Findings

Research Publications List: Read our team's research

The Work, Family & Health Network’s longitudinal, cross-disciplinary data provide unique evidence about how changes in work practices and policies can affect workers, family members, and organizations.

A similar program that changed employees’ control over their work reduced turnover and encouraged healthy behaviors:

  • Actual turnover of 6% for employees in the pilot program vs.11% for comparison groups
  • Also reduced turnover intentions – and not just for parents, women
  • Employees in pilot program were less likely to feel obligated to come into work when sick and more likely to go to the doctor when they know they should
  • Employees in pilot program reported increased sleep before work nights and slightly more exercise

Our pilot work also found that workers supervised by family-supportive managers were significantly more likely to experience lower levels of work-family conflict, higher job satisfaction, lower intention to change jobs, and higher reports of physical and mental health. In those employees, systolic blood pressure at work was higher than it was when measured at non-work times, and sleep quality was predicted by work-family conflict.

Are you a researcher? The Network will be making available a public access data set for researchers to use. These data and accompanying data documentation will be published at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). If you are a researcher interested in collaborating with the team, contact wfhn@hsph.harvard.edu for more information on access to restricted data.