Finding an Extra Day a Week: The Positive Influence of

Perceived Job Flexibility on Work and Family Life Balance*

E. Jeffrey Hill,** Alan J. Hawkins, Maria Ferris, and Michelle Weitzman
This study examines the influence of perceived flexibility in the timing and location of work on work-family balance. Data are from a
1996 International Business Machines (IBM) work and life issues survey in the United States (n 5 6,451). Results indicate that perceived
job flexibility is related to improved work-family balance after controlling for paid work hours, unpaid domestic labor hours, gender,
marital status, and occupational level. Perceived job flexibility appears to be beneficial both to individuals and to businesses. Given
the same workload, individuals with perceived job flexibility have more favorable work-family balance. Likewise, employees with
perceived job flexibility are able to work longer hours before workload negatively impacts their work-family balance. Implications of
these findings are presented.

he demographic composition of the United States workforce has changed dramatically in recent years. This work
force now includes more dual-earner couples who have
responsibility for the care of children or elderly dependents, as
well as more dual-professional couples where both have careers,
not just jobs (Bond, Galinsky, & Swanberg, 1998). In addition,
extensive downsizing by large corporations has lengthened the
average workweek for many employees. The average American
worker now spends additional time equivalent to six extra 40hour weeks per year on the job, when compared with the late
1960s (Schor, 1992), and three extra 40-hour weeks compared
with just five years ago (Bond et al.). This means that for many,
especially for dual-career parents and those with elder-care responsibilities, juggling the demands of the workplace and the
home has become a more difficult balancing act.
Work-family advocates have long championed the adoption
of a variety of family-friendly benefits to positively influence
work-family balance (Galinsky, 1992). Flexibility in the timing
(flextime) and location of work (flexplace) are two characteristics
that are repeatedly seen as a way to achieve balance in work and
family life in this challenging environment (e.g., Christensen &
Staines, 1990; Galinsky, 1992; Galinsky & Johnson, 1998; Zedeck, 1992). Scholars agree that individuals can better manage
long work hours with the unpredictable demands of dependent
care when given a measure of control over when and where work
is done (Barnett, 1994; Shore, 1998). The percentage of companies offering flextime and flexplace is increasing (Galinsky &
Bond, 1998). Nonetheless, simply demonstrating the personal
benefit is insufficient to convince companies to adopt flexibility.
A solid business justification must be made as well. Surprisingly
few studies have attempted to quantify how job flexibility is
related to work-family balance or how such flexible arrangements may benefit individuals and businesses (Hill, Miller, Weiner, & Colihan, 1998). This investigation attempts to do so. The
results of our study should be of interest to work and family
researchers and to practitioners because it will provide objective
*We thank International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) for providing the support and cooperation needed to collect the data used in this article. Ideas expressed are the
opinions of the authors, not necessarily of IBM.
**Address correspondence to: E. Jeffrey Hill, School of Family Life, Brigham Young
University, P.O. Box 25524, Provo, UT 84602-5524; e-mail: jeff hill@byu.edu
Key Words: flexplace, flextime, job flexibility, telecommuting, virtual office, work and
family.

(Family Relations, 2001, 50, 4958)

2001, Vol. 50, No. 1

information on which to make policy decisions and help guide

individuals to effective decisions.
This study uses an ecological conceptual framework (cf.
Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993) and a work-family substantive theory called spillover theory (Zedeck, 1992). A
strong work-family mesosystem is proposed and assumes that
the work microsystem and the family microsystem significantly
influence one another through a permeable boundary (Bromet,
Dew, & Parkinson, 1990). Work-family balance may be defined
as the degree to which an individual is able to simultaneously
balance the temporal, emotional, and behavioral demands of both
paid work and family responsibilities. Research has extensively
examined the conditions under which spillover between the work
microsystem and the family microsystem is positive or negative.
If work-family interactions are rigidly structured in time and
space, then spillover in terms of time, energy, and behavior is
generally negative (Barnett, 1994; Williams & Alliger, 1994).
Research also offers support for the notion that flexibility in
work arrangements, which enables individuals to integrate and
overlap work and family responsibilities in time and space, is
associated with positive spillover and is instrumental in achieving a healthy work and family balance (Barnett; Bond et al.,
1998; Galinsky, Bond, & Friedman, 1993).
A review of the literature indicates that increased demands
on the job and at home have made managing work and family
life increasingly difficult (Shore, 1998). Although flextime and
flexplace programs have been adopted at many companies, they
may not be fully utilized by employees (Hochschild, 1997).
Thus, more empirical research is needed to measure the influence
of flextime and flexplace on work-family balance.

Work-Family Balance
Both academic and corporate research are confirming the
existence of work-to-family and family-to-work spillover and the
importance of healthy work-family interface for families and
businesses. In most of these studies, there are measures of spillover that are associated with family and business outcomes. Examples of outcomes associated with negative work-to-family
spillover from the peer-reviewed academic literature include
withdrawal from family interaction (Paden & Buehler, 1995; Repetti & Wood, 1997), increased conflict in marriage (Bolger,
DeLongis, Kessler, & Wethington, 1989; Crouter, Perry-Jenkins,
Huston, & Crawford, 1989), less knowledge of childrens experiences (Bumpus, Crouter, & McHale, 1999; Crouter, HelmsErikson, Updegraff, & McHale, 1999), less involvement in
housework (Aldous, Mulligan, & Bjarnason, 1998; Crouter et
49

al.), shorter period of breast-feeding for mothers with full-time

employment (Lindberg, 1996), depression (Beatty, 1996), greater
likelihood to misuse alcohol (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1993),
and overall decrease in the quality of life (Rice, Frone, &
McFarlin, 1992).
Less academic research has focused on family-to-work spillover, the neglected side of the work-family interface (Crouter,
1984). Examples documented in scholarly studies of outcomes
associated with negative family-to-work spillover include more
pronounced psychological distress due to poor marital and parental role quality (Barnett, Marshall, & Pleck, 1992), decreased
job satisfaction (Burke, 1989), decreased quality of work life
(Higgins, Duxbury, & Irving, 1992), greater likelihood of leaving the company (Burke), and increased absenteeism (Goff,
Mount, & Jamison, 1990). In an interesting attempt to link family-to-work spillover to the business objective of increasing bottom-line profits, Forthoffer, Markman, Cox, Stanley, and Kessler
(1996) documented $6.8 billion worth of annual work loss in
the United States associated with the absenteeism attributed to
marital distress.
Recent corporate-sponsored data from a nationally representative sample of workers in the United States confirm that workfamily balance often is problematic for employees and employers. This type of research is different from academic research in
that the objective is to provide descriptive data from which to
make decisions regarding company policy. The 1997 National
Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW), sponsored by the
Families and Work Institute with grants from large corporations,
revealed that todays jobs consume more physical and emotional
energy, are more unpredictable, and require longer hours than
were required 20 years ago (Shore, 1998). In a recent study at
one large corporation, inability to balance work and personal and
family life was tied with compensation as the leading reason
employees gave for why they would potentially leave the company (Galinsky & Johnson, 1998). Moreover, in the past, workfamily balance has been considered a womens issue; recent studies indicate that men are as likely as women to have difficulty
managing work-family demands (Hill, Campbell, & Koblenz,
1997; Levine & Pittinsky, 1997; Milkie & Peltola, 1999).

Paid Work Hours

American workers appear to be expending more hours in
paid labor than in recent years. Schor (1992) indicated that, on
average, American workers in 1987 worked the equivalent of an
extra six 40-hour weeks when compared with workers in 1969.
The NSCW, documenting this trend over the past 5 years, reports
that in 1992, employed men spent, on average, 48.8 hours per
week and employed women spent 41.7 hours per week in jobrelated activities (Galinsky et al., 1993). By 1997 this had increased to 52.0 hours per week for men and 43.2 hours per week
for women (Bond et al., 1998). In contrast, Robinson and Godbey (1997), using time diary data, found that the actual number
of hours worked has not increased over the past 30 years, but
because the pace of work has increased, many employees think
they are working longer. An increase in work hours is likely to
be real for some and perceptual for others, and work hours may
affect some occupational groups more than others. Nonetheless,
scholars agree that, overall, workers feel as if they are working
longer hours and that this may be related to problematic family
outcomes. Judge, Boudreau, and Bretz (1994) found a strong
relationship between the number of paid work hours and work50

family conflict, especially for those with preschool children.

Shamir (1983) reported that working more than 9 hours a day
resulted in much greater conflict between work and nonwork
facets of life. In addition, the number of hours spent on the job
has been shown to relate to the degree to which spouses choose
to participate in family work (Almeida, Maggs, & Galambos,
1993), especially mens involvement in child care (Aldous et al.,
1998). Longer work hours by husbands also has been shown to
be associated with greater marital conflict (Kluwer, Heesink, &
Van de Vliert, 1996).

Unpaid Domestic Labor

For some time, scholars have lamented that the degree to
which fathers participate in household chores and child care does
not match the emerging egalitarian culture of fatherhood (LaRossa, 1988; Nock, 1998). However, a summary of recent findings indicates that men are now indeed doing more (Levine &
Pittinsky, 1997; Pleck, 1997). Findings from the NSCW reveal
that employed married fathers increased their time in child care
significantly from 19.4 hours per week in 1977 to 24.3 hours per
week in 1997. The time that employed, married mothers spent
with their children stayed constant during this period (31.1 hours
per week in 1977 and 31.6 hours per week in 1997). Between
1977 and 1997, the amount of time men report doing household
chores increased from 14.4 hours per week in 1977 to 21.2 hours
per week in 1997. During the same period, the amount of time
women reported doing household chores declined from 32.9
hours per week in 1977 to 27.7 hours per week in 1997. Men
are closing the gap. In 1977, married employed women reported
doing 18.5 hours more housework per week than employed married men. That gap has been cut by about two thirds to 6.5 hours
per week (Bond et al., 1998). Moreover, dual-earner men generally work longer hours than dual-earner women (Levine &
Pittinsky). Though men are working more hours at home, there
is continued gender segregation in household tasks. Men tend to
have more discretion and flexibility in when they do tasks around
the home (e.g., mow the lawn, household repairs, etc.), whereas
women continue to be responsible for tasks (e.g., fixing meals,
child care, etc.) that have less flexibility (Milkie & Peltola,
1999). In addition, research continues to show that wives dissatisfaction with the household division of labor is related to
marital conflict (Kluwer et al., 1996) and that dual-earner women
who participate in more domestic labor experience greater workfamily conflict (Wiersma & van den Berg, 1991).

Flextime
Flextime is broadly defined as the ability to rearrange ones
work hours within certain guidelines offered by the company.
There are often core hours (e.g., 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.) during
which all employees must be working and may be required to
be on-site. Employees are then given varying degrees of control
over when they choose to fulfill their work commitment.
Studies indicate that flexibility in the timing of work have
generally been well received by workers and have contributed
to organizational goals. Nonetheless, the degree to which these
programs are actually available to the individual depends on the
immediate manager (Powell & Mainiero, 1999). Current research
indicates that some form of flextime is offered in most large
companies, but research indicates its link to personal and business benefits is equivocal. A recent study of more than 1,000
U.S. companies revealed that about two thirds (68%) allow emFamily Relations

ployees to change starting and stopping times periodically, although only one quarter (24%) allow this change on a daily basis
(Galinsky & Bond, 1998). The NSCW reveals that employees
with flextime were more satisfied with their jobs, more likely
to want to remain on the job, and showed more initiative than
workers with no access to these policies (Galinsky & Johnson,
1998, p. 9). Glass and Camarigg (1992) linked schedule flexibility to job-family compatibility. In a review of flextime research, however, Christensen and Staines (1990) concluded that
no compelling case can be made for flextime solely on the
grounds of employers conventional concerns with organizational effectiveness, organizational membership, or job attitudes (p.
475). Shinn, Wong, Simko, and Ortiz-Torres (1989) found that
the perception of flexibility in the timing of work was weakly
related to the well-being of working parents, but that the presence or absence of a formal flextime program was unrelated. In
addition, the fact that flextime policies exist does not necessarily
mean that employees feel the option is truly available. In the
absence of cultural support within the organization, familyfriendly policies, including flextime, may be used infrequently
(Hill et al., 1997; Hochschild, 1997). In any case, there is little
research in this area, and how individuals allocate their time over
various roles is an important area of continued research (Brayfield, 1995).

Flexplace
Flexplace is broadly defined as giving employees varying
degrees of control over where their work is done. Flexplace includes telecommuting, which is the option for employees to
work from another fixed, offsite location, usually the home. Telecommuting is sometimes fulltime, but is often 1 or 2 days a
week. Flexplace also includes an emerging work form called the
virtual office. In the virtual office employees are given the
portable means to do their job wherever and whenever it makes
sense.
Despite extensive publicity given to telecommuting in the
national press (Shellenbarger, 1997), fewer companies offer flexplace than offer flextime, and fewer employees choose to use
this option when available. About half (55%) of the companies
allow employees to work at home occasionally, and one third
allow employees to work at home or off-site on a regular basis
(Galinsky & Bond, 1998); however, only about one fifth of
workers reported that they work any of their regularly scheduled
hours at home (Bond et al., 1998). Some managers are hesitant
about authorizing flexplace arrangements because they feel that
teamwork would be adversely impacted or that employees need
face-to-face supervision to be successful. Some employees believe that if they spend less time in the office, they will be less
likely to be promoted, and there is recent research to support
that viewpoint (Judiesch & Lyness, 1999).
Forecasts are that because of the decreasing cost of the technology required for telecommuting and the increasing cost of
office space, the number of employees utilizing flexplace will
increase significantly in future years (Piskurich, 1996). The benefits documented for flexplace include greater productivity, the
perception of improved morale, and better work-family balance
(Hill et al., 1998). Nonetheless, research using a quasi-experimental design did not show that employees using flexplace had
better work-family balance than those without flexibility in the
location of their work (Hill, Hawkins, & Miller, 1996). Other
research indicated home-based work enabled women to spend
2001, Vol. 50, No. 1

more time on domestic work than those employed at the company location (Silver & Goldscheider, 1994).

Purpose
This study examined the perceived influence of job flexibility in the timing (flextime) and location of work (flexplace)
on work-family balance. Rather than examine the use of formal
flextime and flexplace programs, we looked at the perceived flexibility as seen by employees, regardless of the formal program
offered. We hypothesized that, as predicted by spillover theory,
perceived job flexibility will be related to improved work-family
balance. We also hypothesized that, given the same workload,
individuals with perceived job flexibility will have less difficulty
with work-life balance. Finally, we hypothesized that those with
flextime and flexplace will be able to work longer hours before
having difficulty with work-family balance. Few studies have
attempted to quantify how perceived job flexibility is related to
work and family life balance or what type of benefits such flexible arrangements may have for individuals and businesses. We
hope this study will begin to fill this gap in the research.

Method
The data for this study came from a work and life issues
survey administered online by International Business Machines
(IBM) in the United States in 1996. This survey was designed
to gather data to help IBMs diverse workforce achieve its business objectives while fostering work and personal and family
life balance. During recent years, IBM has implemented numerous policies to enable its employees to better harmonize their
personal and family needs with the needs of the business. Some
of these policies include child and elder care referral services,
financial support for near-site dependent care facilities, personal
and parental leave policies, online and call-in parenting assistance, permanent part-time job opportunities for professionals
and managers, and domestic partner benefits.
Recent internal surveys reveal that IBM employees perceive
the flexibility to choose when, where, and how work is done to
be the most beneficial IBM offering to enhance work-family balance (Hill et al., 1997). As a result, aggressive policies to enhance flexibility in the timing and location of work have been
adopted. For example, individualized work schedules give employees the flexibility to start work up to 2 hours before or after
the normal start time at their location with stop times adjusted
accordingly. Meal-break flexibility enables employees to take a
minimum of 30 minutes or up to a maximum of 2 hours for a
meal break. This window of time in an employees workday can
be used for personal-choice activities, such as attending a childs
school function, caring for an elderly relative, or participating in
a sports activity. Compressed workweeks make it possible for
employees to work their 40-hour week in fewer than 5 work
days, for example, four 10-hour days (International Business
Machines, 1996).
Likewise, other policies enable greater flexibility in the location of work. As of the late 1990s, about 25,000 IBM employees in the United States no longer had individual companyprovided office space but had been supplied the portable electronic means (e.g., laptop computer, fax, modem, cellular phone,
etc.) to work from a variety of locations (Apgar, 1998). Using
this virtual office, IBM employees have the capability to better
harmonize their personal-family and professional needs by working from home when needed. Other programs enable IBM em51

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Variables
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Workfamily balance
Gender (0 5 male, 1 5 female)
Married (0 5 single, 1 5 married)
Preschoolers (0 5 no, 1 5 yes)
Occupational (level 1 5 hourly, 2 5 professional, 3 5 manager)
Paid work hours
Unpaid domestic labor
Flexibility

SD

(1)
Work/
Family

2.98
0.32
0.78
0.24
1.87
55.23
23.44
2.97

0.80
0.47
0.42
0.43
0.58
9.14
16.64
0.78

.02
2.07**
2.06**
2.21**
2.47**
2.10**
.41**

(4)
(5)
(7)
(2)
(3) Preschool- Occup.
(6)
Domestic
Gender Married
ers
Level Paid Work Labor

2.17**
.03
2.05*
2.12**
.12**
2.01

.25**
.09**
.06**
.14**
.00

.05**
2.04*
.37**
.03

.34**
2.09**
.13**

2.05*
2.09**

2.04*

WorkLife Balance (Cronback alpha: .83)

1. How easy or difficult is it for you to balance the demands of your work and your personal and family life (5-point scale: very easy to very difficult)?
2. I have sufficient time away from my job at IBM to maintain adequate work and personal/family life balance (5-point scale: strongly agree to strongly disagree).
3. When I take a vacation, I am able to separate myself from work and enjoy myself (5-point scale: strongly agree to strongly disagree).
4. All in all, how successful do you feel in balancing your work and personal/family life (7-point scale: extremely successful to extremely unsuccessful)?
5. How often do you feel drained when you go home from work because of work pressures and problems (5point scale: never to almost always)?
a

Flexibility (Cronbach alpha: .72)

1. How much flexibility do you have in selecting the location of where you work (5-point scale: complete flexibility to none)?
2. How much flexibility do you have in scheduling when you do your work (e.g., scheduling hours, time of day, etc.) (5-point scale: complete flexibility to none)?
3. How much flexibility do you have in scheduling what work you will do (e.g., content of work, processes used, etc.) (5-point scale: complete flexibility to none)?
4. I have sufficient flexibility in my job at IBM to maintain adequate work and personal and family life balance (5-point scale: strongly agree to strongly disagree).
*p , .01; **p , .001
b

ployees to work from home on a regular basis to better meet

both business and personal-family needs (Hill et al., 1997).

Data Collection and Sample

A 9% representative sample of all IBM employees in the
United States was invited to take this online survey; 58% (n 5
6,451) responded. Characteristics of the 1996 IBM sample compared with a 1997 national sample of United States workers
(shown in parentheses; Bond et al., 1998) include the following:
female, IBM: 32% (48%); college graduate, IBM: 64% (31%);
annual income greater than $50,000, IBM: 67% (;45%); married, IBM: 78% (65%); in dual-earner households, IBM: 63%
(51%); with children under 18 years of age, IBM: 59% (45%);
with elder care responsibilities, IBM: 20% (25%); with both
child and elder care responsibilities, IBM: 11% (;20%); managers and professionals, IBM: 75% (34%); nonexempt (hourly,
paid for overtime) employees, IBM: 24% (66%). The types of
jobs were indicative of the high level of skills needed by IBM:
programmers, 19%; engineers, 12%; services, 11%; sales, 9%;
consultants, 4%; project managers, 4%; exempt professionals,
21%; and other job categories, 20%. To get a general sense for
whether those who responded were systematically different from
those who did not respond, the self-report demographics were
compared with those in IBMs human resources data base. Although statistically significant differences were found, the absolute size of the differences were relatively small. The largest
difference was that women were slightly overrepresented in the
sample (i.e., 32% of respondents were women vs. 29% in the
human resources database). This response difference is consistent with other IBM studies.
The survey was administered electronically, and IBM has
conducted online surveys since 1986. Survey data indicate a high
degree of confidence in the confidentiality and anonymity of the
data. To preserve anonymity, the electronic mail address was
deleted from the data before it was sent to the survey administrator. Electronic reminder notes were sent three times to all survey invitees to encourage participation. Compared with the pencil-and-paper method, online survey administration at IBM has
52

yielded higher participation rates, more and longer write-in comments on open-ended survey items, quicker data analysis, and
faster implementation of new policies based on the data (Hill et
al., 1997). All IBM employees had access to and knew how to
use computers at work, so there was no danger of biasing the
survey by limiting survey access to only those who were computer literate.

Measurement
The dependent variable for this study was work-family balance, measured by a composite of five questions about the ability
of employees to balance the demands of work and their own
personal and family life. (See Table 1 for list of questions and
response scales.) The primary independent variables were paid
work hours, unpaid domestic labor, and perceived job flexibility.
Paid work hours was the sum of the average reported weekly
work hours and the average reported weekly commute hours.
Unpaid domestic labor was the sum of the average reported
weekly hours in household chores and child care. For multivariate analyses, perceived job flexibility was measured by a composite of four questions related to the respondents perception of
the degree of flexibility in the timing and location of work. Flextime and flexplace were tested as individual variables but did not
contribute additional explanation of the variance, probably because they were highly correlated (r 5 .52). For other descriptive
analyses, however perceived job flexibility included discrete variables for flextime and flexplace. Demographic variables included gender, marital status, presence of preschool children, and
occupational level. Occupational level was coded (1 5 hourly
employees; 2 5 professional salaried employees, and 3 5 managers). Although technically ordinal-level data, occupational level is treated as interval-level data so it can be used in multivariate
analyses. Presence of preschool children was the demographic
variable associated with dependent care because in preliminary
analyses, we also looked at presence of children of any age,
presence of elders, presence of any dependent, and presence of
preteens. Except for presence of elders, each was significantly
related to work-family balance. Because of problems with mulFamily Relations

Table 2
Multiple Regression: Betas, and Cumulative R2 Values (Dependent Variable 5
Work/Life Balance)
Cumulutive
Adjusted R2

Variables
Demographic
Gender
Marital status
Presence of preschoolers
Occupational level

2.02*
2.02
2.04***
2.13***

Workload
Paid work hours
Unpaid domestic labor hours
Flexibility

2.40***
2.09***
.39***

.05

.24
.39

Note: N 5 5,980.
*p , .05; **p , .01; ***p , .001.

ticolinearity, however, only one variable could be used. Presence

of preschool children had the strongest correlational relationship.
The means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities, and intercorrelations for all variables are presented in Table 1, as are the
wording of the items used as composite scores.

Plan for Analyses

Multivariate analyses were conducted to determine if perceived job flexibility was significantly related to work-family
balance after controlling for workload and demographic variables. Various interaction terms were tested (e.g., gender by domestic labor, gender by presence of preschoolers, occupational
level by gender, occupational level by marital status, occupational level by presence of preschoolers, and many other combinations), but none added significantly to the explained variance. The standardized betas and cumulative R2 values are presented in Table 2.
To demonstrate the personal benefit of perceived job flexibility given a reasonable workweek, we compared the percentages of a variety of groups who indicated they were having a
difficult or very difficult time balancing the demands of their
work and family life. We compared those with both flexplace
and flextime to those with neither flexplace nor flextime; compared those with flexplace to those without flexplace; and compared those with flextime to those without flextime. We calculated the percentage of these groups reporting work-family difficulty for those who indicated they worked 40 to 50 hours per
week, a workweek we considered to be of reasonable hours.
Results for these analyses are found in Table 3.
To demonstrate the business benefit of perceived job flexi-

bility in terms easily understood by a manager (who generally

does not have substantial training in multivariate statistical analysis), a break-pointbalance-point analysis was designed. The
break point was defined as the number of weekly paid work
hours at which 50% of the sample responded they had a difficult
or very difficult time balancing the demands of their work and
family life. This level of effort might be what would be expected
from employees during a peak workload or crisis mode period. The balance point was defined as the number of weekly
work hours at which 25% of the sample had difficulty with workfamily balance. This might represent the number of work hours
sustainable over a long period without undue hardship to family
lives. The break point and balance point represent arbitrary statistical points designed for illustrative purposes. They were selected because the balance point generally reflected the percentage of employees with work-family difficulty in the 1986 IBM
survey when employees were more balanced, and the break
point reflected the percentage of employees with work-family
difficulty found in the 1996 IBM survey when employees were
not as balanced.
The break-point and balance-point figures were calculated
by a regression equation where work hours per week was the
independent variable and work-family balance (percentage of
employees having difficulty with work-family balance) was the
dependent variable. We calculated the break point and balance
point for various groups by setting work-family balance equal to
.50 or .25 respectively, and solved for paid work hours. We calculated the break point and balance point for those with and
without flexplace and for those with and without flextime separately. We separated these two types of perceived flexibility because they each represent different plans of action that could be
taken to increase flexibility. Results for these analyses are found
in Table 4.

Results
Descriptive statistics revealed that about half of the employees had difficulty with work-life balance. Paid work hours was
strongly and negatively correlated and perceived flexibility was
strongly and positively correlated with work-family balance (see
Table 1). Of note, gender was not significantly correlated to
work-family balance or to perceived flexibility, indicating that
men and women report similar levels of work-family balance
and perceived flexibility on the job. In harmony with a nationally
representative sample (Bond et al., 1998), we found that men
reported somewhat longer work hours, and women reported

Table 3
Percentage of Respondents Reporting Difficulty With WorkFamily Balancea

Total
Women
Men
Women with preschoolers
Men with prechoolers
Managers
Exempt professionals
Nonexempt hourly

Both FT and
FP

Neither FT
nor FP

Difference

With FP

Without FP

Difference

With FT

Without FT

Difference

28%
30%
27%
53%
38%
37%
30%
18%

46%
43%
48%
66%
59%
60%
51%
42%

18%
13%
21%
13%
21%
23%
21%
24%

29%
31%
28%
57%
39%
39%
31%
21%

40%
41%
40%
61%
55%
46%
42%
38%

11%
10%
12%
4%
16%
7%
11%
17%

29%
33%
27%
55%
39%
37%
30%
21%

44%
43%
45%
65%
58%
56%
49%
40%

15%
10%
18%
10%
19%
19%
19%
19%

Note: Includes employees working between 40 and 50 hours per week. N 5 3.898. FP 5 flexplace; FT 5 flextime.
a
Percentage responding Very difficult or Difficult to the question, How easy or difficult is it for you to balance the demands of your work and your personal/
family life?

2001, Vol. 50, No. 1

53

Table 4
Break PointBalance Point Analysis: Hours of Work per Week at Which 50% (Break Point) or 25% (Balance Point) of Respondents Reported They Had a Difficult
or Very Difficult Time Balancing the Demands of Work and Family
Break Point Analysis (50% Difficulty)

Total
Women
Men
Women w/pre
Men w/pre
Managers
Professionals
Nonexempt hourly

With FP

Without
FP

Difference

59.3
59.2
59.6
43.1
53.4
55.4
58.0
82.6

54.4
54.5
54.3
32.3
46.3
51.0
53.8
56.3

14.9
14.7
15.3
110.8
17.1
14.4
14.2
126.3

Balance Point Analysis (25% Difficulty)

With FT

Without
FT

Difference

60.4
60.6
60.3
41.4
53.6
58.4
59.2
73.4

52.3
52.9
52.0
31.0
44.9
40.1
50.9
53.6

18.1
17.7
18.3
110.4
18.7
118.3
18.3
119.8

With FP Without FP Difference

44.1
42.1
45.3
20.7
37.6
34.7
42.7
51.0

41.1
38.4
42.2
21.0
32.0
35.2
40.5
41.7

13.0
13.7
13.1
121.7
15.6
20.5
12.2
19.3

With FT

Without
FT

Difference

45.1
39.3
47.7
12.3
40.3
41.2
43.4
51.5

39.1
38.4
39.0
1.2
30.7
18.6
36.5
41.5

16.0
10.9
18.7
111.1
19.6
122.6
16.9
110.0

Note: N 5 5,980. FP 5 flexplace; FT 5 flextime; pre 5 preschoolers.

somewhat more hours in domestic labor. Women were somewhat

less likely to be married than were men.
Multivariate analyses (see Table 2) indicated that paid work
hours accounted for the greatest portion of the variance in workfamily balance, adding an adjusted R2 of .19. Additionally, perceived job flexibility, including both flextime and flexplace, added 15% to the explained variance of the model. Then, the model
was run with the discrete variables as well as using interaction
terms, and neither scenario added significantly to the explanation
of the variance. Occupational level was the demographic variable
that contributed the most to explained variance in the model.
The higher the level of ones occupation, the more difficulty with
work-family balance. The other demographic variables, gender
and presence of preschoolers, although statistically significant
predictors, did not add appreciably to the predictive power of
the model.
Comparing standardized betas is another way of indicating
the relative influence of paid work hours and perceived flexibility
on work-family balance and provide a basis for a cost-benefit
analysis for different means to promote work-family balance. By
dividing the standard deviation of paid work (9.14) by its standardized beta (2.40), we can see it would take a decrease of
22.8 hours of paid work per week to improve work-family balance by one standard deviation. By dividing the standard deviation of perceived flexibilitys (.78) by its standardized beta
(.39), we see that it would take a movement of 2.0 on a 5-point
flexibility scale to improve work-family balance by one standard
deviation. Then by dividing 22.8 paid work hours per week by
2.0, we see that a 1-point improvement on a 5-point flexibility
scale (e.g., from a little to some, from some to a great deal, etc.)
is equivalent to a decrease of about 11.4 paid work hours per
week, as far as they relate to improvement in work-family balance.
The personal benefit of perceived flexibility in the timing
and location of work was clearly demonstrated by the decreased
percentage of employees with work-family difficulty, given the
hours of a reasonable workweek (see Table 3). For example, for
those working 40 to 50 hours per week, only 28% of those with
both flextime and flexplace responded they had difficulty with
work-family balance, compared with 46% of those with neither
flextime nor flexplace, an advantage of 18%. Whereas only 29%
of those with flexplace had difficulty with work-family balance,
40% of those without flexplace had work-family balance difficulty, an advantage of 11%. In addition, only 29% of those with
flextime had work-family difficulty, compared with 44% of those
without flextime, an advantage of 15%. The personal benefit for
perceived flexibility was evident for both men and women. This
54

finding was particularly pronounced for men with preschoolers.

For this group, only 38% of those with both flextime and flexplace had work-family difficulty, compared with 59% of those
with neither flextime nor flexplace, an impressive advantage of
21%. The occupational group with the least perceived flexibility
(nonexempt hourly employees) indicated the greatest advantage
for flexibility. For this group, only 18% of those with both flextime and flexplace had work-family difficulty, compared with
42% with neither flextime nor flexplace, an advantage of 24%.
Break-point and balance-point analyses (see Table 4) demonstrated the business benefit of greater perceived flexibility.
Employees with perceived flexibility in the timing and location
of work were able to work longer hours than those without perceived flexibility before experiencing a difficulty in balancing
their work and family life. For example, the break point and
balance point for those with perceived flexibility in the timing
of work were 60 hours per week and 44 hours per week, respectively. The break point and balance point for those without
perceived flexibility in the timing of work were 52 hours per
week and 41 hours per week, respectively. Calculating the business benefit, in a heavy workload environment, perceived flexibility in the timing of work enables the employee to work an
extra day a week (60 hours per week with flextime 2 52 hours
per week without flextime 5 8 hours more work) before workfamily balance becomes difficult. It should be reemphasized that
this break point is conceptually the number of weekly work
hours during a peak workload period of short duration. It is not
thought of as the number of weekly work hours sustainable for
a long period of time.
The business benefit of perceived flexibility in the location
of work was most apparent for women with preschoolers. Their
work-family break point in a heavy workload environment with
flexplace was 43 work hours per week but without flexplace it
was 32 work hours per week, an advantage of 11 hours per week.
The regression equation indicated that the balance point for
women with preschoolers with flexplace was 21 work hours per
week, but without flexplace it was 21 work hour per week, an
advantage of 22 hours per week. It appears that, for mothers
with preschool children, perceived flexibility in the location of
work, coupled with a part-time work assignment, would yield
work and family balance. The greatest benefit for flexplace was
in the break point analysis for nonexempt hourly (paid for overtime) employees where there was an advantage of 26.3 hours
(see Table 4). The greatest benefit for flextime was in the balance
point analysis for managers with an advantage of 22.6 hours (see
Table 4).
Family Relations

Discussion
The data clearly indicate that perceived flexibility in the timing and location of work is related to positive outcomes from
both personal and family and business perspectives. Perceived
job flexibility, given a reasonable workweek, enables more employees to have work-family balance (personal and family benefit) and also enables employees to work longer hours before
impacting work-family balance (business benefit). In harmony
with spillover theory, these results empirically document that
after controlling for job hours, household work hours, gender,
marital status, and occupational level, perceived job flexibility is
significantly and positively related to work-family balance. Given a workweek of reasonable length, employees who perceive
flexibility in the timing and location of work have less difficulty
with work-family balance. In addition, employees with perceived
flexibility in the timing and location of work can work longer
hours before work-family balance becomes difficult. These findings have significant personal and family and organizational implications.

Personal and Family Implications

These findings linking work-family balance to perceived
flexibility, coupled with findings from previous research, indicate
the individual and family have a lot to gain from flexibility. The
literature indicates that possible benefits include less marital conflict, better monitoring of children, increased period of breastfeeding after the birth of an infant, less depression, and so forth
(see Beatty, 1996; Bolger et al., 1989; Bumpus et al., 1999;
Crouter et al., 1989, 1999; Lindberg, 1996). What is it about job
flexibility that proves beneficial to work-family balance?
One possible benefit of flextime and flexplace has to do with
a reduction in the stress associated with the daily commute. The
daily commute now consumes an average of about 45 minutes
per day (Bond et al., 1998). In a rigid environment, the commute
usually occurs during rush hour and can be very stressful. Problems are compounded in bad weather when the commute may
be dangerous but must be undertaken because there is no alternative. In a flexible environment, it is possible to schedule the
commute at a time other than rush hour and thus reduce stress.
In times of inclement weather, the flexplace employee may forgo
the commute altogether and telecommute safely from home. This
reduction in stress associated with the daily commute also may
explain part of the favorable results found in this study related
to perceived job flexibility.
Flexplace also provides more options for where an employee
might choose to live. Without flexplace, an employee has to live
within commuting distance of the work location, which is often
in or near large metropolitan areas. With flexplace an employee
would have greater opportunity to live in a small town or rural
area. One IBM survey respondent indicated that he worked electronically from a small town in Logan, Utah, but his department
was physically located in New York.
The results indicate perceived flexibility in the timing and
location of work to be particularly beneficial to parents. One
possible benefit is that flextime enables parents to schedule their
work hours to be more synchronized with the schedules of their
school-age children. For example, if the elementary school starts
at 9 am, a traditional 8 to 5 work schedule would require finding
child care both before and after school. With flexibility in the
scheduling of work hours, needed child care often can be limited
to after school. In some cases, where both spouses enjoy flex2001, Vol. 50, No. 1

time, the need for before- or after-school care may be completely

eliminated. By coordinating work schedules, one spouse could
care for the children before school and the other after school.
This simplifying of child-care logistics may enable parents of
school-age children to better manage work-family balance.
Flextime also may contribute to quality time, both at work
and at home. The highest quality work hours are not always
between the hours of 8 and 5. It may be that the best strategic
ideas come to one at 5 a.m. or at 11 p.m. Perhaps an important
report can be better written between 9 p.m. and midnight than
during normal work hours when interruptions occur frequently.
Likewise, the highest quality personal and family hours may not
always be outside the regular workday. A childs play may be
at 2 p.m., or the best time to hear about childrens school experiences may be right after they come home from school. Putting ones time to its best use, regardless of the time, may translate into better work-family balance.
Another major benefit of both flexplace and flextime may
be an increased capacity for parents to overlap work time effectively with unexpected child-care situations. For example, when
a child becomes ill at school, a parent in a rigid work environment would be stressed about leaving work and finding care for
the sick child. Many parents are forced to use their vacation days
or to call in sick to care for sick children. In fact, a recent study
shows that only 22% of sick days are actually used because the
employee is ill. Many sick days are used for dependent care
needs (Lang, 1998). With flextime, the parent can leave work to
pick up the ill child. With flexplace, the parent can continue to
work, albeit at a reduced pace, while caring for the ill child at
home. The parental peace of mind of knowing that one has the
flexibility to care for a sick child effectively may contribute to
a more favorable perception of work-family balance.
For those with responsibility to care for elders or to guide
adolescents, flexplace may be particularly beneficial. Elders and
adolescents often do not require constant care, but simply someone in the same home with whom they can interact from time
to time. The ability to work from home may save the expense
and alleviate the logistical difficulty of arranging for adult day
care. It also may provide the ability to monitor an adolescent
more effectively.
Many jobs include periods of peak work demands. In a rigid
work environment, these times make it extremely difficult simultaneously to meet the demands of work and family life because the work has to be done physically from the work location.
In such times, a worker might go to the office early in the morning, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the workplace, and return
home late at night. Workers in such conditions could go weeks
with little quality family time. By contrast, in a flexible work
environment, an employee can work the same long number of
hours, but intersperse several hours of quality family time each
day. For example, the individual may arise early and work from
home for a few uninterrupted hours at the beginning of the day.
Then he or she could be available to provide family members
breakfast and to get the children off to school or to other care
arrangements. In the evening, the flexible worker could be at
home for a couple of hours with the family during the dinner
hour and then continue work for several hours from home after
the children are in bed. This kind of flexibility might explain the
results suggesting that workers with flexibility in the timing and
location of work can work more hours without impacting workfamily balance.
55

Organizational Implications
Work and family issues are increasingly problematic in the
corporate world. These data present evidence that implementing
flexibility programs sufficient to improve employee perception
of flexibility by 1 point on a 5-point flexibility scale is statistically equivalent to reducing workload by 11 hours per week per
employee as related to perception of improving work-family balance. The fact that flexibility programs apparently help ameliorate these problems and require little or no expense to the company makes a strong business case for their adoption. Some common job flexibility programs that might be considered include
flexible work hours, meal-time flexibility, part-time work, job
sharing, compressed workweek, telecommuting, and the virtual
office.
If flexibility programs are so beneficial and inexpensive,
why is it that they are not more widely used? There are obstacles
to making flexplace and flextime culturally acceptable. Friedman, Christensen, and DeGroot (1998) report that many leaders
of organizations see work-family programs as a zero-sum game
in which every time an employees personal interests win, the
organization pays the price in its bottom line (p. 119). Flexible
work programs enabling employees to better manage the demands of their work and family lives may be irrelevant to some
business managers unless financial benefits to the business can
be demonstrated as well.
Another implication for business relates to the performance
evaluation systems of flexible workers. Adoption of increased
flexibility in the timing and location of work usually means that
the employee will be working less frequently at the same time
and place as the manager. This potential for change points out
the need for careful consideration of performance evaluation systems to assure they are based on the measurable results delivered,
rather than just on the subjective view of the manager. Some
managers hold the attitude, If I dont see my employees, how
do I know if they are working? The company that embraces
job flexibility also should move away from a face-time business culture to a results-oriented business culture (Friedman
et al., 1998), and performance evaluation systems must adapt to
include more specifically measured objectives.
Another issue may be the size of the organization. Larger
organizations may have greater resources to support the technology required for flexplace, and this type of flexibility may be
less prevalent in small companies. Also, larger organizations
have a greater pool of workers for coverage issues that might
arise from flextime. On the other hand, some types of small
companies may be flexible by their very nature (e.g., the
dot.com start-up companies) and even more suitable for flexibility than larger companies. In any case, further research addressing size of company needs to be conducted.
The differences noted by occupational level indicate that the
benefits of perceived flexibility vary according to the kind of job
and responsibility inherent in that job. For example, it appeared
that flexplace was of little benefit to managers, but of more importance to others. It also is interesting to note that the occupational group that could benefit most from flexibility (nonexempt hourly employees) is the group with least access to flexibility. In some cases, there are good reasons for less flexibility
(e.g., flexplace doesnt make sense for the manufacturing employee who is assembling computers on the line). Nonetheless,
it may be that companies could expend more effort to see how
to implement flexibility programs among lower level employees.
56

Finally, these data support the fact that work-family balance

is an issue for all employees. There is no longer a gender problem. The need for work-family balance and the benefits of flexibility are equally applicable to men and women.
An important aspect of this study for practitioners is that
much of the past work-family balance training in work settings
and other informal education has focused on how to manage
child-care responsibilities. These data suggest that training about
how to create opportunities for flexibility in the timing and location of work also should be given priority. Given the nature
of this material, however, practitioners should be forewarned that
there may be little patience for traditional classroom-type delivery programs. This kind of training may be addressed more appropriately with an interactive CD-ROM or Internet approach to
deliver the information.
In summary, the results of this study indicate that perceived
flexibility in the timing and location of work offers the promise
of enabling employees opportunities to better balance work and
family life in this era of increasing workload. These offerings
appear to be true win-win solutions to help mitigate the personal
toll of increased work demands. If visionary business leaders and
empowered individuals adopt greater flexibility, we may see the
end to the zero-sum game (Friedman et al., 1998) and set up
a virtuous cycle in which work-family balance programs leverage on each other to promote individual well-being, family
solidarity, and organizational success.

Limitations
Several limitations are apparent in this study. The respondents all worked for IBM in the United States. Employees of
IBM, in general, are more highly educated, have higher salaries,
and have more experience with computer technology than the
general population. For these reasons, the degree to which these
results may be generalized to other companies and in other parts
of the world is uncertain. Even if the IBM sample is representative of employees working for large corporations, it may not
be representative of the majority of men and women who work
for smaller firms or are self-employed. In addition, most IBM
employees work in or near urban centers, so the applicability of
this research to those who work in rural settings is uncertain
also.
This survey is one of many that IBM uses to address challenges in the work environment. At IBM, there is a 30-year
history of taking action based on survey data. One limitation to
self-report data particularly salient in this survey may be the
tendency for respondents to answer questions in a way to generate the changes they want, rather than answering the questions
at face value. There is also a question of how the 42% nonrespondent employees might systematically differ from the 58%
who responded. Although respondents seemed to be demographically representative, they may differ in other ways. It may be
that those who are working the longest hours did not have the
time to respond, so those with the most workload may be underrepresented here. On the other hand, it may be those with the
fewest work-family issues chose not to invest time in taking this
survey because they did not have a felt need to participate.
Another concern is the nature of self-report data in a survey,
especially when respondents are asked to estimate time in work
activities. Robinson and Godbey (1997) have shown that selfreport data of time in work activities are substantially inflated.
Even though this is an anonymous survey, employees may overestimate their hours to appear to be working hard. More central
Family Relations

to this study than work hours are employees perceptions of flexibility in their work arrangements, which are appropriately measured by self-report questions.
All these limitations point to the need for more research on
the influence of flextime and flexplace on work and work and
family balance. This research should expand to a variety of
groups. It might be fruitful to examine those in academic settings
as a group that has flexibility and could make suggestions about
implementing flexible work options. In addition, research using
nonsurvey (e.g., interview and observation) methodologies
might be useful.

Conclusion
We hear much about the changing nature of families as we
enter the 21st century. Less often do we attend to the substantial
transformations occurring in the way we work. Just as flexibility
in family processes diminishes potential family stress, flexibility
in work processes can help employees manage the contemporary
stresses associated with balancing work and family demands. In
fact, this study empirically documents how greater flexibility in
the timing and location of work decreases employees sense of
stress at meeting the needs of work and family. Data such as
these can reinforce managements efforts to provide greater flexibility in the workforce, especially when the results are so clear
and the costs of such efforts are relatively small. Just as important, these data may help encourage employees to take advantage
of the flexibility that is increasingly offered so that they can more
effectively care for their families. As more companies offer flexibility in the timing and location of work and more individuals
use that flexibility, the work-family imbalance that was problematic for employees in the twilight of the 20th century can become
the balance so many seek in the 21st century.

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E. Jeffrey Hill is an Associate Professor in the Department of

Marriage, Family, and Human Development at Brigham Young
University and works at IBM in Global Workforce Diversity.
Alan J. Hawkins is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Marriage, Family, and Human Development at Brigham Young
University.
Maria Ferris works at IBM in Global Workforce Diversity.
Michelle Weitzman works at American Express Corporation.
Received 1-4-00
Revised & Resubmitted 7-18-00
Accepted 7-19-00

Family Relations