Work-Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium

Chapter Two

What Does This Study Tell Us About Canada's Largest Employers and Their Employees?

The sample for the National Study on Balancing Work and Family was drawn from 100 Canadian companies with 500+ employees. Forty of these organizations operated in the private sector, 22 were from the public sector and 38 were from the not-for-profit (NFP) sector. Private sector companies from the following sectors were included in the sample: telecommunications, high technology, retail, transportation, pharmaceutical, financial services, entertainment, natural resources and manufacturing. The public sector sample included seven municipal governments, seven provincial government departments, and eight federal public service departments/agencies. The NFP sector sample consisted of 15 hospitals/district health councils, 10 school boards, eight universities and colleges, and five 'other' organizations that could best be classified as NFP/greater public service (e.g. social service, charity, protective services).

A total of 31,571 people responded to the survey. Just over half (55%) of the respondents are women. The sample includes employees from all sectors and is well-distributed with respect to job type. Just under half (46%) of the respondents work in the public sector. One in three work in the NFP sector and 20% are employed by a private sector company. Just under half (46%) work in managerial and professional positions, 40% work in non-professional positions (e.g. clerical, administrative, retail, production) and 14% work in technical jobs.

Approximately half of the respondents to the survey can be considered to be highly educated male and female knowledge workers. The majority of respondents are part of a dual income family and indicate that they are able to 'live comfortably' (but not luxuriously) on two full-time incomes. Respondents who belong to a traditional, male breadwinner family are in the minority (5% of total sample, 11% of the sample of men) and outnumbered by respondents who are single parents. The fact that the traditional families tended to be headed by highly paid male managers and professionals suggests that this family arrangement is restricted to those with higher incomes.

The typical respondent to this study have long tenure in their organization (the average respondent has been working at their present organization for an average of 13.9 years) and have received little career development (been in their current job for an average of 7.3 years). These data would suggest that Canada's largest employers need to focus more on career development.

The sample includes a substantial number of employees who may be at risk with respect to work-life conflict. The mean age of the respondents to this survey was 42.8-years-old, which puts them in the mid-career/fast track stage of the career cycle, the 'full-nest' stage of the life cycle and the forties transition stage of adult development. Each of these stages is associated with increased stress and greater work and family demands. Three-quarters of the respondents to this survey were married or living with a significant other and 69% were part of a dual income family. Over half (56%) had dependent care responsibilities (i.e. spent an hour or more a week in either child care or elder care). Eleven percent were single parents. Twelve percent lived in rural areas with limited access to community services that support balance. One in three was a clerical or administrative employee with a lower level of formal education (i.e. reduced job mobility) and lower personal and family incomes. One-quarter of the respondents indicated that money was tight in their family; 29% of respondents earned less than $40,000 per year and just over one-quarter lived in families with total family incomes that were less than the Canadian average. One in three of the respondents had a high school education or less.

This research initiative has culminated in the collection of a large, rich, comprehensive data set with which we can evaluate how Canadian employees, employers and families are doing. The 2001 study sample is well distributed with respect to age, region, community size, job type, education, personal income, family income, and the family's financial well-being. In many ways, the demographic characteristics of the sample correspond to national data suggesting that the results from this research can be generalized beyond this study. Accordingly, the rest of this chapter summarizes what the data from this study tell us about the employees of Canadian firms employing 500 or more people and the firms that employee them.

This chapter provides data on the variables considered elsewhere in the report. The information in this chapter can be used by organizations and policy-makers to benchmark how they and their employees are doing with respect to the key employee and organizational outcomes considered in this study. This Chapter summarizes what the 1991 and 2001 studies tell us about the expectations and demands Canadians face at work and articulates how such expecta6 Work-Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium tions have changed over time and why. The next section provides similar benchmark information with respect to demands at home, and uses the data from the 1991 and 2001 studies to summarize what we know about how Canadian employees feel about the organizations that employee them. Also included in this section are benchmark data on absenteeism within Canadian organizations. The next part reports on the mental health of Canadian workers, and summarizes what we know about the health of Canadian families. Benchmark data on the use of Canada's health care system are provided, and the next section evaluates the extent to which Canadian organizations can be considered to be 'family-friendly' and 'best practice' with respect to their policies and practices. The final two parts of this chapter provide benchmark data on how Canadian employees and Canadian families cope with stress and work-life conflict.

Work expectations and demands

What do we know about the work expectations placed on those who responded to the survey (and, by extension, the work expectations of Canadians who work for the nation's larger employers)?

Canadian employees devote a significant amount of time per week to work

The 2001 data with respect to work demands and expectations support the following conclusions:

• Canadian employees work extremely hard and extend their work day on a regular basis,
• Work expectations have increased to the extent that many Canadian employees cannot complete their work during regular work hours,
• Work requirements (especially with respect to job-related travel and overtime) do not support work-life balance, and
• Canadians devote considerably more time per week to paid employment than to their non-work roles

The typical full-time respondent to the 2001 survey spent 42.2 hours in work per week. One in four spent 50 or more hours in work per week. One in three worked an additional one-and-a-half days of paid overtime in the month prior to the survey being conducted, while half performed 2.5 days of unpaid overtime in the same time period. Fifty percent 'donated' 3.5 days of additional unpaid work per month to their employer by taking work home to complete in the evenings (supplemental work at home - SWAH). An additional day per month was spent commuting to and from work. These long hours in work appear to be systemic as a substantial proportion of all respondents, regardless of job type, worked paid and unpaid overtime.

Furthermore, the data reviewed in this report suggests that many of Canada's largest employers still believe in the 'myth of separate worlds'. The expectation that an employee will spend both weekday and weekend nights away from home if required by their job appears to be quite prevalent, and many employees feel that they cannot refuse overtime work.

Time spent in work has increased over time

Comparisons done using the 1991 and 2001 samples suggest that time in work increased over the course of the past decade. Whereas one in ten respondents in 1991 worked 50 or more hours per week, one in four do so now; during this same time period, the proportion of employees working between 35 and 39 hours per week declined from 48% of the sample to 27%. This increase in time in work was observed for all job groups and all sectors. The data also reveal that during this same time period the proportion of employees who perform unpaid overtime has almost doubled - from just over one in four employees in 1991 to approximately one in two in 2001.

Many Canadian employees cannot get their work done during regular hours

Taken together these data (i.e. time in work has increased, employees regularly work paid and unpaid overtime and take work home to complete in the evening) imply that it has become more difficult over the past decade for Canadian employees (especially those working in managerial and professional positions) to meet work expectations during regular hours. Further work is needed to determine why work demands have increased over the decade. Competing explanations for these phenomena drawn from the 2001 data include:

• 'organizational anorexia' (downsizing - especially of the middle manager cadre - has meant that there are not enough employees to do the work and managers to strategize and plan),
• corporate culture (if you don't work long hours and take work home you will not advance in your career or keep your job during downsizing; non-professionals fear that they will lose their jobs if they do not work overtime; professionals worry that their career will stagnate if they say no to work),
• increased use of technology (technology such as e-mail, laptops, cell phones and the Blackberry has increased expectations with respect to employee availability and response time as well as information overload),
• global competition and shareholder value (work hours have been extended to allow work across time zones, increased competition and a desire to keep costs down has limited the number of employees it is deemed feasible to hire), and
• the speed of change has increased to the point that many organizations have lost their ability to plan and prioritize - workloads increase when organizations practice crisis management.

One thing is clear from the data collected for this study - the strong link between hours in work and role overload, work interferes with family, burnout and physical and mental health problems means that these workloads are not sustainable over the long term.

Work expectations and demands increase with level

One in three of those who responded to the 2001 survey supervise the work of others. The 2001 data determined that the demands associated with supervision are substantive, as the typical supervisor has a very wide span of control (an average of 20 direct reports). This span of control is significantly higher than was observed in the 1991 sample (an average of six direct reports), a finding that is consistent with the fact that many organizations shed layers of management as part of their downsizing and restructuring initiatives. One consequence of this strategy is an increased workload for the supervisor who 'survived' the downsizing.

Non-work expectations and demands

Employees have responsibilities and demands other than those associated with paid employment. The 1991 and 2001 surveys give us the following information on the amount of time Canadian employees spend in non-work activities:

Canadians devote considerably more time to paid employment than to their non-work roles

In 2001 Canadian employees who answered our survey spent approximately 17 hours a week in non-work-related activities - a significantly lower amount of time than they spent in paid employment. Home chores consumed about 11 hours per week. Respondents with elder care responsibilities spent approximately 5.3 hours helping their elderly relative; and parents spent approximately 10.8 hours per week in child care. Those who volunteered spent just under four hours per week in volunteer activities.

Time spent in child care, home chores and leisure has declined over time

The amount of time working men and women devote per week to child care, home chores and leisure declined dramatically over the 1990s. A comparison of the 1991 and 2001 data sets indicate the decline in time spent in home chores and leisure over the decade was essentially the same for both men and women (20% less time in home chores and 40% less time in leisure in 2001 than in 1991). The decline in time spent in child care was, however, more precipitous for women than for men.

In many Canadian families, responsibilities for child care have shifted

In both 1991 and 2001 samples, the majority of men and women indicated that it was the female in their family who had the main responsibility for child care. While Canadian men spent relatively more time in child care in 2001 than they did in 1991, the data indicated that responsibility for this role still rests primarily with the women (i.e. men are 'helping' women with child care). This is an important observation as responsibility for a role has been found to have a stronger positive association with stress than has time spent in rolerelated activities.

In many Canadian families, however, a shift in responsibilities has occurred. This conclusion is supported by the fact that 44% of the men and 33% of the women in the 2001 sample indicated that in their family responsibility for child care is equally shared between partners. This finding is consistent with our data that showed that in many Canadian families, men and women are now equal partners with respect to the amount of time they devote to child care.

Responsibilities at home are shifting - women are doing less and men more

A key finding from this research is that the role of 'caregiver' is not as strongly associated with gender as it was in the past. Traditionally, research in this area has determined that women spend more time in child care than men. Such was not the case in this study, as mothers and fathers in 2001, who engaged in child care, spent essentially the same amount of time each week in child care-related activities.

Detailed examination of the 1991 and 2001 results gives us a better understanding of how family dynamics have changed over time. The number of hours per week women spent in child care declined 33 percentage points between 1991 and 2001. During the same time period, the amount of time spent per week in child care by men dropped by only 15 percentage points. The women in our 2001 sample, in fact, reduced the amount of time they spent per week in child care to such an extent that there were essentially no gender differences in the amount of time devoted to this activity (the typical mother in the 2001 sample spent approximately 11.1 hours per week in child care, while the typical father spent approximately 10.5 hours). The women in the 1991 sample, on the other hand, spent significantly more hours in child care than their male counterparts (16.4 hours per week versus 12.7 hours per week). It would appear from these data that maternal employment has contributed, over the course of the past decade, to a redistribution of labour within Canadian families. It should be noted that this 'enlightened' attitude with respect to the distribution of 'family labour' does not extend to home chores, which still appear to be perceived by many to be 'women's work.'

This finding is consistent with the observations of Bianchi (2000) from American time use data. She attributes the decline in maternal time in child care and the lack of gender differences in time spent in child care to the following factors:

• the reallocation of mothers' time to market work outside the home,
• overestimations of maternal time with children in the past (it was assumed that time at home was all invested in child care, when in reality a large amount was given to home chores),
• smaller families have reduced the number of years with very young children,
• more pre-school children spend time outside the home in school-like settings regardless of their mothers' employment status,
• women's reallocation of their time has changed men's domestic roles and facilitated the increase in men's involvement in child rearing, and
• technology (i.e. cell phones, beepers) has made it possible for parents to be 'on call' while being physically present in the home.

In other words, the gender difference in time spent in child care has diminished as women spend less time and men spend more time in child care, and the need to spend high amounts of time in child care is reduced.

Employees are now challenged to balance work and the need to provide elder care

This study demonstrates that work-life issues are no longer the domain of employed parents. The percent of Canadian employees with elder care responsibilities has increased over time: from 5% of the sample in 1991 to almost one third (31%) of respondents in 2001. The ramifications of this trend are likely to be significant as the amount of time spent in elder care per week (approximately five hours per week) is not insignificant.

The family dynamics of elder care are different from those of child care

The 2001 study determined that the family dynamics of elder care are quite different from the dynamics of child care in two important ways. First, men were almost three times more likely to have primary responsibility in their family for elder care than for child care. Second, men and women were both more likely to indicate that within their family, responsibility for elder care was shared more than with respect to child care. Furthermore, the men and the women in the sample with elder care responsibilities spent approximately the same amount of time per week in elder care activities (the typical man with elder care responsibilities spent 4.6 hours per week in their care while the typical woman spent approximately 5.2 hours). These findings are very important given the projected increase in the number of working Canadians with elder care responsibilities over the course of the next several decades.

Benchmark Data on Canadian Employers

The 1991 and 2001 national surveys support the following conclusions with respect to this issue:

The majority of Canada's largest employers are not best practice employers

The data from this body of research paint a disturbing picture for Canada's larger employers. The 2001 survey determined that only half of those employed by larger firms in Canada were highly committed to their employer, satisfied with their job and viewed their organization as 'an above average place to work.' One in three reported high levels of job stress and one in four thought of leaving their current organization once a week or more. Absenteeism (especially absenteeism due to physical and mental health issues) also appears to be a substantive problem for Canadian employers, with half of the respondents reporting high levels of absenteeism (defined as three or more days of absence in the six months prior to the study being conducted). One in four respondents missed three or more days of work in a six-month period due to physical health problems, while one in 10 missed a similar amount of time due to physical, mental or emotional fatigue.

Conditions within Canadian organizations have declined over time

To quantify the extent to which key organizational attitudes and outcomes changed in Canada over time, we compared findings from our 1991 national work-life study to those obtained in 2001. This comparison established that conditions within Canadian organizations declined during the 1990s. High job stress and absenteeism due to ill health became more problematic. Almost three times as many respondents reported high job stress in 2001 (35%) than in 1991 (13%). More than half (56%) of those in the 1991 sample did not miss work due to ill health in the six months prior to the study being conducted, while just under one in four (24%) missed three or more days. In 2001, the number of respondents missing three or more days of work due to ill health had increased to 28% of the sample while the proportion reporting zero days' absence due to ill health had declined to 44%.

During the same time period, job satisfaction and organizational commitment also declined. Whereas almost two-thirds of employees in 1991 were highly satisfied with their jobs (62%) and committed to their organization (66%), approximately half reported high satisfaction (46%) or high organizational commitment (53%) in 2001. Such findings are not surprising, given that workloads and work-life conflict also increased over the same time period. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that many of the management practices instituted by Canada's larger organizations over the past decade (i.e. downsizing, re-engineering, focus on hours not output, pay freezes, restructuring) have had a negative impact on how Canadian employees perceive their jobs and their employers. Such workplace conditions diminish Canada's ability to compete globally and will make it harder for Canadian organizations to recruit and retain the 'best and the brightest' as the labour market tightens.

Benchmark Data on Canadian Employees

The 1991 and 2001 national surveys support the following conclusions with respect to this issue:

Many Canadians working for Canada's largest employers are in poor mental health

What does our data tell us about the mental health of Canadian employees? Extrapolation of key findings from the 2001 study to the Canadian workforce as a whole suggests that approximately half of the surveyed employees suffer from high levels of perceived stress, one in three report high levels of depressed mood and one in three are at risk of burnout. Furthermore, only 41% of those in the 2001 sample said that they were satisfied with their lives. One in five was dissatisfied. These data are disturbing as they can be considered to be a 'best case scenario', because these data reflect the mental health status of employed Canadians, many (if not virtually all) of whom can be considered to have 'good' jobs in one of the 'best countries to live in the world!' This begs the following question: if a substantial number of employed Canadians can be considered to be in poor mental health, what is the prevalence of mental health problems in those groups that are considered to be at risk with respect to stress, depression, and poor physical health (i.e. contingent workers, the unemployed, those on social assistance, etc.)?

The physical and mental health of Canadian employees has deteriorated over time

Overall, the 1990s appears to have been a tough decade for Canadians working for Canada's larger organizations. Comparison of the 1991 and 2001 samples indicates that the prevalence of high levels of perceived stress and depression increased in the Canadian labour force over this time period. For example, 44% of the respondents to our 1991 survey reported high levels of perceived stress - a substantially lower proportion than the 55% with high stress in 2001. Similarly, 36% of those in our 2001 reported high levels of depressed mood - a substantial increase from the 24% with high depressed mood in the 1991 sample.

Given these findings and the link between mental health and life satisfaction, it is not surprising to find that the life satisfaction of our respondents (and by extension that of Canadians employed by medium and large organizations) also declined over the decade (45% with high life satisfaction in 1991 versus 41% in 2001). This decline in life satisfaction is consistent with the rise in perceived stress and depressed mood. Taken as a whole, these data suggest that the increase in the work demands of Canadian employees, as well as the proliferation of work-life conflict over the decade, are having an impact on the mental health of employees.

Benchmark Data on Canadian Families

The 1991 and 2001 national surveys support the following conclusions with respect to this issue:

Many Canadian employees live in families that cannot be considered 'healthy'

The research findings paint a mixed picture with respect to the 'health' of the families in which Canadian employees live. On a positive note, in 2001 the majority of respondents were satisfied with their families and their performance as parents; that is, they engaged in behaviours associated with positive parenting several times a week or more. On a more cautionary note, only 38% of respondents were satisfied with their family's well-being and only one in four frequently engaged in activities that have been linked to family stability. Unfortunately, the fact that data on the health of Canadian families was not collected in 1991 means that we cannot draw any conclusions on how these outcomes have changed over time.

Many Canadian employees 'off shift' so they do not need child care

The 2001 study also showed that one in three employed parents in Canada arrange their work schedule so that they and their partner can share child care (i.e. work a different shift from their partner so that they do not need to arrange any kind of child care). While such arrangements may be beneficial to children, how they affect marriages and work-life conflict is still largely unknown.

Benchmark Data: Use of the Canadian Health Care System

The 2001 survey supports the following conclusions with respect to this issue:

The physical health of Canadian employees has deteriorated over time

How do Canadian employees view their physical health? While just under half of the respondents to the 2001 survey (48.4%) indicated that their health was very good or excellent, almost one in five (16.6%) perceived their health to be fair or poor. This is a significantly lower proportion of respondents perceiving that they were in very good to excellent health (and not surprisingly a higher proportion reporting that they were in fair to poor health) than was reported by Statistics Canada (1999) for Canadians aged 12 or older.

While some of this difference might be explained by the age differences in the two samples (younger Canadians can be expected to enjoy better health than older Canadians) it is also likely that working conditions and job-related stress are taking their toll on Canadian employees' health status. These numbers are also a wake-up call for employers, as they provide a conservative estimate of the proportion of the Canadian workforce that may be negatively impacting Canadian productivity through ill health, high absenteeism, and greater benefit costs.

Linking physical and mental health to use of Canada's health care system

Employed Canadians routinely seek medical care from their physicians and other health care professionals. Data from the 2001 study determined that in the six months prior to the study being done:

• just over half (54%) of the respondents sought care from their physician for reasons other than a routine check-up or maternity follow-up. These employees made an average of 5.7 physician visits per year.
• one in three (29.3% ) visited a hospital or clinic on an outpatient or day use basis for medical tests or procedures. These employees made an average of 3.8 outpatient visits per year.
• one in three (31.8%) of the respondents sought medical care from a medical/health practitioner other than a physician. These employees made an average of 10 visits per year to other health care professionals.
• just over one in ten of the employees in the sample (13%) sought medical care at a hospital's emergency department for a personal health problem. These employees made an average of 3.2 visits per year to an emergency department.
• just over one in ten (10.6%) of the respondents sought help from a mental health professional. These individuals made an average of 8.2 visits per year to a mental health professional.
• almost 6% of the respondents required inpatient hospital care (i.e. stayed overnight in the hospital). These employees stayed in hospital for an average of 4.6 nights per year.

Linking physical and mental health to prescription drug use

How much do Canadians employees spend on prescription medicine? The 2001 study determined that the typical Canadian employee in our sample spent approximately $164 per year on prescription medicine for personal use. While 44% of employees did not purchase any prescription drugs, one in five (19%) spent more than $300 per year. The rest of the respondents (37% of the sample) spent between $100 and $300 per year on medications. In 80% of these cases, these prescription drug costs are borne by the employer. The high degree of correspondence between the data on prescription drug expenditures and perceived health (i.e. respondents who spent $300 or more on prescription medication also rated their health as fair or poor) increases our confidence in these findings.

Canada spends more per person on drugs (approximately $15.5 billion per year) than most other countries. In fact, prescription and non-prescription medications were estimated to account for 6.3% of the total economic burden of illness in Canada (Statistics Canada, 1999). The Government of Canada (and hence all taxpayers) pay almost half (43%) of these costs. The rest is paid by private insurance companies and individuals. The findings from this study suggest that these drug costs can be reduced substantially if governments and organizations were to successfully address the issue of work-life conflict.

Benchmark Data: Family-Friendly Policies and Practices in Canadian Organizations

The 1991 and 2001 national surveys provide excellent benchmark data on the supports available within Canadian organizations. The efficacy of these various policies and practices at reducing the various forms of work-life conflict considered in this analysis are evaluated later in this report.

The use of alternative work arrangements in Canada is relatively low at this time

Canadian firms look much like they did a decade ago with respect to the use of alternative work arrangements. In 2001, just over half (59%) of the employees in our sample worked a 'regular' work day (i.e. little to no formal flexibility with respect to arrival and departure times; no work location flexibility). Just under one in four (23%) used flextime, 14% worked a compressed work week and 4% worked a part-time arrangement. Formal job sharing and telework programs were rare as only 1.3% of the 2001 sample were able to job share while 1% formally worked from home. It would appear that, despite the talk, employers' willingness to implement flexible work arrangements lags behind employees' need for a diversity of work schedules. In fact, for many Canadian employees, work schedule flexibility has declined over time as the percent of the workforce who worked schedules known to increase work-life conflict and stress (i.e. rotating shifts, fixed shifts, atypical work arrangements) increased between 1991 and 2001.

Paradoxically employees with the greatest need for flexible work arrangements are the least likely to get them

Access to flexible work arrangements is not evenly distributed throughout the Canadian workforce. Examination of the 2001 survey data indicate that those employees who have the greatest need for flexible work arrangements (i.e. parents and employees with elder care responsibilities) do not have access to them. This suggests that despite all the talk about 'family-friendly' and 'employer of choice' employers, many of Canada's largest employers still ascribe to 'the myth of separate worlds.' Organizations that insist on regular work schedules have the same expectations of employees (regardless of family situation) and fail to recognize the impact of the work domain on the family domain.

While some Canadians enjoy high levels of work-time and location flexibility, many do not

Our previous research in this area observed a large gap between how an employee's work day was actually arranged (i.e. flextime) and the amount of flexibility an employee perceived that they have. The data paint a mixed picture with respect to this issue. Accordingly, the 2001 study included measures that made it possible for us to examine the amount of flexibility Canadian employees perceived that they actually had about when and where they worked. While a plurality (39%) of the employees in our 2001 sample had moderate levels of informal flexibility and one in three respondents had high flexibility (33%), a substantial percent of the sample (29%) felt that they had little to no control over when and where they worked.

Examination of the items that make up the perceived flexibility measure give us additional information on areas where improvement is needed.

While many employers have made progress ...

Approximately half of the employees in our 2001 study indicated that it was easy for them to take holidays when they wanted, interrupt work for personal/family reasons and then return, take a paid day off when their child was sick, be home from work in time to have meals with their family, and vary their work hours. These findings indicate that many of the companies in our sample have introduced progressive programs to help employees with their parenting responsibilities.

Many organizations still see work-life balance issues through a child care lens

The data testify to the fact that in 2001 a plurality of Canadian organizations still saw work-life balance issues through a child care lens and had not made substantive progress with respect to the issue of elder care. Just under half of the employees indicated it was difficult for them to get paid time off to deal with elder care concerns - twice the number that found it hard to get paid time off to deal with a sick child. This finding is unfortunate given the aging of the Canadian population and increased need for employed Canadians to care for elderly dependents.

Employers talk career development but make it hard for employees to take time off work for this purpose

Only one in three of the employees in the 2001 sample reported that it was easy for them to take paid time off work to attend a course or a conference (one in three found it very difficult). It would appear that career development is not seen as a shared responsibility in many Canadian organizations, despite the fact that many of them claim to be a 'learning organization.' Unfortunately, by not looking at career development through a work-life lens, many organizations jeopardize the career advancement opportunities of employees with child care and elder care responsibilities, because their ability to attend training activities in the evening or on weekends is more constrained. The lack of flexibility in this area is likely to be increasingly problematic in a seller's market for labour.

Many Canadian organizations persist in operating under the 'myth of separate worlds'

Almost 40% of the employees who answered the 2001 survey stated that they found it difficult to arrange their work schedule to meet personal or family commitments. These employees worked for an organization that ascribes to the 'myth of separate worlds.' While such a view might have been defensible when the typical Canadian family consisted of a male breadwinner with a wife and children at home, it is untenable in Canada today where the dual-income family is the norm.

Employees can work from home on their time but not on their employer's time

The fact that 70% of the 2001 sample said it was difficult for them to perform telework implies that organizations are still reluctant to increase employees' work-location flexibility. The lack of movement in this area is hard to reconcile with the fact that many factors (i.e. advances in technology, the increase in the number of Canadian knowledge workers, the number of Canadian employees who perform unpaid overtime work at home outside of regular office hours) suggest that such work-location flexibility is not only possible but could also offer a competitive advantage in a tighter labour market. It is also difficult to reconcile with the fact that 12% of the employees in the 2001 sample engaged in guerrilla telework (i.e. unsanctioned, informal work at home). Taken together, these findings indicate that work at home is possible (i.e. work can be done outside of the regular office environment) and that employees do want to use such arrangements. It would appear, then, that the key barriers to telework exist at the organizational rather than at the individual level.

For many Canadian employees the school day does not mesh with the work day

Three-quarters of the Canadian employees in our sample stated that it was very difficult for them to be home from work when their child gets home from school - a concrete example of how work interferes with family in today's society. Employers and government policy-makers need to expand their discussion of child care beyond the relatively narrow domain of daycare to include before- and after-school care. As this study shows, the need for child care does not end when the children start school.

Approximately half of the Canadians employed in firms of 500 + people report to a supportive manager

Our research has shown that the behaviour of an employee's immediate manager is a more important predictor of employee physical and mental health as well as key work attitudes and outcomes, than the policies in place within the organization. The 2001 survey allows us quantify the prevalence of supportive management in Canada's larger organizations. On a positive note, almost half of these employees (47%) considered that their managers were supportive (i.e. frequently engaged in the nine management behaviours that employees find to be supportive). On a more challenging note, just over one in three respondents (37%) worked for 'mixed managers' who were not consistent with respect to the extent to which they engaged in supportive behaviours (i.e. exhibit some behaviours but not others) while approximately one in five (16%) worked for managers who rarely undertake any of the supportive actions included in the supportive manager measure.

The data paint a mixed picture with respect to the availability of family-friendly benefits

Data from the 2001 study allow us to benchmark the availability of a number of 'family-friendly' benefits and supports in Canadian organizations. Five benefits were widely available in Canada's larger firms in 2001: unpaid leave of absence (LOA, 84%), psychological/health counselling (EAP, 83%), the ability to take an unpaid emergency day off work (76%), the ability to take time off work instead of overtime pay (75%) and the ability to take short-term personal/family leave without pay (66%). These five benefits share two characteristics. First they are reactive in nature (i.e. employees can only use them after they have experienced problems). Second, they are very cost effective for the employer as the employee is not paid when they have to take time off work to deal with personal/family issues.

Progressive benefits are less widely available

Less positive is the fact that progressive benefits such as flexible work arrangements (49%), part-time work with pro-rated benefits (45%), supportive relocation policies (44%), personal days off with pay (42%), and telework (20%) were available to fewer than half of the employees in the 2001 sample. Furthermore, virtually none of Canada's larger employers helped employees deal with dependent care obligations (i.e. only 8% of employees had access to employer that provided on-site day care, while 7% were offered child care referral services and 6% were given elder-care referral).

So - how supportive are Canadian firms?

The following conclusions can be drawn from the 2001 Balancing Work, Family and Lifestyle National Study regarding the dominant organizational view of work-life issues in Canada at this time. Canadian organization's approach to this issue tends to be:

• reactive rather than proactive (i.e. focused on reducing the symptoms associated with high work-life conflict and dealing with the manifested issues rather than the identification and elimination of the underlying causes of the stress),
• employer- versus employee-centric,
• built on the 'myth of separate worlds', and
• designed to manage the 'abuser' - the employee who takes advantage of supportive policies and programs - rather than the vast majority of employees who can be trusted to use the policies when appropriate

This view of work-life balance economically penalizes both the employee who cannot balance competing work and family demands, and the company that is faced with having to deal with the same sorts of work-life issues over and over again.

It is important, however, to note that some progress can be observed in terms of the type of benefits available within Canadian organizations. A number of firms have concretely recognized that employees have responsibilities outside of work and support their need for balance by offering flexible work arrangements, pro-rated benefits for part-time work, supportive relocation policies and personal days off with pay. This last benefit, in particular, is worthy of note as it is based on mutual trust and the premise that the employee and the employer are partners with respect to dealing with work-life conflict. The fact that only half as many employees can take a paid day off to deal with a personal emergency as are able to take unpaid LOA again speaks to the dominant view of work-life held by employers today.

Benchmark Data on the Use of Personal Coping Strategies in Canada

The 2001 national survey gives us important information on the personal strategies Canadian employees use to cope with stress. The effectiveness of these various strategies, which are aimed at reducing the various forms of work-life conflict that are considered in this analysis, are evaluated later in this report.

Canadian employees use a myriad of strategies to cope with stress

Canadian employees use four kinds of personal strategies to cope with stress, anxiety and depression:

• social support (i.e. talk to colleagues and/or family, seek help from colleagues and family),
• active coping techniques aimed at the reduction or elimination of the sources of conflict (i.e. prioritize, schedule, organize and plan, delegate),
• avoidance (try and forget about it, find another activity to take one's mind of things), and
• reactive coping techniques that focus on alleviating the symptoms of stress (i.e. have an alcoholic drink, take prescription drugs, work harder, reduce the quality of things one does).

The majority of Canadians use active coping strategies to cope with stress

Many employed Canadians use active coping strategies to cope with work-life conflict. A majority (69%) of employees indicated that they frequently coped with stress by prioritizing. Almost half (47%) of employees frequently coped by scheduling, organizing and planning their time more carefully. Unfortunately, these findings are not as positive as they appear on the surface for the following reasons. First, employees who try and cope by prioritizing and scheduling, organizing and planning, typically rank order their different role activities to focus on the most important ones. Our data shows that most Canadians who use these coping mechanisms give a higher priority to work than to family, a strategy that is not sustainable in the long term. Second, the third coping strategy within this grouping, delegation, is not widely used (i.e. only 27% of the sample frequently delegate work to others while 55% rarely delegate). While it is hard to determine why the use of delegation is low, it may be that Canadian employees have no-one to delegate to in the time-crunched workplace.

The majority of employed Canadians do not rely on social support networks for help

The 2001 study showed that the majority of employed Canadians try and deal with stress on their own - they do not rely on social support networks for help. The following can be used to illustrate this observation. First, two-thirds of the respondents indicated that they rarely turned to their colleagues at work for help as a way to cope with stress, anxiety and depression. While a third of the sample said that they talked to colleagues at work as a way to alleviate their stress, only half this number (16%) asked their colleagues for help. Similarly, while 45% of respondents indicated that they attempted to cope with stress by talking with family and friends (half did not), only one in four actually sought help from friends. Compare this with the fact that just over half of the sample said that they never coped with stress by seeking help from family and friends.

These findings are unfortunate as the use of social support has been found to be an effective way of coping with stress and work-life conflict. Why are Canadian employees reluctant to seek support from others? Again, we can only surmise why the use of these coping techniques is not widespread. On the work front, these findings may reflect the fact that people are just too busy at work to build the relationships necessary for social support. Alternatively, the culture of hours that dominates many organizations may mean that employees do not ask for help because they fear that it will affect their image and their career advancement. On the family side of the equation, these results may be due to the fact that all of the employee's friends and family are in the same situation as they are and have little time or energy to support others. Regardless of the root cause, these findings are unfortunate as many employees find the same types of things (i.e. heavy workloads, non-supportive managers, non-supportive work cultures) stressful. It is also unfortunate as this limits the sharing of effective coping strategies between employees and friends.

A substantive number of Canadian employees rely on escapist coping strategies

On a positive note, relatively few Canadians use emotionfocused avoidance strategies to cope with stress. Less positive is the fact that the number of employees who frequently use escapist strategies to cope with stress is substantial (i.e. one in three frequently seek out other activities to try and take their mind off the stressor, one in five frequently 'just try and forget about it'). These findings are unfortunate as such strategies are typically less effective at reducing stress as the stressor typically remains unchanged and hence problematic.

One in 10 Canadian employees uses reactive coping strategies

The data from this study suggest that many employed Canadians do cope effectively with stress, although the means of coping may be questionable. For example, approximately one in 10 coped with stress by using frequently (i.e. several times a week, daily) reactive coping strategies such as having an alcoholic drink (12%), using prescription, over-the-counter, or illegal drugs (11%), and reducing the quality of the things they did (10%). These strategies are reactive ways of dealing with the emotions aroused by stress, and problematic both socially (linked to greater physical illness, costs to the health care system, and family dysfunction) and economically (related to reduced productivity and increased absenteeism). While it is good news indeed that the majority of employed Canadians rarely use such strategies, the numbers who regularly rely on reactive coping techniques is still cause for concern. Of particular concern is the fact that approximately half of the respondents to the 2001 survey (43%) frequently used the fourth reactive strategy included in this study, and tried to cope by 'just trying to do it all/working harder'. This finding is consistent with the fact that few Canadians ask for help and reinforces our contention that the active coping strategies discussed earlier are directed towards getting more things done rather than eliminating an activity or role.

Employed Canadians cope by limiting their family size

The 2001 study suggests that the decline in Canada's birth rate over the past several decades can be linked to higher levels of work-life conflict. This claim can be substantiated by the fact that one in four of the employed Canadians surveyed stated that they had had fewer children because of demands at work. A further 28% indicated that they had delayed starting a family/decided not to have a family because they could not balance the demands of their career with a family³. In others words, just over half of the employed Canadians who participated in this research initiative had used family planning strategies to cope with work-life conflict. These findings need to be put in the appropriate context. All of the respondents to this study were employed and the majority (70%) lived in families with incomes of $40,000 per year or more. In other words, most of the individuals who used these coping strategies were economically well positioned with respect to having children but had chosen to limit their family size in an attempt to cope with work-life conflict. These findings imply that governments who wish to increase their birth rates need to deal with the issue of work-life conflict.

One in three employed Canadians coped by working different hours from their spouse

Almost one third of the survey respondents (31%) indicated that they 'off-shifted' with their partner in order to better manage work and family responsibilities. In other words, they worked different hours from their partner so as to reduce their reliance on (or need for) formal child care.

Coping with Work-life Conflict: What Can Canadian Families Do?

The 2001 national survey gives us important information on the strategies Canadian families use to cope with stress. The effectiveness of these various strategies, which are aimed at reducing the various forms of work-life conflict considered in this analysis, is evaluated later in this report.

Many Canadian employees involve their families in their attempts to cope with stress

Canadian families use five different sets of coping strategies in their attempt to deal with work-life conflict:

• restructure and redefine 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, plan family time together),
• put family first (limit job involvement to allow time for family, modify work schedule, plan work changes around family needs, identify one partner as responsible for family, leave work problems at work),
• sacrifice personal needs and standards (leave things undone around the house, get by on less sleep, cut down on outside activities, buy more goods and services),
• seek social support (rely on extended family or rely on friends for help), and
• procure outside help (i.e. hire help to care for the children, or for elderly dependents).

Eight of the eighteen family coping strategies were used by the majority of the sample. Tellingly, 88% of these high-use family coping strategies fall into two main groupings: restructure family roles and sacrifice personal needs.

The majority of Canadians cope by re-restructuring family roles and sacrificing their personal needs

Approximately three-quarters of the employed Canadians in our sample attempted to cope with work-life issues by engaging in three activities that typify restructuring family role expectations: 76% tried to be flexible, 72% covered household responsibilities for each other and 71% encouraged their children to help each other. Half coped by participating in the other two behaviours in this grouping: getting children to help with household tasks (53%) and planning family time together (48%).

Likewise, just over three-quarters of the respondents in 2001 coped with work-life issues by sacrificing their personal needs (77%) and leaving things undone around the house while half coped by cutting down on outside activities (56%), getting by on less sleep (54%) and buying more goods and services (45%). All of the coping strategies in this second group involve the employee dealing with work-life conflict by sacrificing their personal needs.

These strategies all have one thing in common - employees who use them try and cope with work-life issues by making accommodations within their personal and/or family lives. The fact that these two sets of strategies are commonly used substantiates our contention that the first line of defence against high levels of work-life conflict is to put work first - to meet work demands at the expense of family and/or personal life.

Many Canadian families try and buy work-life balance

Many of the Canadians in our 2001 sample attempt to deal with work-life conflict issues by purchasing help from outside the family unit. Just under half (42%) hired help from outside to care for their children and bought goods and services (45%). Just over one in four (26%) hired help to care for elderly dependents. It is interesting to note that Canadians are more likely to try to 'buy' balance than they are to ask extended family (30%) or friends (17%) for help. These data are consistent with those noted earlier in conjunction with social support and reinforce the need for governments to provide the services to cope with competing work and family demands.

One in three Canadian employees copes by putting family first

A substantive minority of respondents seem to buck the trend of expecting family members to adapt to their work situation and instead use coping strategies that put family first. In 2001 they did this by trying to leave work problems at work (i.e. 50% tried to psychologically separate their work and non-work domains), limiting their job involvement to give time to the family (37%), planning work changes around family needs (36%), identifying one partner as being responsible for household tasks (31%) and by modifying their work schedule to accommodate their family schedule (24%). While laudable, these strategies may limit the employee's promotion opportunities as they run counter to the dominant cultural norms in Canadian organizations.