Does a Voluntary Job Change Affect Work-Family Balance?

Abstract

The question of work-family balance (WFB) is an area where increasing attention is being paid nowadays since it relates to the health, satisfaction, personal development of employees, to the care for their children, youths and elder family members. The purpose of the paper is to explore the connection between the voluntary job change and the potential improvement of the work-family balance since it was assumed that changing the job voluntarily might bring to a higher WFB as employees could satisfy their needs more effectively in a new working environment, chosen by their own will. Data were collected using a combination of CAWI (computer assisted web interview) and pen and pencil methods. Employees from various companies and public sector organizations from Slovenia were invited to participate in the study. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to identify clusters of family-work balancers, i.e. of those, who help with balancing employees’ work and family domains. Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to explore the correlation between the decision about the voluntary job change and the satisfaction with the work-family balance. The research has shown that the assessment of WFB does not depend on a voluntary job change. The exceptions are the group of employees with children (in a positive direction) and the group of employees without children and no help in the household (in a negative direction). The employees do not use a job change as a tool for increasing WFB. This is probably also due to the closed culture of Slovenians. The managers who do care about their employees and who do not wish to lose their best employees have therefore many possibilities to choose the proper coping strategies to help their employees balance their work and family lives.