Managing a Diverse Workforce: Managing
Work-Life Relationships in Organizations
Ellen Ernst Kossek, Ph.D. Class Three
2009
.
Module Overview
• Class 1: Work-Life Policies: A Strategic Lever to
Manage Diversity and Work-force Inclusion.
• Class 2: Linking Work-Life Policies to
Organizational Culture and Effectiveness.
• Class 3: Managing Flexstyles and Work-Life
Relationships.
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Module Learning Objectives
• Work-life policies are a strategic lever to manage
diversity and workforce inclusion and can be viewed
from employee and employer perspectives with
competing tensions (Class 1).
• Work-life polices must be implemented and linked to
the overall HRM system, organizational culture and
business objectives (Class 2).
• Flexstyles--different styles for work-life
relationships-- are tools to manage the blurring
24-7 boundaries between work and home in a
global work environment (Class 3).
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New Ways Are Needed to Think about Managing Flexibility and Work
Life Relationships
• Technology (e-mail, cell phones, text message),
increasing workloads, shifting family structures,
long commutes and the 24-7 global economy
blur work and personal life relationships.
• Paradox: Many individuals are experiencing
work-life conflicts despite the growing presence
of many employer flexibility and work-life
policies.
Source: Kossek and Lautsch, 2008
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Freedom to Work 24-7 Requires More Employee Selfregulation
• Employees with access to flexibility like e-mail
or text messaging must actively self-regulate
and shut off technology to focus on one task at
a time.
• Although more people report multi-tasking, the
faster they work, the more stressed they feel at
the end of the day – and less work is actually
done.
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Startling Statistics
• Home demands
 Almost 80% of U.S. workers have daily family
responsibilities when away from the workplace.
 Not enough time for:
o Children (67%).
o Spouse (63%).
o Self (55%).
o Special groups: teens, elder care, sandwiched.
• Work demands
 Compulsion to work more to:
o Keep up with their workloads (47%).
o Succeed in their career (43%).
o Make ends meet financially (37%).
o Keep their job (34%).
Source: Bond et al., 2002
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Stories from CEO of Me
• “If I’m such a success, why isn’t my life feeling
more manageable? If my life is so ideal on
paper, why do I have this nagging concern that
relationships between work and home could be
improved for the better? I know I can make
some changes to improve things, but I just keep
doing things the same old way.”
• Dan, 31 year old sales manager with 5 year old
Source: Kossek and Lautsch, 2008
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Developing Personal Work-Life Self-Management Strategies
• Many talented individuals have difficulty
managing work-life relationships and need help
making time for reflection and dialogue.
• Can benefit from coaching and support to enact
and experiment with and learn new selfmanagement strategies.
Source : Kossek and Lautsch, 2008
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Abnormal Is the New Normal
• We are in a new age of work and family where
abnormal is the new normal.
• DUALCENTRICITY (defined as having two
roles that are central to our lives such as work
and family) is the norm for increasing number of
workers.
• Employees of all demographic background
want to work in different ways.
Source: Kossek, 2006: Bond et al, 2002
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Overwork Professional Cultures: Flexible Work Paradox
• May have access to flexible work schedules on
paper but unable to fully reap advantages.
• At same time workloads are increasing, longer
hours and visibility at work translated as career
commitment.
• Exempt status: no additional pay for extended
hours.
• Ambiguous work schedules: work as long as it
takes.
 How many hours comprise the standard for full
time? 40,50,60,70?
Source: Kossek and Lee, 2008
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Professional and Managerial Workers Face Unique Flexibility
Challenges
• Time, energy imbalance: putting work above
everything else.
• Organizations reward imbalance.
• Factors contributing to the culture to overwork:
 New technology makes it easier to bring work
home, plus 24-7 global interactions.
 Pressure to continually show you add value.
 High identity between work success and selfesteem.
Source: Kossek and Lee, 2008
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Work-Life Is Part of Personal Career Strategy
• Individuals need to develop a work-life strategy
as part of their career strategy.
• You will not have satisfying work-life
relationships unless you have a strategy to
manage work-life like managing career.
• Smart, high-talent people will not find balance
unless empowered to make some work-life selfcare part of their working style.
Source: Kossek and Lautsch, 2008
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Self Assessment and Reflection Is First Step to Manage WorkLife Relationships
• Why?
 You cannot change things you do not fully
understand.
•
How?
 Life bucket analysis
Source: Kossek and Lautsch, 2008
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Life Bucket Analysis
Draw Your (Ideal) Life
1. Divide this bucket into
segments representing the
major work and nonwork
dimensions of your life and the
amount of time and energy
you would really like to devote
to each.
2. Think about your values and
vision for what your life could
be.
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Life Bucket Analysis
Draw Your (Real) Life
1. This time divide the bucket into
segments to reflect your life
today. Be honest: Show your
actual allocations of time and
energy to the different
dimensions–not what you think
your allocations should be.
2. Compare the two buckets.
Is there a mismatch?
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Everyone Has a Flexstyle
Work
Home
Self
Community
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Defining Flexstyles
• Flexstyle:
 The psychological and physical ways we
manage relationships between our job and
personal life.
 Step 1: Must understand your flexstyle to
develop strategies to gain more control and
alignment of work-life relationships.
 Step 2: Must relate flexstyle to preferences
and those of co-workers, managers,
customers, family.
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Know Your Flexstyle
What matters most for well-being:
a) Alignment between your ideal personal
values for how you prefer to allocate your life
buckets.
b) Control of how you manage work-life
relationships (flexstyle).
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Self-Assessment: Identifying Your Flexstyle
Statement
Strongly
Agree
Agree Neither
Agree
nor
Disagree
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
1. I rarely attend to
personal or family
issues during the
workday.
1
2
3
4
5
2. When I’m at home I 1
rarely think about work
so I can fully get away
from my job.
2
3
4
5
3. If I work (or ever
were to work) from
home, I would work in
a space that is
designated for that
purpose only.
2
3
4
5
1
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Strongly
Agree
Agree
Neither
Agree nor
Disagree
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
4. In general, I don’t take workrelated phone calls or e-mails
during evenings, weekends,
holidays, or vacations.
1
2
3
4
5
5. With most of my family and
friends, I tend not to talk about
work issues as I like to keep work
separate.
1
2
3
4
5
6. I do not think about my family,
friends, and personal interests
when at work so I can focus.
1
2
3
4
5
7. I usually handle e-mails related
to my family or personal life
separately from e-mails related to
my work.
1
2
3
4
5
Calculate your score: Add up the
total number of circles you placed
in each column, and write the totals
in the boxes to the right.
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Flexstyle Common Assumptions
• Don’t assume everyone works the same way
you do.
• Understand how your flexstyle aligns with other
stakeholders (family, boss, peers, customers).
• Identify your flexstyle to better self-manage
work-life relationships.
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Change Tools: Leverage Flexstyle Tradeoffs
• Integrators:
 Continually blend work and nonwork activities
during the work day (and nonwork time).
 Temporal, mental, and physical blending tactics.
• Separators:
 Keep work and personal life compartmentalized
during the day.
• Volleyers:
 Sustained periods of higher integration of work
and nonwork aspects and higher separation.
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Task-Flexstyle Tradeoffs
Integrators, Separators and Volleyers
• Step1: What is good (pros) and bad (cons) about
your style for effectiveness on and off the job?
• Step 2: Do you work with others with a different
flexstyle than you and why is your style better?
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Model of Good and Bad Flexstyles
WELLBEING/
HAPPINESS
LEVEL
INTEGRATORS
VOLLEYERS
SEPARATORS
HIGH
Feeling in
control; work
and personal
life have
positive
relationships.
Fusion Lover
Quality time
Firsters
LOW
Overwhelmed,
overworked, out
of control, work
and personal life
often feel at
odds.
Reactors
(Work or
Family)
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Job Warriors
Captives
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Integrators (Good and Bad)
• Fusion Lover
Experiences blending as psychologically
positive, feels in control of timing and
place of mixing, integration value fit,
• Reactor
Experiences blending as negative,
unhappy with how balancing work and
personal obligation, want more control
over transitions, blending and more
segmentation.
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Separators (Good and Bad)
• Firsters (Work or Family)
 Feel in control of life and chose to place one
part of their life -- work or family as highest
priority.
• Captives
 Do not feel in control of the fact that one part
of their life – either their job or family – forces
them to focus on one part of their life to
sacrifice of other.
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Volleyers (Good and Bad)
• Quality Timer
 Separate to give best to each role, integrate
just at key times when necessary; in control
and satisfied.
• Job Warriors
 Lack control and satisfaction regarding when
they switch between integrating and
separating periods.
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Flexstyles Share Tradeoff Tenets
•
•
•
•
Choose flexstyle that aligns with values.
Some flexstyles not sustainable.
All have pros and cons.
If your life is overloaded, minor flexstyle
changes won’t work because you lack control or
resources.
• If you are undergoing major personal or
professional change, it is likely your flexstyle is
out of alignment.
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Integrator Tradeoffs
Long days/Job or family creep
 Others’ misunderstanding about availability.
 Perceptions about professionalism.
 Higher switching costs and role restructuring.
 Lack of buffers.
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Separator Tradeoffs
 Stunted personal, community or family or
social life.
 Lack of access to cross-domain enrichment
and supports.
 Stunted unhealthy social life (for work firsters)
or downshifted career dreams (family firsters).
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Volleyer Tradeoffs
Job creep.
Difficulty prioritizing--must make tough choices.
Increased cognitive complexity.
Role confusion.
Job Warriors special needs ( fatigue, vulnerability
to breakdown of support system.
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Do you need to change? Remember the Gut Test
• Individual level:
Are cons of style outweighing pros?
What about your ability to control work-life
relationships and values (life bucket
alignment)?
• Stakeholder Level: Perception is reality:
Feedback from important others in life (family
and work colleagues etc.).
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Take-Aways
• Understand your and your stakeholders
(coworkers, customer, boss, family) flexstyles
and leverage them to be more effective.
• People want to work in different ways- that’s not
necessarily bad for organizations over the
course of time but we do need to make sure we
are supporting win-win solutions to benefit
personal needs as well as job demands.
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