Reducing Work-Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn't?

5.3 What Strategies Can Canadian Families Use to Increase Work-Life Balance?

This chapter explored the relationship between the use of 18 family coping strategies and work-life conflict. The data showed that Canadian families attempt to cope with work-life conflict by:

• strengthening and restructuring their family roles (i.e. encourage children to help each other, get children to help with household tasks, cover household responsibilities for each other, try to be flexible, and plan family time together)
• putting their family first (i.e. limiting their job involvement to allow time for the family, modifying their work schedule, planning work changes around family needs, identifying one partner as responsible for the family, leaving work-related problems at work)
• sacrificing personal needs (i.e. leaving things undone around the house, getting by on less sleep, cutting down on outside activities, buying more goods and services)
• seeking social support (relying on extended family for help, relying on friends for help)
• procuring help from outside the family (i.e. hiring help to care for children, hiring help to care for elderly dependents)

Analyses indicated that many of the relationships between family coping strategies and work-life conflict are complex and depend on the employee's gender, job type and dependent care responsibilities. Furthermore, we can see that while some of the coping strategies do, in fact, help employees cope with work-life conflict, others either exacerbate or have no association at all with conflict. The following general conclusions can be drawn with respect to the use of the different family coping strategies and work-life conflict.

• With one exception (covering household tasks for each other), restructuring family roles is not associated with work-life conflict. This is unfortunate as the coping strategies included in this grouping are used by the majority of Canadian families.
• Employees who cope by putting their family first are more able to deal with role overload and work-to-family interference than counterparts who rarely use these techniques.
• Employees who attempt to cope with work-life conflict by sacrificing personal needs report significantly higher levels of all four forms of work-life conflict than counterparts who rarely attempt to "do it all." Employees with dependent care, in particular, who use these strategies are more likely to report high levels of work-to-family interference and caregiver strain.
• The data indicate that the coping strategies included within the social support grouping do not help employees cope with two of the four forms of work-life conflict (work-to-family interference and family-to-work interference). They do, however, when used moderately, seem to help women cope with role overload (when job type is taken into account) and caregiver strain.
• The ability to procure help from outside the family is not associated with two of the four forms of work-life conflict examined: family-to-work interference and caregiver strain. Employees with higher levels of role overload and work-to-family interference are more likely to use both of these coping strategies. The fact that the relationship is positive suggests that one cannot buy these two forms of balance.

How can families effectively cope with role overload?

Several pieces of advice can be offered to employees with respect to how and how not to cope with role overload. What does not work is trying to get by on less sleep (associated with substantially higher levels of role overload). What does work includes:

• leaving work problems at work (a strategy that is particularly effective for women)
• modifying one's work schedule
• hiring help to care for children (effective strategy when used moderately)
• covering family responsibilities for each other

Finally, the strong positive association between three coping strategies (leaving things undone around the house, cutting down on outside activities, buying goods and services) indicates that neither personal sacrifice nor buying goods and services helps employees cope with role overload.

How can families effectively cope with work-to-family interference?

What can we tell families with respect to coping with work-to-family interference? First, we would advise them to use the following coping strategies to deal with this form of interference:

• leave things undone around the house (effective when used moderately but associated with increased interference when used often)
• cut down on outside activities (effective for women when used moderately but associated with increased interference when used often)
• leave work problems at work (a strategy that is particularly effective for men)
• modify your work schedule

Second, we would suggest that employees avoid trying to cope with work-to-family interference by cutting back on their sleep as this strategy is positively associated with interference (i.e. the greater the use, the higher the conflict).

How can families effectively cope with family-to-work interference?

This study does little to inform families about how to cope with family-to-work interference. There are only two family coping strategies that are substantively related to family-to-work interference in both the job type and dependent care analyses: hire help to care for children and get by on less sleep. Again, we note that employees who are able to purchase help to care for their children moderately often (i.e. a couple of times a week) are more able to cope with family-to-work interference than their counterparts who make low or high use of this strategy. The fact that employees with higher levels of interference are more likely to forgo sleep indicates that this is not an effective way to cope with this form of interference.

How can families effectively cope with caregiver strain?

The findings with respect to coping with caregiver strain are very similar to those observed with family-to-work interference. In this case, however, the two coping strategies associated with caregiver strain are hire help to care for elderly dependents and get by on less sleep. In both cases, employees with higher levels of strain make greater use of these approaches.