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With higher female labor force participation and the greater prevalence of dual-career families, family responsibilities ever more overlap work responsibilities. Companies have begun to respond to the changing nature of the workforce by offering family-friendly policies that are intended to help employees manage family responsibilities while remaining productive workers. Examples of family-friendly policies include child and dependent care, flexible leave polices, and time off for family emergencies (Daley, 1998; Folsom & Botsch, 1993; Greenfield, 1997; Ezra & Deckman, 1996). Some benefits frequently offered by employers are not considered family-friendly policies because they are not primarily directed toward the management of family responsibilities. Examples of those benefits are educational assistance for the employee, mortgage assistance, holidays, and employee wellness programs.

At the end of this chapter, learners should be able to:

• Discuss the origin of family-friendly policies.

• Explain the different types of family-friendly policies.

• Explain the importance of family-friendly policies.

• Explore the financial implications of family-friendly policies.

• Understand how to calculate leave payment.

• Explain possible limitations of family-friendly policies.

Discuss the origin of family-friendly policies.

Explain the different types of family-friendly policies.

Explain the importance of family-friendly policies.

Explore the financial implications of family-friendly policies.

Understand how to calculate leave payment.

Explain possible limitations of family-friendly policies.

Work from home has become as regular as the traditional commuting system after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have discussed the influence of working at home on the work–family interface. However, there is limited understanding of how diverse workforces manage their work–family issues with various family-friendly policies. This study aims to bridge this research gap by examining the collective influence of work conditions and family-friendly policies on work–family balance.

A survey experiment featuring two working conditions (work from home or commuting) × four family-friendly policies (household subsidy, family-friendly supervisor, financial profit, paid leave vs no policy) was approached based on 703 valid responses in China.

The results indicate that family-friendly policies are more effective under the work-from-home condition than the commuting condition, household subsidies and financial profits are considered more helpful for work–family balance under the work-from-home condition and employees’ policy preferences depend on personal identity and work conditions, which help them maintain work and family issues concurrently.

This study explores the joint impact of work conditions and family-friendly policies from a situational perspective. This study indicated that professional organizations need to perform delicacy management considering policy preferences. Moreover, changing working arrangements help employees facilitate their work–family balance.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the family‐friendly policies developed in Sweden, the UK and Singapore and discuss the implications on family‐friendly policies in Hong Kong.

The study draws on policy documents of the three countries, to examine the welfare model, the service provisions and the outcomes of the family‐friendly policies.

In the study, the paper finds that considerable differences exist among the three countries in their conception of the role and responsibility of government in the reconciliation of family and work conflict. Strategies ranging from a high degree of intervention to minimal intervention are closely related to the social welfare regime of a country. Learning from the international experiences, it is important to link work and family policies in developing family‐friendly policy in Hong Kong because work and family are not two separate worlds.

Numerous studies have documented the effectiveness and impact of family‐friendly policies in their own countries, but little has been done to compare the international experiences. The analysis contributes to offer a clear direction of developing family‐friendly policy in Hong Kong.

This paper aims to establish to what extent family-friendly practices and high-performance work practices are positively related to work–family balance and to identify the role played by job satisfaction and working hours as mediators of this relationship

We use data for a representative sample of almost 17,000 employees of dual-earner couples from European countries. To test the mediation mechanism implied by our hypotheses, we follow the procedure outlined in Baron and Kenny (1986). Given the nature of the dependent variables, ordered probit and regression models were estimated in the analysis.

The results show that, in general, family-friendly practices and high-performance work practices increase work–family balance and that these positive relationships are partially mediated by job satisfaction and working hours. While both family-friendly practices and high-performance work practices increase job satisfaction, only the first increase working hours. Moreover, job satisfaction increases work–family balance, while working hours reduces it. The net effect of these opposing forces on work–family balance is positive.

The use of secondary data posits some constraints, such as the type of measures and the failure to control for a higher number of family-friendly practices and high-performance work practices. Additionally, the non-longitudinal nature of the data set implies that some relationships cannot be considered causal in the intended direction.

Managers should implement family-friendly practices and high-performance work practices, as, in general, they increase work–family balance. A significant portion of this positive effect is channeled through job satisfaction and working hours.

The paper contributes to understanding the relationship between different subsets of human-resources management practices and work–family balance, proposing a model that aims to disentangle the mediating mechanisms through which this relationship occurs.

The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of different forms of organisational representation on the provision of work‐life balance employment policies.

The article uses on‐site semi‐structured interviews with employees, HR and line managers and trade union representatives in four case studies as well as survey responses from a total of 17 institutions in the financial services sector.

Employees do influence work‐life balance issues in the financial services sector, and work‐life balance initiatives had greater breadth, codification and quality where independent unions were recognised. In all cases however, the extent of departure from minimal statutory levels of provision was not great.

The nature of the study and its focus on Scotland may limit the generalisability of the findings into other sectors or regions.

In light of the evolving work‐life balance legislative framework, this article should be of practical interest to trade unions, practitioners and academics. It demonstrates that organisations and unions need to retain and develop a focus on work‐life balance applications.

The article indicates the prevalence of management control of the work‐life balance agenda and management's discretion in the operation of work‐life issues. Employees and their representatives accepted this control, and their private individualised responsibility for balancing work and life, without challenge. These results inform current understanding of how work‐life balance legislation, based on a voluntarist agenda, translates into practice.

The objective of the study is to identify the themes of “family friendly practices” and to perform a literature review. The research aims to identify the emerging trends in the area of “family friendly practices” by carrying out an exhaustive literature review.

The study synthesizes the literature between the years 2010 and 2019. First of all, 150 research articles were identified by keyword search, bibliography and citation search, out of which 57 research articles were selected on the basis of the most sound theoretical background and maximum literature contribution. The citation analysis method was performed on these studies in order to study the journals, authors by using Google Scholar, ResearchGate, the international database Science Citation Index and SCImago Journal Ranking.

The author citation count shows that the research topic is still getting recognition and the research in this area is increasing. The finding of the research is that the current research in family-friendly practices has focused mainly on seven topics: availability and usability of family-friendly policy, job satisfaction, organizational performance, supervisor or manager support, work–life conflict, employee turnover employee retention and women’s employment.

The study may provide valuable inputs to the HRD practitioners, managers, research scholars, to understand the recent trends in the field of family-friendly policy. As per the best knowledge of the author, this is the first study on family-friendly practices using citation analysis.

The article reports on research among Dutch employers concerning the arrangements they provide for employees to help them with the reconciliation of work and family life. The research not only answers the question of to what extent different employers offer arrangements like childcare facilities, flexible working hours or leave schemes, but it also tries to explain employers’ policies. The explanatory analysis includes organisational characteristics and employers’ opinions with respect to costs and benefits of different arrangements. The empirical analysis is based on a survey among 871 organisations in the profit sector and the non‐profit sector. One major conclusion is that family‐friendly arrangements have become rather common among organisations; employers are aware of the fact that the reconciliation of work and care has become an issue for an increasing number of workers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of perceived support from family-friendly policies and supervisors on job satisfaction of employees by incorporating work-family conflict as a mediator.

Primary data were collected from 369 employees working in different organizations from the service sector in India. Smart PLS software was used to perform partial least square structural equational modeling.

The result confirms that both family-friendly policies and supervisor support negatively influences the work-family conflict. Also, work-family conflict partially mediates between family-friendly policies and job satisfaction as well as between supervisor support and job satisfaction. Also, supervisor support directly influences the job satisfaction of the employees.

Management needs to know the relevance of work-life policies and supervisor support to increase job satisfaction and reduce employees’ work-family conflict. Results will be useful for implementing family-friendly policies and designing training courses for the supervisors. This will make the workplace more family-friendly.

This study creates value for the employees in meeting their family obligations by reducing their work-family conflict. Organizations are benefited by attracting positive outcomes like satisfied employees, which will, in turn, lead to a more productive and happier workforce. Studies examining the influence of these policies and supervisory support on job satisfaction with work-family conflict as the mediating variable are difficult to find in the Indian context.

This article examines how human resource (HR) practitioners are responding to the current UK Government's “business case” approach to promoting family‐friendly policies. The ethical basis of the Government's approach to work‐life balance is examined and the results of a survey of HR practitioners’ views on this issue are presented. Findings indicate that, when examining the interdependent factors that determine the ethical basis of support and opposition to such policies, respondents are more likely to reject the Government's rationale on equal and opposite terms to which they are being promoted.