How Does Supervisor Support and Diversity Management Affect Employee Participation in Work/Family Policies?

Abstract

The federal government, among other employers, has been providing various work/family programs and numerous studies have tried to uncover whether those programs are effective in terms of job-related attitudes and also their disparate effect on various demographic groups. However, when it comes to the actual effectiveness of those programs, empirical results are mixed, and some studies have found that those programs remain less utilized or underutilized. The availability of work/family policies does not necessarily result in perceived accessibility or even actual use by employees. Why is there a gap between work/family benefits availability and actual use by employees? This article investigates this question by studying organizational factors using perceived organizational support theory as a framework. Using the 2011 Federal Human Capital Survey, this article examines the effects of supervisor’s support for employees’ work–life balance and diversity management on employees’ use of work/family programs. This article suggests that supervisors’ support for employees’ work–life balance and diversity management are often overlooked factors that may provide possible reasons for those variances. This study finds preliminary evidence to support the hypotheses that public employees are more likely to participate in work/family programs when there is supervisor’s support for employees’ work–life balance and especially when effective diversity management is interacted with supervisor’s support. The findings of this study can contribute to public managers’ understanding about the necessary organizational antecedents to accommodate the work–life balance of a diverse workforce.