The Role of Empowerment on the Relationship between Flexible Work Arrangements, Work-Life Balance, and Job Satisfaction in the Canadian Public Sector

Some studies have shown strong support for positive outcomes related to flexible work arrangements such as improved performance and productivity (Bloom, Liang, Roberts, Ying, 2015; Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, Wilk, 2001; Laschinger, Leiter, Day, Gilin, 2009), while others have found detrimental effects including negative impacts on managing and separating work, life, and family demands (Cohen Single, 2001; Yuile, Chang, Gudmundsson, Sawang 2012). The typical approach to studying flexible work arrangements is to examine outcomes at the individual level among employees, assessing the relationship with performance and work-life, or work-family balance. This study examined the relationship between flexible work arrangements and job attitudes and work-life balance, simultaneously at both the individual and organizational unit level of analysis in the Federal public sector in Canada. The data is from responses captured five times over the span of 12 years within the public-sector workforce. The findings provide further contributions to the body of research on the job demands-resources model (Bakker Demrouti, 2007) and support the idea that some types of flexible work arrangements are positively related to work-life balance and job satisfaction, while also being positively mediated by structural empowerment of employees. These findings hold both at the individual and organizational level. Certain flexible work arrangements, namely flextime and telework, show consistent and positive relationships with work-life balance at both the individual and organizational unit level. Compressed work weeks, and income averaging, however, show signs of negative relationships and require further study. A critical finding of this study is that empowerment consistently fosters improved work-life balance and job satisfaction, providing strong evidence for practitioners to prioritize employee structural empowerment as part of strategic human resource plans.

Accepted: 2019-07-10T04:00:38Z