The influence of family-supportive supervisor training on employee job performance and attitudes: An organizational work-family intervention

Heather N. Odle-Dusseau, Leslie B. Hammer, Tori L. Crain, Todd E. Bodner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

76 Scopus citations

Abstract

Training supervisors to increase their family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) has demonstrated significant benefits for employee physical health, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions among employees with high levels of family-to-work conflict in prior research in a grocery store context. We replicate and extend these results in a health care setting with additional important employee outcomes (i.e., employee engagement, organizational commitment, and supervisor ratings of job performance), and consider the role of the 4 dimensions underlying the FSSB. Using a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design, 143 health care employees completed surveys at 2 time periods approximately 10 months apart, along with their supervisors who provided ratings of employees' job performance. Between these surveys, we offered their supervisors FSSB training; 86 (71%) of these supervisors participated. Results demonstrated significant and beneficial indirect effects of FSSB training on changes in employee job performance, organizational commitment, engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions through changes in employee perceptions of their supervisor's overall FSSBs. Further analyses suggest that these indirect effects are due primarily to changes in the creative work-family management dimension of FSSB.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)296-308
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Occupational Health Psychology
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Family-supportive supervisors
  • Job performance
  • Organizational intervention
  • Work-family

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Applied Psychology
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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