EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCES OF WORK AND FAMILY ROLES AND THE MEANING OF LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE

Abstract

Ability to combine work and family roles is one of today’s great challenges, especially when trying to cope without exhaustion. The attention of this study is in employees’ viewpoint of rivaling role demands and individual ways to receive satisfaction. It also considers the meaning of a relationship between employee and his/her supervisor in a work-family field. The assumption is that leader-member exchange quality may play a key role when coping with multiple role demands.

The empirical data was collected in Southern Germany by carrying out ten in-depth interviews with employees having work and family responsibilities. Though time and energy are limited resources for everybody, it was clearly shown that employee’s own qualities and personal character have considerable importance when juggling between work and home roles. It appeared that different forms of work flexibility and work autonomy were highly demanded to minimize role conflicts. The relationship to a supervisor was found meaningful, but not necessarily crucial for work role facilitation. The hypothesis that leader-member exchange would have an inevitable connection to work-family role satisfaction did not receive direct support. Also how much support individuals required from their supervisor’s varied strongly. Leaders were more often called for indirect support by creating and maintaining family friendly work climate and for professional support, whereas other co-workers were called for direct support in form of task sharing and cooperation to support employees´ needs to fulfill both roles, at work and at home.