Directions in Employment & Training Research & Evaluation: Employer-Based Work-Family Interventions

This brief begins by describing an employer’s role in designing the work environment and how employer decisions can impact key outcomes for workers and their families. It then provides background on work-family interventions and reviews relevant research on four employer-based work-family interventions: supportive supervision, stable scheduling, flexible work arrangements, and paid leave. It concludes with the implications of this work for employment and training research and evaluation.

The nature of the work environment has implications for work and non-work outcomes of employees, from earnings and employment to measures of work-family conflict, individual health, and child wellbeing. Employers’ substantial role in creating that environment warrants further research on employer-based interventions.

Employers play a critical role in creating workplace policies and in shaping the implementation of laws and regulations (e.g., minimum wage, paid leave laws). This role has increased relevance for low-wage and historically marginalized workers because they often work in occupations with greater job and schedule instability, fewer workplace protections, and fewer benefits. Variation in employers’ practices leads to a patchwork of policies and inconsistent standards across occupations and workplaces, often leaving many low-wage and marginalized workers without access to benefits.

Research demonstrating the effect of work-family interventions on low-income workers remains relatively limited; however, a healthy body of work on workers, in general, provides critical context for how researchers have conceptualized and evaluated work-family interventions. Theory and empirical evidence suggest that workplace interventions can impact work-family conflict by making the work environment more conducive to employees’ family obligations.

By impacting employee behavior, these interventions can, in turn, impact employer outcomes, such as productivity and overall retention. Studies show that interventions that support workers in reconciling work and family demands can reduce conflict and improve other employee outcomes and employer outcomes, such as overall productivity, retention, and revenues, directly or through effects on employee behavior.

(This report is 26 pages long.)

The researchers identified the following findings:

• Researchers have used a range of methods to evaluate work-family interventions. The selected studies demonstrate the range of methods used, including employer-based randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs, and natural experiments.
• Researchers consistently evaluate employee work and non-work outcomes but are less likely to measure employer outcomes. All selected studies evaluated effects on employee outcomes, and many consider health and family measures. Three of the example studies evaluate effects on employer outcomes, but most do not.
• Selected studies demonstrate mixed effects on employee and employer outcomes. The included supportive supervision studies show varying overall effects on employee health, family, and employment outcomes depending on the target population, with fewer improvements for low-wage workers.
• The few studies that evaluate employer outcomes found mixed results.
• Effects varied by employee characteristics. Studies show that the effectiveness of supportive supervision interventions might depend on employee characteristics such as employees’ family structure, caregiving requirements, baseline work/family conflict, and/or supervisor support.
• Low-wage workers and workers from historically marginalized groups appear to benefit from many work-family interventions.

The researchers identified the following recommendations for promising pathways for research and evaluation:

• Evaluate work-family interventions rigorously for low-wage workers.
• Invest in data collection.
• Update research on barriers to employment for low-wage workers.

Strategies for recruiting employers to participate in research and evaluation include the following:

• Identify employer characteristics that might increase their likelihood of participation in rigorous research studies.
• Consider recruiting a large employer with multiple sites and randomizing sites to different conditions.
• Communicate the potential economic and social returns on investment to implementing work-family policies and practices.
• Provide practical and actionable information to the employer.
• Involve employers and employees in developing intervention components.
• Take advantage of approaches that do not require recruiting employers.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Fumia, D.; Yau, E.
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies