Copyright © 2007
BSA Publications Ltd®
Volume 21(4): 673–691
[DOI: 10.1177/0950017007082876]
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
Implications of family-friendly policies for
organizational culture: findings from two case
studies
■
Work/life balance
Work, employment and society
Samantha Callan
University of Edinburgh
ABSTRACT
Formal policies intended to enable employees to meet family commitments may
be important indicators of an organization’s intent, but they do not guarantee that
the informal culture is supportive of employees’ families or their attempts to manage occasionally conflicting priorities (Lewis, 1997; Lewis and Lewis, 1996). Two
case studies were conducted to identify salient aspects of the culture of two organizations and the extent to which changes in culture result from the implementation of family-friendly policies. The wider issue of the ease with which purposive
cultural change or organizational learning may be engendered to ameliorate
employees’ work–life balance is also considered.
KEY WORDS
case studies / family-friendly policies / organizational culture / organizational learning/
work–life balance
Introduction
T
his article will describe the extent to which family-friendly policies changed
particular facets of culture in two organizations and how these facets articulate with each other. Obviously the particularities of these two companies
are of only limited interest and these findings are useful to the extent that they
indicate possible roadmaps for change in organizations with similar cultural
facets. They also highlight the difficulties inherent in the notion of cultural
change despite the popularity of the concept in the management literature
(Barth, 2005; Parker, 2000). It is becoming a commonplace assertion that a
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supportive organizational culture is required to ensure that the intent of
family-friendly policies is realized in practice (Lewis, 1997; Lewis and Cooper,
2005; Rapoport et al., 2002) and, when looking at the impact of policies on
employees’ ability to balance their work and family life, the refrain is ‘look at
the culture, has it changed?’ However, this article considers the possibility that
asserting the need for culture change overlooks the difficulties such a project
presents (Coutu, 2002; Lewis and Taylor, 1996) and underestimates the rigour
required to ‘get under the skin’ of an organization, discern different aspects of
culture and how they articulate with each other and then chart the shifts
encouraged or provoked by some intervention such as the implementation of
policies. It would be inappropriate to use the language of explicit causation in
this context. Cultures are not bounded entities (Parker, 2000), sealed microcosms to be scrutinized before and after the introduction of policies. However
there is merit in looking for trends, the direction of movement in the culture
and employees’ perceptions of their ‘lived’ experience of these shifts, which
necessitated the use in the studies of both respondent recall and a limited
longitudinal dimension.
The readership of this journal will be familiar with the demographic and
labour market changes in Western society (Dex, 2003; La Valle et al., 2002)
which have necessitated the introduction of family-friendly policies and these
will not be detailed here. The rationale for introducing such policies tends to be
framed in terms of gender equity and equal opportunity (Bailyn, 2003;
Rapoport et al., 2002) and/or business case arguments (Dex and Scheibl, 1999).
The way women and managers in the case study organizations perceive and
experience policies will be considered in the light of this.
Family-friendly policies (referred to hereafter simply as ‘policies’) have been
defined by Simkin and Hillage (1992: 13) as a ‘formal or informal set of terms
and conditions which are designed to enable an employee to combine family
responsibilities with employment’ and can usefully be subcategorized into:
a)
b)
c)
leave arrangements (e.g. maternity, paternity, parental and bereavement or
compassionate leave),
flexible working arrangements (e.g. part-time, staggered hours, job share,
term-time contracts, flexitime, compressed working week, reduced hours,
annualized hours and homeworking), and
workplace facilities (e.g. crèches, nurseries, subsidized childcare and counselling/stress management provision).
Hochschild (1997) and Bailyn (1993) however, distinguish between two categories of policies or benefits. The first category make it easier for employees
with family responsibilities to spend time and energy at work whereas the second category consists of policies that create flexibility in location and time and
varying arrangements for personal leave. These aim to provide employees with
more control over the conditions of work and allow employees themselves to
attend to family needs. Hochschild found that the first category of benefits was
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in great demand in the companies she studied, however very few workers
applied for the second type of benefit which offer ‘more unconflicted time at
home’ (1997: 22). Policies may, in reality, be designed to elicit high levels of
commitment from workers and not lead to better work–life balance (White
et al., 2003).
Moreover, many argue that if work-life initiatives are part of a genuine strategy to help workers balance their conflicting priorities then the whole issue ‘has
to establish links with other cherished corporate values and goals’ (Gonyea and
Googins, 1992: 224; Lee et al., 2000) and be part of a culture change in the organization itself (Kirchmeyer, 2000; Lewis and Lewis, 1996). Rapoport et al. (2002)
describe organizational settings which boast an array of flexible benefits where
people still struggle to manage work–life conflicts. They caution that even where
change appears to be proceeding in the desired strategic direction, old, deeply
embedded, implicit assumptions can continue to influence concrete work practices. Without shifts in what is referred to in this article as ‘cultural facets’, barriers to the adoption of policies and the pervasiveness of long hours working will
remain. Lewis and Taylor (1996: 112) contend that ‘organizational cultures are
grounded in deep-seated beliefs about gender, the nature of work and the ideal
employee, which reflect societal norms and are often implicit or even unconscious
and are therefore difficult to challenge.’ They and others (Bailyn, 1993, 2003;
Rapoport et al., 2002) advocate rendering explicit and challenging some of the
basic and often anachronistic assumptions underpinning these cultures.
This article will briefly consider what family-friendly policies offer to
employees and why culture is increasingly becoming a preferred site of inquiry.
The methodology employed to access the basic assumptions which are constitutive of culture and the two case study organizations themselves will then be
described. Five key facets of culture in each organization are discussed before
attention is turned to the influence on these of policies, in terms of shifts in them
and in the way they articulate with each other. Finally, the merits of a cultural
change paradigm for ensuring lasting improvement in employees’ ability to
manage their work and home responsibilities will be critically appraised.
Organizational culture
Schein (1992: 12) defines the culture of an organization as:
the pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough
to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way
to perceive, think and feel in relation to these problems.
Schein’s formulation implies that there is some deep level of structural stability in the group which is less conscious and therefore less tangible and visible. He argues that this stability partly flows from the patterning or integration
of key elements, such as values, behaviours, rituals, climates etc., into a larger,
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internally coherent whole and proposes a three-level model of culture1 which
differentiates and describes the three levels at which culture manifests itself: visible artefacts; espoused values and underlying assumptions. This article follows
others (Lewis, 1997; Pemberton, 1995) in referring to underlying assumptions
as ‘root’ culture; it distinguishes these from more diffuse values and is concerned not just with single facets of each culture but the way they exist in combination, as ‘single elements of a paradigm do not explain how an organization
can function, we need to see the combination of assumptions’ (Schein, 1992:
37). However, Schein’s integrationist approach to culture is limited (Martin,
1992) as it implies an unrealistic level of consensus across the organization and
allows no room for ambiguity. This article will describe individuals who have
contested the culture, the majority of whom have remained within the organization but occupy a dissident position. It will also draw important distinctions
between the managerialist and employee perspectives on the effect of policies
and highlight enduring gender differences.
The inherent stability associated with culture implies that change will be
problematic. Schein describes how ‘identifying and analysing deeply embedded,
unconscious and shared mental structures temporarily destabilises the cognitive
and interpersonal world and releases large amounts of anxiety’ (1992: 16). He
also makes clear the close relationship between organizational learning, development and planned change, stating that ‘when we speak of cultural change in
organizations we are referring to transformational learning, and change of this
magnitude requires people to give up long held assumptions and to adopt radical new ones’ (Coutu, 2002: 106). Organizations embarking on learning and
development processes have to do so acknowledging the contradictions of stability, learning and change (Schein, 1992: 363) as there will always be ‘a large
group of people who are willing to pay a high price for stability’ (Coutu, 2002).
The inherent paradox surrounding learning is that anxiety inhibits learning
but is necessary for it to take place. Schein explains this by describing two kinds
of anxiety associated with learning: learning anxiety and survival anxiety.
Learning anxiety, the fear of trying something new for the first time, the concern that an innovative working arrangement may cast us as a deviant in the
group we belong to, can threaten self-esteem and even identity. It is the basis
for resistance to change. Its intensity is such that learning (profound, ‘root’ cultural change) will only take place when it is exceeded by survival anxiety, ‘the
horrible realization that in order to make it you are going to have to change’
(Coutu, 2002: 104). This is one reason why Schein cautions those who underestimate the difficulties of effecting cultural change.
A key cultural issue which emerged in the two studies was the existence
of what is referred to in the literature as the ‘ideal worker type’ (Bailyn, 1993,
2003; Lewis, 1997; Rapoport et al., 2002), a gendered construction as it
‘embodies assumptions about competence that value stereotypically masculine
ways of working’ (Rapoport et al., 2002: 170). Outdated and essentially male
patterns of work assume that employees are constantly able to ‘put work
first’ because there are no other areas of their life which conflict with the
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occupational priority (Finch, 1983). However, competing commitments have
changed the reality of most people’s circumstances without necessarily challenging this implicit norm. Alternatives to this construction of the ideal
worker have been proposed, most notably the integrated worker type. Bailyn
(1993) and Rapoport et al. (2002) argue that undergirding the construction
of the ideal worker is the conceptual separation of the spheres of work and
family which ignores ‘spillover’ from one domain to another (such as the profound effects of the psychological demands each entails). When the de facto
integration of these spheres is acknowledged and when commitments to family are not seen to imply a lesser commitment to occupation then, they argue,
the integrated worker type will become an acceptable alternative to the ideal
worker type.
A new vision of an ideal employee is required … their value lies not in their ability
to put work first but in their ability to operate as an individual who reconnects work
and family in ways that benefit both. By valuing the private sphere, its values and
skills, and incorporating them into work process design this leads to synergy.
(Fletcher and Bailyn, 1996: 265)
When conducting the case studies the existence and characteristics of an
ideal worker type was a key concern. Any change in the construction of this
type, as a result of family-friendly policies, was considered to be a significant
indicator of systemic, cultural change.
Methodology
The case studies mainly consisted of three rounds of interviews in each of the
two organizations. A total of 44 respondents (21 male and 23 female) were
interviewed in one of the research and development sites of an international
pharmaceuticals company, PharMerger. Just under half of these respondents
line-managed between one and 17 other staff. Another 50 (29 male and 21
female) respondents were interviewed from two business units of a global engineering company, EngCorp, one third of whom had some managerial responsibility. In both case studies interviewees were sampled to be as representative as
possible of the corporate hierarchies, to identify any differences between the
managerialist and employee perspectives. The PharMerger site’s employee profile was highly diverse and included research scientists, production engineers,
security officers and administrative and ancillary service staff, all of whom were
represented in the sample. The composition of the EngCorp sites, and the samples thereof were, unsurprisingly, dominated by a wide range of manual and
non-manual engineering functions but also included commercial managers, secretarial and maintenance staff. The global nature of both companies meant that
they recruited locally, nationally and internationally, depending on the seniority of the appointments (accordingly employees’ experiences of working conditions in other contexts were distinctly heterogeneous).
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There was a limited longitudinal dimension (to both studies), in that
respondent recall was elicited and some 18 months elapsed between initial and
final interviews. A third of respondents from each organization were involved
in all three rounds. The studies began after family-friendly policies had been
introduced, although some had been implemented shortly before and others
were refined as the studies progressed. A straightforward ‘before and after’
study of the effect of policies on culture was not intended, rather a search for
trends, the direction of movement in the culture and employees’ perceptions of
these shifts.
Also treated as data were documentary evidence (annual reviews, graduate
careers guides and other publicity materials), external media representations and
findings from internal climate surveys. Transcribed interviews were coded, and
higher level categories and finally core categories generated, following the tenets
of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Grounded theory is considered
to be especially appropriate for investigating and working with organizational
cultures and other situated processes such as decision making and change
(Martin and Turner, 1986: 144; Locke, 2001: 95) because it facilitates the mapping of ideas as they move on, captures members’ intentions as well as their
actions and provides a multifaceted account of the organizational context itself.
Organizational discourses are indicative of values and assumptions (Lewis,
1997), and the grounded theory framework summarized here largely emerged
through analysis of interview material. The framework consists of an explanation of how five facets of ‘root’ culture, underlying values and behaviour,
emerged and acted in combination with each other in each organization and the
nature and extent to which these were affected by the implementation of policies. Care was also taken to distinguish between aspects of organizational life
that appeared to be embedded at an unconscious level but which were, in reality, managerially sustained for commercial advantage.
The case study organizations
PharMerger is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, with
premises in 45 countries spread across six continents. The UK has 14 office and
production locations and two research and development sites, one of which is
the subject of this study. There are three distinct eras in the history of this site
which have shaped the culture of the current organization. The site was the subject of a takeover at the end of the 1980s and then a merger in the mid-1990s.
However, in terms of the approach to family-friendly working, the most senior
HR respondent said, ‘The site’s family-friendly emphasis has grown progressively, it’s not as if it “came in” at any point.’ Flexitime has been available since
the early 1980s but specific policies relating to family-friendly employment conditions were introduced soon after the merger with a pharmaceutical giant and
are considered by employees to be indicative of the latter’s desire to control and
systematize working patterns. Although the consensus seems to be that the
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original company was less family-friendly than PharMerger is now, many suggested that this could be due to the passage of time, rather than to divergent
approaches of the two companies. Any company aspiring to attract and retain
the best employees (as PharMerger certainly does) now has to provide an environment which is more family-friendly than in previous decades.
HR professionals admitted that competitors in the pharmaceutical industry
offering a high level of family-friendly provision are to some extent driving the
continuous improvement of their policies (similarly, McKee et al., 2000, found
that employers in the oil and gas industry compete with each other but also
share information through tacit and formal networking in the setting of policies). They were representative of the corporate perspective in that they considered that provision was generous, ‘above the statute’ and that employees should
be content with it. Managers, especially those who had responsibility for several members of staff, rather than just one or two, tended to share this opinion.
Other research has examined the extent to which managers are gatekeepers to
policy implementation (Bond et al., 2002; Dex and Scheibl, 2002; Yeandle
et al., 2003) and this study confirmed previous findings about the highly determinative nature of their discretion. Respondents typically stated that the company itself could not put more policies in place but that it was ‘down to the
managers’ and how they used them. Managers in turn felt somewhat constrained by policies, usually in the sense that policy provision was too generous
if fully implemented and that it could hinder their ability to deliver against
demanding targets.
Many parents needed to fit work around school hours and flexible working policies offered opportunities to finish early and begin again in the early
evening. These opportunities, almost exclusively taken up by women, had no
adverse consequences for administrative staff but commonly more senior staff
had to work officially part-time and be willing if necessary to allow work to
intrude (e.g. by remotely accessing email and being available on the telephone)
outside their contracted hours. Individual employees also had tightly set targets
to reach which, in some cases, precluded the take-up of policies. One scientist
who occasionally needed additional flexibility to attend hospital appointments
with a disabled child, found that the pressure to reach targets strongly disincentivized her from using policies and necessitated using annual leave instead.
She eventually left the company, citing the pressure of targets as strongly influencing her decision. Such an employee effectively contested certain facets of the
culture, such as the ‘ideal worker type’, which are described below.
Significantly, female managers also contested the notion that the organization was family-friendly where ongoing progression was hindered by policy takeup, e.g. working slightly reduced hours. More generally, career-oriented women
in the organization, whose caring responsibilities routinely impacted upon their
working hours (that is, they worked part-time or flexible hours) expressed a sense
that they had to downplay family concerns in order to conform to what was
referred to earlier as the ‘ideal worker type’. This indicates the extent to which
this construct is essentially overlaid with stereotypically ‘male’ characteristics
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although there were many men in PharMerger who usually required some degree
of flexibility in order to fulfil more limited caring responsibilities.
Turning to the engineering company, EngCorp, this has a similarly international presence. The two business units included in the study are located in
the town considered to be the global headquarters of the company. EngCorp
has a reputation in the area of being a ‘caring’ company which ‘puts people
first’, and many respondents described their jobs as the best they had ever had
because of their employment conditions. The phrase ‘family-friendly’ was not
one with which all employees were familiar; however, most described the flexibility which was an integral part of working for EngCorp, and the understanding which the company had repeatedly shown for their family considerations.
Parents used unpaid days allowed by parental leave policies to negotiate nineday fortnight arrangements or annualized hours provision to be absent during
school holidays.
Respondents described a strong sense of company identity and talked about
there being a definable and pervasive culture as a result of shared and recognized
values. It is important to reiterate the distinction here between ‘root’ culture and
more diffuse values. The ‘emic’ or insider view of culture usually conflates and
confuses these two terms whereas the role of the researcher is to identify underlying assumptions which are largely determining insiders’ values but of which
few may be aware. Again, this need not presuppose an uncontested model of culture (or omniscience on the part of the researcher). As with PharMerger, several
individuals stood out as dissenting to the majority view of the company.
Managers and employees tended to view policy implementation somewhat differently and women’s experiences were usually qualitatively different to those of
their male counterparts. The company acknowledges that it is ‘male-dominated’
and is consciously attempting to attract and retain female engineers. However,
career-minded female employees considered that, notwithstanding policies, their
progress was curtailed as long as they were not working in the same way as their
male counterparts, that is, according to the ideal worker type. In both companies, many women who were interviewed had largely internalized this type,
although it conflicted with their domestic responsibilities (and men’s who were
primary carers, for example, widowers), as was evident in their uncontested
acceptance of work’s intrusion into their home life if working part-time.
Root cultural facets
The cultural facets which were identified will be analysed by considering similarities and differences between the case studies and treated as five contrasting
or similar pairs, italicized when first introduced and denoted as P1, E1 etc.,
with the initial letter referring to the organization to which they pertain
(PharMerger and EngCorp respectively). Implications of these cultural facets
for differences in orientation towards family-friendly policies in each of the two
organizations are summarized in Table 1.
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Table 1
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Summary of differences in orientation towards family-friendly policies
PharMerger
EngCorp
Policies seen as one facet of a constantly
changing employment landscape (P1),
employees comfortable with (and expect)
high profile publicity campaigns for new policies
Preference for seeing policies modelled by
exemplars (rather than ‘trumpeted’), then
taken up in a way that only gradually affects
working patterns (E1)
Expectation of continuous improvement in
working conditions therefore a sense of
entitlement (P2) to generous policy provision
(in comparison with similar employers)
Assumption that policies should formalize
existing arrangement and should continue to
facilitate ‘care in a crisis’ (E2) rather than
catalyze significant changes in working patterns
Perception that individualized working
patterns (P3) should be facilitated and given
greater legitimacy by policies
The sense of a need to preserve equality (E3)
dominates attitudes towards policies, which are
seen as a means of ensuring consistency
Greater time sovereignty (P4), the sine qua
non of working in this industry, is considered
to be facilitated by policies
Informal, more tacitly agreed arrangements, less
infringing on equality are preferred, with policies
seen as reducing autonomy (E4)
Individualized working patterns facilitated by
policies can be seen as indicative of lower
commitment and ambitious employees
fear take-up will be penalized in career
terms (P5)
Notions of professionalism (E5)
disincentivize take-up of policies which facilitate
keeping employees in ‘holding positions’ in their
careers
Unlike the first case study company, EngCorp has not been involved in
recent mergers but both business units have, for different reasons, experienced
a level of change which was atypical for EngCorp over the last four years. (One
was particularly caught up in the global ramifications of the terrorist attacks on
the US on September 11 2001, and affected by a large number of redundancies.)
A company which used to provide a ‘job for life’ has become a far less secure
working environment. Despite acknowledging the reality of global and industrial shifts and expressing as a value the need to stay abreast of them, the first
underlying assumption or cultural facet of EngCorp to be described is its profound conservatism, favouring gradualism with respect to change (E1). The
preference of most people within the company is for change to take place as a
result of ‘evolution not revolution’ as phrased by one interviewee. This preference for gradualism is associated, by many respondents, with the image of reliability and predictability EngCorp projects to its stakeholders. ‘It tends to do
things very cautiously, carefully, and in a considered fashion, it’s the EngCorp
way’ (male engineer). Managers, and fellow workers, were often initially resistant, even with policies in place, to employees changing their working patterns,
and became only very gradually more accepting.
Looking at the effect of policies on this facet of culture, it emerged that
changes in working practices which might be legitimized by policies were being
effected very tentatively. Policies had been introduced and implemented in a very
conservative manner; for example, they were used to formalize arrangements
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which were already in place, protecting them against adjustment by different,
incoming line managers. Paternity leave was introduced at the statutory minimum although other policies went well beyond the statute. This was because giving fathers’ specific leave was considered by management to conflict with
previous thinking on the subject which was that EngCorp’s holiday entitlement
was very high and obviated the need for paternity leave. Employees contested
this view, considering it symptomatic of EngCorp’s lack of recognition of men’s
growing desire to be more involved with their children and another example of
EngCorp’s underlying conservatism.
It became clear that policies had not been rolled out particularly publicly,
they had been communicated in a fairly muted and implicit way. EngCorp values or emphasizes ‘being good’ rather than looking or sounding good so highprofile campaigns intended to send out a strong signal that the company
wanted to encourage family-friendly working would not, it became clear, exert
leverage on reluctant managers or those hesitant to take up policies. Engineers
and managers who were female noted that there were still few role models of
flexible working and others described how successful exemplars ‘cut more ice’
in terms of encouraging wider take-up of flexible working than highly visible
information campaigns which tended to be treated with cynicism. However, it
was clear that some combination of these two approaches would be necessary
to impact the conservative culture. An unusually high profile would need to be
given to success stories to make personnel aware that policies were being implemented. The company had to be seen to walk the talk and talk the walk,
otherwise large sections of the workforce would be unaware of the possible
effect of policies and change would be, characteristically, glacially slow.
PharMerger culture however was characterized by an imperative for
change (P1), typical in the international pharmaceutical industry, and internalized by employees as being desirable although many found it problematic at a
personal level. (Despite huge profits the underlying reality and cause for anxiety is that each company is only as good as its next drug, as the patent for any
bestseller that reaches the market will expire.) Since the takeover and merger
the underlying assumption is that employees should have an enthusiasm for
ongoing transformation, even though many now exhibit unambiguous signs of
change-fatigue. Moreover, because priorities are constantly shifting, although
work–life balance seemed to be high on the company’s agenda at the beginning
of the study, by the final stages the issue was considered to be somewhat passé.
The most senior, board-level respondent (a mother of two school-age children)
described how, in such a rapidly moving industry, where long hours and travel
were the norm, people needed to be constantly and publicly encouraged to
make use of policies. ‘Someone at a senior level needs to be heralding, blowing
the trumpet on an ongoing basis, making sure everyone’s wellbeing is taken
care of.’ When this had been the case, those with supportive managers had
begun to adjust their working patterns and to resemble the integrated worker
type described earlier. However, once the focus moved away onto another
major change exercise, these same people seemed to switch back to
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PharMerger’s ideal worker type where exhibiting the primacy of work was the
highest priority. This concept of alternating between the ideal worker type and
the integrated worker type shall be revisited below.
PharMerger’s culturally rooted imperative for change is reflected in the
dynamic policy making process and employees’ reactions to it. Human resource
(HR) managers are aware that their benefits package requires constant improvement in order to attract and retain the best employees but staff were not in agreement about the extent to which they achieved this and many did not perceive
policies to be ground-breaking. This was due to the high sense of entitlement, (P2)
the second facet of root culture identified. Rewards and opportunities for
advancement appear to be substantial in the pharmaceutical industry, and when
an employer explicitly states that their staff are ‘elite’, employees begin to expect
concomitant treatment. However, this sense of entitlement clashes with the primacy of work and the expression of the ideal worker type. Although PharMerger
provided policies to ease the management of conflicting priorities, many employees still considered that they did not do enough, because taking up the policies
would cast them as non-ideal employees. For example, one female team leader
wanting reduced hours was precluded from doing so as she would have had to
leave the management career track and go onto the scientific track, perceived to
be the route through the company for failed managers. Policies reinforced the
strong sense of entitlement but had not reduced the potential for clash between
this facet of culture and the primacy of work. Indeed managers perceived one to
be a corrective for the other. Such a competitive industry requires the provision
of leading edge policies but if policies are implemented to their fullest extent
many managers considered that they would be unable to meet their targets. Many
managers perceived PharMerger to be too generous to its employees and despite
having a high sense of entitlement themselves they resented staff whose use of
policies seemed untempered by the culturally rooted principle of the primacy of
work.
EngCorp, on the other hand, set limits to entitlement in a way which was
very illuminating for this particular study. The company was considered to be
caring but interview data revealed that people implicitly expected ‘care in a crisis’ (E2) rather than ‘care in business as usual’. Employees wanting to work flexibly, who encountered resistance from managers, notwithstanding the
implementation of policies, struggled with the contradiction inherent in this distinction. Policies appeared to support working patterns which would make it
easier to manage work and domestic priorities but, again, the primacy of work
appeared to ‘trump’ these considerations despite the underlying assumption that
EngCorp was a caring company. EngCorp has historically been very accommodating of difficult family circumstances. One interviewee’s wife had died leaving
him with two pre-school children and EngCorp retained him at full pay while
allowing significant periods of absence, then highly flexible working arrangements. However, this was an example of ‘care in a crisis’, not an example of their
willingness to facilitate the management of routine work and family issues.
Policies governing ‘care in a crisis’ have been in place for a very long time and
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more explicitly family-friendly provision which was recently introduced is not
considered to have shifted this cultural facet to ‘care in business as usual’.
In order to understand this lack of shift, it is helpful to look at another root
cultural facet of EngCorp, its emphasis on equality (E3), which contrasts with
PharMerger’s culture of individuation (P3). As stated earlier, policies have been
used at EngCorp to formalize pre-existing flexible working arrangements but
they are also perceived as a means of ensuring consistency and fairness where
managerial discretion is highly influential. The introduction of policies has been
interpreted more as an acknowledgement of people’s desire to be treated consistently and less as an acknowledgement of diversity of circumstances. The
assumption that equality should prevail is reflected in one business unit’s lack
of a formal distinction between manual and non-manual employees but is most
clearly seen in reactions to employees being treated differently. Female engineers who worked part-time were resented because their working day appeared
to be easier. Similarly one interviewee described how some single fathers were
being allowed to work flexibly during the summer holidays but this was being
done very quietly, and not as a result of policy, because ‘everybody would want
it’ (female training manager). Respondents often expressed a belief that EngCorp
do not advertise policies because they are concerned that take-up would be too
great, although unmanageable take-up was not encountered in other research
(Dex and Scheibl, 1999) or evident in take-up rates of flexible working after the
April 2003 legislation. The expectation, which flows from the emphasis on
equality, is that everyone will want the same conditions. So if care in ‘business
as usual’ became a culturally acceptable option, the underlying assumption is
that everyone would expect to be (and should be) allowed to work in a way
which allows them to manage routine family responsibilities to a far greater
degree than is currently the case. Despite their intention to accommodate individual employees’ particular circumstances, policies have reinforced the culture
of equality, rather than challenging it.
In PharMerger contrastingly, it is assumed that employees should be
treated as discrete individuals. The benefits package is tailored to each person’s requirements and in-house publications stress every employee’s uniqueness. The appraisal process, which determined bonus levels, disregarded
team working and focused exclusively on meeting individual targets (which
could however be greatly affected by others’ contributions). Such practices
might in themselves simply be treated as HR management devices for reward
and control. It is important to make the distinction here between practices
with this underlying purpose just mentioned and the manifestation of what
also appeared in this case to be a deeper, cultural, assumption, bound up
with the nature of research which relies on the specialized talent of individuals. Employees’ implicit understanding of the way their industry worked
profoundly influenced their attitude to policies. This is well illustrated with
regard to policies, which employees assumed should be applied in a bespoke
way to facilitate individualized patterns of work. However, the presence of
a strong ideal worker type specifying stereotypical arrangements often
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precluded the emergence of idiosyncratic patterns. The ongoing effect of
policies on the underlying conflict between these two cultural facets, in terms
of resolution or exacerbation, was examined. Although policies had been
written in a way that legitimizes treating employees as unique individuals,
occasionally they constrained a manager’s ability to do this, especially if they
set limits to provision which a manager might have exceeded. Their net effect
has been to reinforce this aspect of culture but the presence of a strong ideal
worker type has acted to reduce workforce heterogeneity. This will be
described after the fourth cultural facet which both organizations share, the
emphasis on autonomy (P4, E4).
Although PharMerger is very driven by targets, people assumed that they
should have significant control over their time, as might be expected in a workforce with such a high proportion of scientists. The implicit importance of
autonomy was also seen in all sections of EngCorp. One way this manifested
itself was in the preference of manual workers to self-manage their work and
non-work responsibilities without recourse to policy. Arrangements without a
family-friendly rationale, such as shift-working and time-off–in-lieu, were far
more popular mechanisms as they obviate the need to approach management
to ask for something which could be construed as a favour, even though it was
in reality an official company policy. This is an important factor to bear in mind
when looking at reasons for the lack of take-up of policy in organizations. It is
not necessarily an attractive option because of peer pressure, the fear of damaging career prospects, or a lack of a sense of entitlement. Recourse to policy
might be seen as in some way an abdication of responsibility, especially for
those men who prefer to ‘sort themselves out’. One manual employee was
building up time-off-in-lieu for when his child was born so that he would not
need to go ‘cap in hand to management’.
A key theoretical implication derived from a comparison of the differential
ways in which the cultural emphasis on autonomy plays out in the two case study
companies, was that it can be highly misleading to conflate autonomy with flexibility. Although flexitime facilitated autonomy or time sovereignty in PharMerger,
stereotypically male patterns of working, such as shift-work and overtime, were
threatened by it in EngCorp. Even female manual workers in EngCorp showed
very little interest in taking up policies and talked about informal ways of making
up time which could be facilitated by the overtime system.2 Union representatives
at EngCorp often perceived flexibility as a threat rather than as an opportunity.
Management requests for flexibility went alongside proposals for all-inclusive pay
deals which entailed the loss of overtime. From the union perspective, losing overtime reduced their bargaining power. Representatives were concerned that
requests for flexibility might mean employees working late or at weekends to meet
quotas, without remuneration. Of fundamental concern is the issue of autonomy.
If overtime was bought out, a lever for negotiation was lost and flexible working
might involve longer hours for less money in real terms.
The other cultural facet common to both organizations and described in
other studies looking at cultural barriers to more family-friendly working was
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the presence of a strong ideal worker type (P5, E5). The ideal worker type is
considered to be bound up with notions of professionalism which ‘sustain definitions of selfhood that elevate the workplace over home life’ (Kerfoot, 2002:
93). Typically those conforming to this type did not visibly structure their
working day around family matters and routinely worked long hours to ‘get the
job done’. The type was stronger and more evident in PharMerger and was a
source of workforce homogeneity despite the culture of individuation.
Respondents did not appear to contest that advancement in the company necessitated this approach as willingness to relocate, travel and allow work to
intrude into home life (e.g. by clearing email backlogs in the evening and being
available on the telephone) were considered to be essential. In both organizations, very little shift was apparent in this facet, because
a)
b)
organizational survival seems to depend on it to a large extent, and
it is closely associated with the ideal worker image, a culturally validated
model for action with greatest implications for people’s identities.
People’s identities, how they see themselves, and their image, how they
want others to see them (Hatch and Schultz, 1997; Whetten and Godfrey,
1998) are often bound up with their performing the role of the ideal worker.
Being professional entails elevating one’s work identity above all other aspects
of selfhood (Kerfoot, 2002) but taking up policies explicitly acknowledges
divided loyalties.
In both organizations, policies could and had been implemented to allow
managers to work reduced hours but those not working full-time perceived
that they occupied a dissident position and would not advance further.
Comparatively speaking, the integrated worker type was more acceptable in
EngCorp, where the ideal worker type was less strong, however its adoption
implied a curtailment of progress. At best, policies appeared to facilitate the
keeping of employees in ‘holding positions’ until they could return to more
conventional working patterns. At worst, taking up policies could mean a permanent, rather than temporary, shift to a non-managerial scale, as it was anticipated might be the case in PharMerger. In the latter organization, as described
earlier, employees under supportive managers, who believed that work could
and should be explicitly integrated with family considerations, alternated
between types. When board-level pronouncements supported work–life balance
initiatives and workload pressure lessened they began to conform to the integrated worker type. However, when organizational attention refocused on the
need for profound workplace transformation, itself a source of stress, people
reverted to the ‘safer’ ideal worker type. In this organization, as in many others, it did not appear possible for senior management attention to stay fixed on
employee wellbeing while pursuing other priorities. In terms of employee wellbeing, however, it is arguably during periods of change and heightened workload pressure that the concern with work–life balance most needs to be
explicitly stated on an ongoing basis.
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Conclusion
Three issues emerge from these two case studies. The first concerns the
assertion in the literature (Bailyn, 1993; Rapoport et al., 2002) that an integrated worker type will become an acceptable alternative to the ideal
worker type when the de facto integration of work and family spheres is
acknowledged. This research challenges this assertion as it indicated that
where there is a strong ideal worker type (P5, E5) policies do not tend to
effect a permanent shift from it to the integrated worker type but may allow
for an alternating between the two types. It may be more realistic to see
these two types as co-existing with each other, rather than one evolving into
the other when conditions are right. The integrated worker type might
become a latent model acquiring salience under certain conditions, without
completely supplanting the ideal worker type. Where the ideal worker type
is weaker, the integrated worker type may be an acceptable model for those
willing to plateau in their careers for a period of time but not for those who
wish to advance, for example, during child rearing years when policy takeup may be most necessary. Such an approach to these two types is also consistent with earlier comments about the lack of consensus genuinely existing
throughout an organization.
Second, cultural facets, basic assumptions, will strongly influence the best
way to propagate a family-friendly agenda if that is the genuine intent of an
organization. In organizations like PharMerger where there is a strong ideal
worker type and imperative for change (P1), frequent high-level, public pronouncements may be required to give salience to the ongoing priority of work–life
balance, emphasizing that this is not just some phase that the company will
soon pass through. In companies which favour more gradual change (E1),
‘rolling out policies with a fanfare’ may be more likely to meet with derision
than favour and organizational initiatives and statements indicating abrupt and
profound change may be unpopular with employees who preferred change to
be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. ‘Walking the talk’, seeing examples
of successful flexible workers might be more culturally appropriate and encourage wider take-up, but the danger is that change may be characteristically and
glacially slow. Highly conservative cultures may need the challenge of an
explicit public campaign where ‘walking the talk’ accompanies ‘talking the
walk’.
Finally, generosity of policies is no guarantor of workplace transformation.
Both companies were considered to be very caring to their employees and
tended to exceed the norm in their family-friendly provision. However, as in
PharMerger, taking up policies to their fullest extent can
a)
b)
increase the load on other people in one’s team or department, and send
the signal that an employee is less committed by transgressing the principle
of the primacy of work, or
simply fuel a high sense of entitlement.
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Bailyn (1993: 109) states ‘commitment can emerge as a response to a firm’s
accommodation to one’s private needs’ and this commitment can mark out the
part-time employee as an exemplar of good practice in terms of the quality of
their input while they are there. However, where employees see policies as their
due, they may not be so motivated to reciprocate with outstanding service
which might have induced managers to more readily accept innovative working
patterns. For the integrated worker type to supplant the ideal worker type as an
acceptable model for action, the integrated worker must still manifestly express
their commitment to the priority of work.
Many managers find it hard to handle the reduced level of availability and
argue that there should be a trade-off for flexibility in terms of advancement
while availability is reduced. Engineering projects, for example, are divided into
‘critical path’ and ‘off-line’ tasks. Employees delivering ‘critical path’ outputs
have to be far more available than those doing ‘off-line’ tasks. Project teams
could therefore be designed from the outset to accommodate flexible workers
but usually it will be those able to meet critical objectives who will gain the
career-developing experience and the recognition that leads to advancement.
However, the importance of targets and HR practices such as appraisal processes and promotion review criteria, which give greater weight to ‘critical path’
functions or to full-time availability (see Lane, 2000) undercut the ability of
family-friendly policies to facilitate successful non-linear careers.
This article concludes by suggesting, from these case studies, why care is
required when calling for cultural change as the solution to work–life imbalance.
First, cultural change is less straightforward than many suggest. Schein concludes that we do not know how to systematically intervene in a culture to create transformational learning across the organization (Coutu, 2002: 103) and,
for learning to take place, survival anxiety must exceed learning anxiety. The
resistance to the new, because of the threat it poses to self-esteem or identity,
which inhibits cultural change, has to be overcome by the fear that without a
profound shift in an organization’s underlying assumptions it might cease to
exist. This fear was completely absent in the case studies, reducing the likelihood
that widespread cultural change and transformational learning will take place.
Although the explicit goal of policies is to make the workplace more familyfriendly and conducive to work–life balance this is not perceived to be essential
for the future survival of either company. Moreover it is hard to see how profound changes could be ‘owned’ by managers and employees on the grounds that
they increased workplace effectiveness when these grounds seem highly uncertain. Typically managers supported the notion of flexibility and benefited from its
availability themselves but were reassured that take-up has been fairly limited
since flexible working legislation was introduced. Even where there is an appetite
for change such as in PharMerger there is distinct corporate nervousness about
change not unambiguously intended to enhance their competitive edge.
Finally, when one looks in depth at cultures as in these studies, and teases
apart the different facets with greatest relevance for the adoption of more
family-friendly working patterns, and how they articulate with each other, any
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suggestion that radical and systemic change will be straightforward once ‘the code
has been cracked’ begins to appear somewhat naive. Small, incremental changes
may be all that can be hoped for, strategic nudges in the right direction over a long
period of time. This is not to dismiss the important role of cultural studies in this
area. If organization’s basic assumptions can be identified, policies can be presented
in ways which compensate for ‘root’ cultural facets and help to resolve underlying
contradictions. Moreover, aspects of the culture may actually be harnessed to reinforce the intent of family-friendly policies, bringing as many change agents to bear
as possible in a process that may more closely resemble evolution than revolution.
Notes
1
2
Hatch (1993) refined Schein’s model by making the levels of culture less central than the relationships between them and argued for a dynamic conception
of culture. The emphasis here on ‘root’ culture does not imply a static model of
culture but utilizes Schein’s original and useful separation of levels.
Houston and Waumsley (2003) found similar patterns in their study of AEEU
members.
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Samantha Callan
Samantha Callan works as a research consultant to voluntary sector organizations,
a consultant to firms seeking better work–life integration for employees and an independent policy adviser to senior UK politicians. She is also an honorary research fellow
at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, Edinburgh University. She has
a background in social anthropology and her PhD studied organizational culture change.
Her research interests include workplace flexibility, the effect of policies on working
patterns and the effect of national policies on organizational practice.
Address: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh, 23
Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN, Scotland, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
Date submitted March 2006
Date accepted June 2007
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