Supervisor Attitudes About Employee Work/Life Issues
Supervisor Attitudes about Employee Work/Life Issues
Basic Concepts & Definitions
Supervisor attitudes about employee work/life issues are critical to the success of any work-family initiative and play an integral part of two of the four components of family-friendly workplaces: workplace culture and climate and workplace relationships (see Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia entries Family-Friendly Workplace and Work-Family Culture). In fact, one might say that supervisor attitudes are hurdles that must be cleared in order for an organization to achieve any level of “family-friendly”.
Supervisor Attitudes: Ajzen and Fishbein (2000) state “…that attitude is best considered to be a person’s degree of favorableness or unfavorableness with respect to a psychological object…” (p. 2). Other studies define attitudes with other variables of interest including (1) “organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organization-based self-esteem” (p. 439, Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004) and (2) “personal ethical commitment and employees’ commitment to organizational values” (Adam & Rachman-Moore, 2004). Attitude is hard to conceptualize, but in the context of this paper on supervisor attitudes about employee work/life issues, we define supervisor attitudes as those patterns of behaviors that demonstrate positive or negative regard towards employee work/life issues.
Workplace Culture and Climate: The linkage between supervisor attitudes and workplace culture and climate is explicit—workplace attitudes affect every facet of work-family policies and initiatives. Workplace culture and climate refers to those shared values and beliefs, which are relatively stable, that help a group make meaning. For more information, see the Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia entries Family-Friendly Workplace, Perceived Usability of Work/Family Policies, and Work-Family Culture.
Workplace Relationships: These relationships refer to the social support employees find at work in their
Basic Concepts & Definitions
Supervisor attitudes about employee work/life issues are critical to the success of any work-family initiative and play an integral part of two of the four components of family-friendly workplaces: workplace culture and climate and workplace relationships (see Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia entries Family-Friendly Workplace and Work-Family Culture). In fact, one might say that supervisor attitudes are hurdles that must be cleared in order for an organization to achieve any level of “family-friendly”.
Supervisor Attitudes: Ajzen and Fishbein (2000) state “…that attitude is best considered to be a person’s degree of favorableness or unfavorableness with respect to a psychological object…” (p. 2). Other studies define attitudes with other variables of interest including (1) “organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organization-based self-esteem” (p. 439, Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004) and (2) “personal ethical commitment and employees’ commitment to organizational values” (Adam & Rachman-Moore, 2004). Attitude is hard to conceptualize, but in the context of this paper on supervisor attitudes about employee work/life issues, we define supervisor attitudes as those patterns of behaviors that demonstrate positive or negative regard towards employee work/life issues.
Workplace Culture and Climate: The linkage between supervisor attitudes and workplace culture and climate is explicit—workplace attitudes affect every facet of work-family policies and initiatives. Workplace culture and climate refers to those shared values and beliefs, which are relatively stable, that help a group make meaning. For more information, see the Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia entries Family-Friendly Workplace, Perceived Usability of Work/Family Policies, and Work-Family Culture.
Workplace Relationships: These relationships refer to the social support employees find at work in their
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