What Helps Me Cope With Work–Family Conflict at My High-Performance Work System in India: A Thematic Analysis of Sociocultural Factors

Abstract

Executive Summary This study is located in the context of high-performance work systems (HPWS) in India. Extant literature indicates that the darker side of HPWS and work intensification impact employee lives and trigger work–family conflict (WFC) experiences. With the shift in organizational focus on employee well-being, it has become imperative to understand and unpack WFC experiences of employees in the Indian sociocultural context to design effective and contextual remedial mechanisms. Responding to this need, WFC experiences of employees in Indian HPWS contexts were closely examined in this study to unpack the role of prevalent sociocultural factors. Additionally, the study explored how employees coped with these life situations. Since organizations are now beginning to work towards enhancing the well-being of employees, this study offers insights into what coping mechanisms are deliberately or inadvertently in use to evaluate their effectiveness. Studying the nature of WFCs and coping mechanisms from a sociocultural lens, this study identifies and develops four major themes. Passive acceptance of WFC, unambiguous communication, emotional and instrumental support from family, informational support at work emerged as the four significant themes discussed at length in this article. Insights generated from the discussion of these themes point overarchingly towards the highly personalized and localized, individual-level approach prevalent amongst employees of HPWS in response to WFC episodes. The discussion and conclusion sections highlight the need for well-designed and mindful organizational interventions built upon an understanding of the sociocultural factors at work to effectively mitigate the employee stress generated by the HPWS environments. This work is especially relevant in an era of pandemic-related work models, millennial workers and work intensification due to the increased digitalization of workplace practices.