Abstract
Flexible work arrangements permitting workers to work anytime and anywhere are increasingly common. This flexibility can introduce both challenges and opportunities for the organisation, as well as for worker work-life balance (WLB). This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the extent to which occupational factors (organizational, leadership and psychosocial) and individual work-related behaviours (over-commitment, overtime work and boundary management) are associated with WLB, and whether these associations are modified by the perceived level of flexibility at work (i.e., control over when, where, and how to do the work). In total, 2960 full-time office workers with flexible work arrangements at the Swedish Transport Administration participated. Associations were determined using linear regression analyses with adjustment for covariates. The strongest negative associations with WLB were found for over-commitment, quantitative job demands, expectations of availability, and overtime work. Strongest positive associations were found for boundary management, information about organizing work, social support, and relation-oriented leadership. Perceived flexibility was positively associated with WLB, and interacted with several of the examined factors, buffering their negative associations with WLB. Results suggest that WLB can be promoted by organizational initiatives focusing on minimizing excessive job demands, increasing psychosocial resources, supporting boundary management, and enhancing perceived flexibility.
Highlights
Developing sustainable and health-promoting work is an uncontested challenge in occupational health sciences [1,2,3]
For each unit of increase in over-commitment and demands, work-life balance (WLB) was reduced by 0.9 and 0.7 units, respectively. This is in line with a previous cross-sectional study [20] that found that these factors were strongly associated with increased work-life conflict, which suggests that over-commitment and high job demands may be a threat against WLB in populations with flexible work arrangements
We found that perceived flexibility buffered the negative effects of several occupational factors and individual behaviours on WLB, including expectations of availability, work more than agreed, and overtime work
Summary
Developing sustainable and health-promoting work is an uncontested challenge in occupational health sciences [1,2,3]. Work-life balance (WLB) is a key factor influencing worker health and well-being, as demonstrated by its inclusion as an important element in the conceptual ideas of ‘attractive work’. WLB is a multi-dimensional concept that has been defined in different ways in previous studies [6,7]. How to attain a good WLB has gained more attention over the last two decades [8]. One possible explanation is the dramatic increase in digitization, including an increased use of information and communication technologies (ICT). This has enabled organisations to offer flexible work arrangements that may create both opportunities and challenges for workers WLB [9,10,11]. Public Health 2020, 17, 1418; doi:10.3390/ijerph17041418 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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