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Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.

The authors tested (1) the mediating role of thriving in the association between leader-member exchange (LMX) and work–nonwork balance (WNWB) and (2) the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between LMX and thriving.

Cross-sectional data were collected from six separate participant groups across an eight-month period (n = 522). Data analysis included confirmatory factor analysis to assess the construct validity of the proposed three-factor model. Hierarchical regression and the PROCESS macro were used to test three hypotheses.

The authors found thriving mediated an indirect effect of LMX on WNWB. In addition, we found that the relationship between LMX and thriving was moderated by gender, such that the relationship was found for females. Overall, the authors identified a moderated-mediation effect indicating an indirect effect of LMX on WNWB via thriving for females.

Cross-sectional design suggests their results are theory driven. The authors suggest future studies replicate the study employing experimental designs.

The authors suggest organisations develop programs to enhance leadership and thriving capabilities as tools to manage WNWB.

The authors add to the thriving literature by revealing gender differences in the effectiveness of relational resources (i.e. LMX) in fostering employee thriving. Furthermore, the authors extend the efficacy of thriving beyond the workplace to include WNWB. The authors demonstrate the skills and knowledge acquired at work can be used to lessen the impact of WNWB.

Going further on a broad understanding of nonwork besides family, this study aims to analyze differences between women and men considering work-nonwork conflict (WNWC) in the Brazilian context, investigating time spent in eight nonwork dimensions and the dimensions more affected.

The study was quantitative and descriptive. A survey was conducted, based on a validated WNWC scale. The sample consisted of 338 professionals working in Brazil. Data analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics and analysis of variance.

Compared to men, women declare higher levels of WNWC considering the eight nonwork dimensions, present greater differences in stress-based conflicts and in more collective dimensions and have marriage or no children associated with more WNWC.

The study highlights the need to include more nonwork aspects into career and management studies to influence organizational practices and individual choices. The main limitation is the non-probabilistic sample (results not generalizable).

Know more about WNWC will help organizations to improve lives by creating practices and a cultural environment to preserve women’s and men’s nonwork times. It may also help people to choose places to work for, matching their nonwork needs.

The study reinforces demands from new family arrangements, more couples in dual-career and an aging society: organizations must prepare to have workers that want or need to dedicate time to other interests besides family or children.

It goes further on a broad understanding of nonwork besides family to understand WNWC and how it may affect differently men and women.

This study aims to explore how and why employees perceive technology-mediated interruptions differently and the role of sociocultural factors in this process using sociomaterial analysis.

Data were gathered from 34 Sri Lankan knowledge workers using a series of workshop-based activities. The concept of sociomateriality is employed to understand how sociocultural elements are entangled with technology in work-life boundary experiences.

The findings of the thematic analyses suggest how culture is intertwined in the way employees perceive technology-mediated interruptions and how they manage information communication technologies (ICTs) to balance their work and nonwork demands. Participants have been unable to avoid technology-mediated boundary interruptions from work, as organisations have created norms to keep employees connected to organisations using information communication technologies. Traditional gender roles are specifically found to be entangled in employees' boundary management practices, disadvantaging women more.

The findings highlight how national culture and gender norms create challenging work-life experiences for female employees than males. This could create a disadvantageous position for female employees in their career progression. It is crucial to consider factors such as boundary preferences and family concerns when deciding on family-friendly work policies. Also, organisations have to consider the development of explicit guidelines on after-hours communication expectations.

Using the lens of sociomateriality, researchers can understand the contextual entanglement of ICTs with national culture and gender norms in creating different work-life boundary experiences. It seems ICTs are creating a disadvantage for female employees when managing work–nonwork boundaries, especially in power distant and collectivist cultures where traditional gender norms are highly valued and largely upheld. This study also contributes to the current discourse on work-life boundaries by providing insights from non-western perspectives.

Prior research has extensively examined how bringing technology from work into the non-work life domain creates conflict, yet the reverse pathway has rarely been studied. The purpose of this study is to bridge this gap and examine how the non-work use of smartphones in the workplace affects work–life conflict.

Drawing from three literature streams: technostress, work–life conflict and role boundary theory, the authors theorise on how limiting employees' ability to integrate the personal life domain into work, by means of technology use policy, contributes to stress and work–life conflict. To test this model, the authors employ a natural experiment in a company that changed its policy from fully restricting to open smartphone access for non-work purposes in the workplace. The insights gained from the experiment were explored further through qualitative interviews.

Work–life conflict declines when a ban on using smartphones for non-work purposes in the workplace is revoked. This study's results show that the relationship between smartphone use in the workplace and work–life conflict is mediated by sensed stress. Additionally, a post-hoc analysis reveals that work performance was unchanged when the smartphone ban was revoked.

First, this study advances the authors' understanding of how smartphone use policies in the workplace spill over to affect non-work life. Second, this work contributes to the technostress literature by revealing how, in specific situations, engagement with ICT can reduce distress and strain.

Although there is a small body of empirical research on the working lives of managers, both the popular media and the academic literature tend to ignore the distinct ways that role identities such as age and gender intersect to create a complex work–life interface for diverse managers. This gap is especially surprising considering that managerial roles are defined by unique demands and expectations that likely intersect with the differential life course shifts experienced by men and women, which has the potential to create specific challenges across the work and life domains of managers. The current study aims to address this gap through an intersectional examination of the non-linear effects of age and gender on the work–life balance of managers.

Using a sample of 421 managers, the authors apply statistical tests of the incremental validity of non-linear interaction terms to examine the complex relationship between age, gender and work–life balance.

Results support a non-linear U-shaped main effect of age on leader work–life balance. This effect is moderated by gender, however, with a non-linear U-shaped effect of age on work–life balance being supported for male managers – with female managers displaying no effect of age on work–life balance.

Based on these findings, the authors highlight the need for increased availability of flexible schedules and employee empowerment for managers as well as general employees.

The current study offers one of the first tests of the intersection of age and gender on the work–family interface of managers.