austerity experienced recently in Europe (Lewis, Anderson, Lyonette, Payne, & Wood, 2016). There is, therefore, a growing recognition of the weight of non-material factors in the satisfaction and well-being expressed by individuals in professional life, with emphasis on work-family reconciliation issues (Rodrigues et al., 2010).
The combination of an extremely demanding job market, with the lack of support and flexibility in the workplace, based on a logic of presenteeism and intensity (Mimoso, 2013; Yaphe, 2015) unpredictability and atypical hourly schemes, joined with declining support of the extended family results in long working hours and lack of time for the family, experienced by many working women and men.
The growing recognition of the relationship between work and family has legitimate research on the subject, as well as the development of public policies and organizational practices to promote reconciliation between work, family and personal realms. This is based on the assumption that workers have other existential spheres and responsibilities that should be harmonized (Monteiro & Ferreira, 2013). Scientific approaches arise from a variety of analytical sources. They connect the issue of reconciliation with the studies of gender and equality, with the management of diversity, with the practices of corporate social responsibility, with public policies to support families and state Welfare provisions, and finally with concerns about the psychosocial conditions at work, risk, stress, burnout and their individual, social and organizational/economic consequences (Monteiro, 2014).
In this work, we have conducted a structural equation model to test whether the factor solution of the perception of the reconciliation capability - STRESS model demonstrated a goodness of fit to the population studied. We intended to determine the effect of different structural variables like the existence of services, the organizational culture and the managers and colleagues support, on the stress experienced.
Work-Life Reconciliation as an Issue of Resources and Barriers
Reconciliation has been analyzed in terms of the factors that facilitate and restrict it, highlighting the tensions and contradictions between expectations, standards, practices, rights and ability to exercise them (Lopes, 2009). Decisions taken by women and men to balance work and family are weighted with a range of regulatory and structural constraints, as well as potential individual resources (Karkoulian et al., 2016).
Resources can be made available by the organization (organizational culture, work arrangements and schedules, access to rights, etc.), by public policies (maternity and paternity leaves, creation and/or enhancement of social facilities to support families, for example) or by the individual (access to paid domestic work; human capital; existence of family support networks). The obstacles have to do with the demands and professional needs, but also with the resistance of the organizations to the use of rights, with the hostile social contexts to reconciliation, with the reduced sense of rights of the individuals themselves, with conceptions of gender roles that reify double and triple shifts for women workers, among others.
Laura Dulk and Bram Peper (2007) have worked the issue of supports and barriers, as the two dimensions in the structural base of an organization with formal policies for work-family reconciliation. They sought to understand the fact that the workers do not use or mobilise the spectrum of resources provided by organizations (flexible hours, part-time work), and by public policies (right to paid parenting allowances, between others). It is therefore important to understand what factors affect that non-use. It is known, for example, that in Portugal in 2013, only 72.4% of men enjoyed the mandatory paternity leave, although this represents an increase in the number of parents who enjoyed their rights (Monteiro, 2014).
The study of the European project Quality of Life in a Changing Europe (Lippe et al., 2009), focused its analysis on the various assets owned by individuals in an area (work, for example) as elements that can contribute to improving the well-being and quality of life in another (such as family). The study also looked at the requirements/existing needs in the labour market and in the domestic sphere, and how they articulate with the capabilities of individuals (Rodrigues et al., 2010). The study compares eight European countries (Finland, Sweden, Holland, Germany, UK, Portugal, Hungary and Bulgaria), assuming that the working conditions, reconciliation policies and opportunities to achieve a working-family balance vary on national contexts, in accordance, for example, with the various welfare state regimes (Beham, Drobnic, & Prag, 2014; Beham, Prag, & Drobnic, 2012).
More specifically, Beham, Drobnic and Prag (2012) equated the difficulties of work-family reconciliation in relation to factors such as the type of public support for reconciliation and gender...
Para continuar a ler
PEÇA SUA AVALIAÇÃOCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
