Family-supportive supervisors empathize with employees' attempts to balance work and nonwork, while also actively facilitating employees' ability to manage work and nonwork demands. Over the last three decades, approximately 60 publications have investigated family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB), with one third of these appearing in just the last 3 years. Thus, as the burgeoning FSSB literature continues to develop, there is a critical need to understand this body of work in totality in order to further advance theory, expand empirical investigation of the construct, and facilitate the practical dissemination of FSSB-related information into organizational settings. We conduct the first comprehensive and systematic review of the FSSB literature to date. More specifically, we discuss early formative work establishing the construct of FSSB, existing theory, antecedents, outcomes, moderators, and interventions. Lastly, we provide a number of future directions for this subject area related to construct clarification, theory, expanding the FSSB nomological network, methodology, and interventions.
KEYWORDSfamily-supportive supervisor behaviors, FSSB, social support, work-nonwork interface
PurposeDespite a burgeoning literature on family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), it is unclear whether supervisors view these behaviors as in-role or discretionary. We proposed a new cognitive motivational construct, FSSB role perceptions (FSSB-RP; that is the extent to which supervisors perceive FSSB as an expected part of their job) and evaluated it as a mediator of the relationship between supervisors' own work–family experiences and FSSB.Design/methodology/approachWe used an online survey of 245 US based supervisors.FindingsWe find that FSSB role perceptions is a unique but related construct to FSSB, and that approximately half of our sample of 245 supervisors either do not believe that FSSB is a part of their job or are unsure as to whether it is. Path analyses revealed that supervisors' own experiences of work–family conflict and enrichment are related to engaging in FSSB through role perceptions, especially when a reward system is in place that values FSSB.Practical implicationsThese results may influence the design, implementation and dissemination of leader family-supportive training programs.Originality/valueThe factors that drive supervisors to engage in FSSB are relatively unknown, yet this study suggests the novel construct of FSSB role perceptions and supervisors' own work–family experiences are important factors.
Around-the-clock, 24/7 operations are common in many industries, yet contribute to employee fatigue, which can have grave consequences for worker safety, public health, and the environment. Alertness testing is one option for identifying and mitigating issues related to fatigue at work. We review alertness testing options, including fatigue risk management systems and app-based tools, and share results from a study evaluating employee and manager perceptions of alertness testing. Despite a growing body of research on the validity of app-based alertness tests, it is also critical to understand how these tools are perceived by workers and management. To investigate perceptions of alertness testing, mixed-method data were collected from organizations across four safety-sensitive industries (i.e., a mining
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