Rouen Business School professor finds that employer work-life initiatives generally create employee loyalty

 Ariane Ollier-Malaterre studies employer support for work-life balance for changing workforce

March 2010 ― The results of a study by Rouen Business School professor Ariane Ollier-Malaterre show that employer initiatives to create a healthy balance between work and life foster desirable outcomes for both employees and employers in two-thirds of cases, but can lead to disappointment, feelings of obligation to stay or indifference in other cases.

Professor Ollier-Malaterre studies the ways in which employees manage work-life boundaries and how companies are adapting to an evolving workforce that can include single parents, Gen Y, persons “sandwiched” between caring for children and elder parents, and active seniors – a very different group of people than the traditional highly-available breadwinning man.

“I have always been struck by the fact that most employers implicitly or explicitly demand of their employees that they simply act as if they had no life besides work. Not only is this in total contradiction with today’s world, as if employers were lagging behind real society, but it also damages people’s commitment at work, when people feel not respected and not considered as ‘whole’ persons,” said Professor Ollier-Malaterre.

Her study entailed tracking a multinational pharmaceutical company in the United Kingdom and the United States over four years. She looked at the types of work-life initiatives – such as flexible working arrangements (telecommuting, flexible hours, job sharing), informal employer/employee arrangements, cultural change efforts and resources provided by employer (psychological and legal counselling, childcare and eldercare referrals, tuition assistance), to determine the impact on the employee.

“Most initiatives were beneficial, yet delicate to handle and could backfire,” said Ollier-Malaterre. She found different employees from the same team ended up feeling very loyal towards their employer or on the contrary angry and resentful, depending on the intensity of their need and how well they could access the initiatives they needed. Managers’ support made all the difference.

“What surprised me is that I found that people who do not use the initiatives for themselves still benefit from them: some feel very proud of their employer because it is a ‘best place to work’ or pioneer type of employer and they like to boast about work-life and resilience initiatives even if they don’t need them personally. The findings are important because they show that employers should really support and develop these initiatives,” she said.

Ollier-Malaterre’s paper, “Contributions of Work-Life and Resilience Initiatives to the Individual/Organisation Relationship” was published in the January issue of Human Relations.

Press contact: Sarah Lippincott at Noir sur Blanc

Tel. (646) 201-5327 / E-mail: slippincott@noirsurblanc.com

About Rouen Business School

Rouen Business School is one of the top 10 business schools in France and offers its 3000 annual students a large array of programmes on a renovated 7-hectare campus:

-       3 Bachelor programmes: Bachelor in Retail (ECAL), Bachelor in Business Administration (ISPP), and Bachelor of Science in International Business (IFI)

-       Grande Ecole Programme, ranked 20^th in the Financial Times European Masters in Management rankings

-       5 specialized Masters programs, 4 Masters of Science programmes and 1 Full-Time MBA programme

With a network of 14,000 alumni around the world and 165 international academic partners, the Rouen Business School is EQUIS and AMBA accredited and the AACSB accreditation plan is to be achieved in 2010. www.rouenbs.fr