The Initial Assignment Effect: Local Employer Practices and Positive Career Outcomes...

“Across many professions, employers modified traditional career and promotion systems by implementing work-family programs. Reduced hours with prorated pay were widely available to employees who have family responsibilities…. Introduction of these programs was driven by organizations’ need for legitimacy…and by their attempts to address the formidable challenges of attracting and retaining women…. However, employees often chose not to use work-family programs because they suspected such programs actually hindered rather than advanced their careers…. Although programs designed to assist traditionally disadvantaged groups do sometimes help vulnerable employees succeed… across sectors, employees who used these programs were at risk of fewer promotions… lower wages…, and lower wage growth than other employees” (p.291-292). (Abstractor: Author)

Full publication title: The Initial Assignment Effect: Local Employer Practices and Positive Career Outcomes for Work-Family Program Users

“Our findings support the importance of the initial assignment effect in the career outcomes of reduced-hours program users. Initial assignment to powerful supervisors is associated with positive career outcomes for program users in the form of higher performance pay and lower attrition. Initial assignment appears to trump factors at the time of program use, including exposure to powerful proximate supervisors. Furthermore, initial assignment effect is magnified for program users relative to non-users; as a result, upon program use, employees with high initial exposure do not suffer the decline in career outcomes experienced by other program users. This finding is robust to a range of modeling choices. We also find support for one particular mechanism underlying the initial assignment effect: exposure to powerful initial supervisors helps employees gain access to reputation-building project opportunities, which in turn allows them to build a significant track record with a wide range of supervisors and clients by the time they use the reduced-hours program” (p.299-300). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2011
• Author(s): Briscoe, Forrest; Kellogg, Katherine C.
• Organizational Author(s): No organizational author identified.
• Funding Source: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies