1. Peter Berg, Ann Frost and Gil Preuss. 2001. Team Models of Work Organization and Outcomes for Low-Skilled Workers in American Hospitals, in Proceedings of the Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association.

2. Eileen Appelbaum and Peter Berg. 1997. Balancing Work and Family: Evidence from Surveys of Manufacturing Workers, in Paula B. Voos (ed.), Proceedings of the Forty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association.
Summary: The growth of single-parent and dual-earner families and the increase in labor force participation of mothers of young children have made it increasingly difficult for employees to manage their work and family lives. Firms have begun responding to these changes with an array of family friendly policies. This paper adds to what is known about the family responsiveness of establishments by drawing on the responses of nearly 1,500 production workers to examine a set of informal work-family practices that affect the ability of employees to balance work and family concerns and the factors that contribute to workers’ perceptions that their company helps them achieve this balance.

Kossek Reports and Proceedings

Workload and Reduced Load/Part Time Work

1. Kossek, E.E., & Lee, M.D. 2005. Making flexibility work: What managers have learned about implementing reduced-load work. Abstract: In recent years more employers have established flexible work arrangements and informal practices to support talented individuals who want to work in different ways to accommodate shifting priorities in their personal and professional lives over the life span. Reduced-load work has developed as an important new way of working, even as work hours and workloads for managers and professionals continue to rise on the job and at home. Reduced-load work is defined as working less than full-time hours in a traditional full-time position, for a commensurate reduction in pay.

2. Kossek, E.E., & Lee, M.D. 2005. Benchmarking survey: A snapshot of human resource managers' perspectives on implementing reduced-load for professionals.
Abstract: Over recent decades the professional workforce and family structures have dramatically changed. The dual earner family is now the most common North American family today, and in the U.S. only 17% of the workforce is now single earner breadwinner. In 2002, in the U.S. women held 39% of professional and managerial jobs, compared to 24% in 1977 (National Survey of the Changing Work Force (NSCW), 2002). Over the past 25 years, NSCW also reports that total work hours of all dual-earner couples with children under 18 years at home increased an average of an additional ten hours per week- from 81 to 91 hours. While these rising demands at work and at home are important for all employee groups, professional and managers face unique challenges in managing work and family. Organizational pressures to increase professional and managerial workloads and work hours are growing. Professionals are typically expected to work long hours as a sign of career commitment and of course are generally not paid for hours put in beyond a forty-hour workweek. Many are in dual career households, where it’s hard to be a parent, an elder caregiver, or “have a life” when work involves such long hours.

3. Lee, M.D., & Kossek, E.E. 2005. Crafting lives that work: A six-year retrospective on reduced-load work in the careers & lives of professionals & managers.
Abstract: Many leading employers have been formally and informally offering alternative work arrangements such as “reduced-load” work for many years. However, little research has been conducted on how choosing to use these new ways of working affects individuals, their careers, and their families over time. This report presents findings from an interview study conducted November 2002 to November 2003 with a sample of professionals and managers who were originally interviewed in 1996 to 1998 about their experiences working on a reduced-load basis, by choice, in 43 companies in the U.S. and Canada.

4.Lee, M. Kossek, E. & Baitaille, C. 2007. Saskatchewan Labour Proceeding. Making Flexibility Work: The Manager’s Perspective on Implementation of Reduced-Load Work Arrangements.

Supervisor Support & Work and Family Stress &Well-being Reports

1. Kossek, E. & Hammer, L. and colleagues. 2008. Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors: Implications for Work-Family Safety and Stress. Based on The National Work, Family and Health Network Pilot Study for U.S. Grocery Industry Store. April 16th, 2008. National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety and National Institutional of Child and Health Development.
Abstract: In October 2006 researchers from Portland State University and Michigan State University undertook the FSSB Intervention study to: (1) identify supervisor behaviors that are family supportive in order to provide managers with effective management tools, and (2) develop and evaluate a training and self-monitoring intervention for supervisors to increase their family supportive behaviors. This intervention was followed by additional data collection in June-July 2007 to assess longitudinal changes in supervisor behaviors and associate family, work, health, and safety outcomes