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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 purpose of this paper is to examine the processes underlying a systems perspective on work–life balance (WLB), with a particular focus on the tensions and role negotiations that arise within and across work and non-work roles.

The authors employed a qualitative methodology, conducting 42 interviews with lawyers at large law firms, which is a context notorious for long work hours.

While a cornerstone of a systems view is that balance is social in nature, and that negotiations occur among stakeholders over role expectations, the process through which this happens has remained unexamined both theoretically and empirically. The authors learned that negotiating around work and non-work role expectations are often contested, complex and fluid. The authors contribute to the literature by elaborating on how these negotiations happen in the legal profession, describing factors that inhibit or facilitate role negotiation and exploring how interdependencies within work systems and across work and non-work systems shape these negotiation processes.

The findings offer a more nuanced conceptualization of the system-level perspective on WLB, and in particular an enriched explanation of work and non-work role negotiation. The authors encourage employers who are interested in promoting WLB to ensure that their employees feel empowered to negotiate their roles, particularly with others in their work systems.

The purpose was to find out how lawyers at high-profile legal firms managed WLB.

The researchers conducted interviews with 42 lawyers at two law firms in a large West Coast city. Both participating law firms focus on corporate law and employ around 100 lawyers. Interviews took place on site over a three-month period. They lasted between 20 minutes and an hour. Questions covered general experience in the profession, as well as balancing work and non-work lives.

The answers revealed the tensions between work and non-work experiences. Lawyers were driven to work long hours and expected to respond quickly to clients’ needs. But they had diverse attitudes to WLB. They could broadly be divided into three categories – “work-centric,” “non-work centric,” and “dual-centric.” Their life values were also strongly correlated with gender. Only dual-centric and life-centric female lawyers had actively negotiated alternative work arrangements

There has been very little qualitative research into workplace attitudes to WLB

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of the intersections between work and personal life. Measures introduced to slow the spread of COVID-19 have included an increase of working from home and the temporary closure of schools and child-care facilities, leading to a lighter workload for some and a heavier workload for others. These consequences are likely to affect employees’ work–life balance (WLB), although the impact may differ across groups of employees depending on the nature of their work, family and personal demands and resources. This mixed-method study examined how Dutch government employees perceive their WLB during the pandemic and how differences in what employees are experiencing can be explained. In May/June 2020, an online survey (N = 827) and an interview study (N = 17) were conducted at a government organization whose employees were obliged to work from home partly or exclusively. Results indicate that demands changed when working entirely from home and resources became more important to maintain WLB satisfaction. Being able to manage boundaries across life domains and find a new routine also appeared to be crucial for WLB satisfaction.

The purpose of this expert commentary is to provide an overview of current scholarship on changes occurring in the work environment and its impact on employee wellbeing. The commentary touches on frontier issues such as measurement of healthy work environment, positive and negative changes in work environment influencing employee wellbeing, link between employee productivity and wellbeing, challenges in converting theory into practice, sustainable organizational behavior, workplace wellness, and several other issues germane to the special issue.

The expert commentary explicates the current state of scholarship in relation to the theme of the special issue. The design of the expert commentary, a scholarly conversation between the Guest Editors and University Distinguished Professor Ellen Ernst Kossek, provides an easy to access summary of the current knowledge in the area. This format is intended to inform readers of IJM and to stimulate further scholarship in the area.

The expert commentary provides a gist of key findings in the extant area of research, serving to inform readers about what we know, do not know, and fruitful areas for further enquiry.

It provides an overview of current knowledge in the area.