Glen Kreiner Associate Professor Department of Management & - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Balancing Borders and Bridges: Work-Life Balance

Glen Kreiner

Associate Professor Department of Management & Organization Penn State University

Based on Research with Elaine Hollensbe (U. of Cincinnati) & Mathew Sheep (Illinois State U.)

Agenda

 Boundaries and boundary preferences

 Handout Part 1

 Challenges associated with boundary management

 Handout Part 2  Improvisation exercise

 Boundary Work: Strategies to manage work-life

challenges

 Handout Part 3  Feedforward exercise

Work-Life Research

Our Study

Work-Life Balance

Our Research

 Research questions:

 What is the nature of the work-family boundary, including

challenges and opportunities?

 What strategies are used to facilitate this boundary work?

 Based on a study of Episcopal priests

 Two studies: (1) open-ended surveys with 220 priests; (2)

in-depth, hour-long interviews with 60 parish priests.

 So what do priests have to do with me and my

company???

Priests and Professionals

Similarities

 Episcopal priests can be men or women,

married/partnered or single, with or without children

 Both go through rigorous, societally-accepted

education processes

 Priesthood and professions can be “greedy”!

Boundaries and Boundary Preferences

Powerful symbol of a boundary – The Berlin Wall

In German: “every wall will fall sometime”

A small opening is the beginning of the end…

People actively destroying the boundary…

…until it becomes physically permeable.

Types of Boundaries

 Integrating  Weak  Permeable  Open to influence  Segmenting  Strong  Impermeable  Closed to influence

“Thin” “Thick”

Work-Home Boundary Preferences

 Variation in how people prefer to either integrate or

segment work and home

 Integrator:  “I think that a person who integrates doesn’t even

really think about that.…The only thing I think I intentionally do is really pay attention to how many evening meetings I schedule. Other than that, because I integrate both, I’m not one of those

• bsessive boundary people. I know that I have

friends that will say, ‘This is the line and it doesn’t get crossed’, but I don’t have that.”

 Glen’s example: writing while holding baby…

Work-Home Preferences

 Segmenter:

 “I kidded you when I said that we have a moat with

alligators in it around the rectory. But there is a certain sense that there is a psychological moat there…. I think because I’ve been doing this long enough I know how to care about people, but not let them run all over

• me. I have a good sense of boundaries. I always

have.”

 Glen’s example: working more on campus

Boundary Preferences

 People have a general preference: segmentation or

integration?

 Yet, rarely are people fully one or the other – we

tend to pick and choose what we segment or integrate

 What do you prefer to segment vs. integrate?

 What are the preferences for various employees in

your organization?

Model of Work-Home Boundary Work

Individual’s Work-Home Boundary Preferences Environmental Work-Home Boundary Influences

An example of a “segmenter” married to an “integrator!”

“How many times have I told you not to bring your work home with you?”

Boundary (In)Congruence

 Who around you is similar or different in their

preferences?

 How your boundary preferences fit or not with

 Family members  Superiors  Subordinates  Clients  Occupation

Model of Work-Home Boundary Work

Work-Home Boundary Incongruence Dimensions Individual’s Work-Home Boundary Preferences Environmental Work-Home Boundary Influences

Family members Superiors Subordinates Clients Occupation

Handout Part 1

 Questions 1-4  Results from diagrams? Pop ups for:

 Your actual and ideal boundary are EQUAL  Your actual boundary is MORE segmented than your

preference?

 Your actual boundary is LESS segmented than your

preference?

Boundary Management

Challenges & Opportunities

Work-Home Boundary Violations

 Events, episodes when desired work-home boundary is

not provided

 Intrusion – when desired boundary is breached  Distance – when desired integration is denied  Idiosyncratic! One person’s desired behavior is another

person’s violation

 Asking questions about personal life  Social/personal events for co-workers  Expecting email replies on weekend  Sending personal emails (causes, opinions, etc.)  Calling people on days off / vacation

Work-Home Conflict

 In contrast to violations (events), work-home conflict

is an ongoing state

 Demands of work & home in regular friction

(temporal, cognitive, physical, emotional, behavioral)

 “I also feel that tension between work and family.

Probably anybody who has figured out what their real calling in life is has experienced a similar tension.”

Work-Home Enrichment

 Work and/or home benefits from the other domain  Knowledge / ideas / resources / insights

 Leading more effectively at home b/c of job  Having more compassion toward worker b/c of

parenting

 Relationships / people / networks

 Friends from work enrich family experience  Personal contacts land you better job

Model of Work-Home Boundary Work

Work-Home Conflict Work-Home Boundary Incongruence Dimensions Work-Home Boundary Violations

• Intrusion
• Distance

Individual’s Work-Home Boundary Preferences Environmental Work-Home Boundary Influences

• Five-person group—volunteers please!
• The group’s goal is to tell a story about typical work-family

boundary issues — e.g., preferences, challenges,

• pportunities, violations, conflict, enrichment, ups/downs.
• One member will begin, then each member in the group

will alternate, adding a line to the story.

• The story should have a plot and a sense of finality or

closure when it is done.

• And…
• What interesting themes/issues did the group raise?

Boundary Management

Exercise: Improvisation!

Handout Part 2 – Boundary Challenges and Opportunities

Boundary Work

Strategies

Boundary Work Tactics

 What people do to change / manage the boundaries

between the work and home domains…remember boundaries are both bridges and borders

 Segmenting  Build a border  Integrating  Build a bridge  Types

 Behavioral  Temporal  Physical  Communicative

Model of Work-Home Boundary Work

Work-Home Conflict Boundary Work Tactics

• Behavioral
• Temporal
• Physical
• Communicative

Work-Home Boundary Incongruence Dimensions Work-Home Boundary Violations

• Intrusion
• Distance

Individual’s Work-Home Boundary Preferences Environmental Work-Home Boundary Influences

Strategies for Work-Life Balance

 Doing “boundary work” involves

strategies/tactics that are often quite consciously employed

 As I go through the strategies, consider: What do

you do? What could you do? What about other people at your organization?

Using Other People

 “Border-keepers” – the other individuals who can

help one’s attempts at work-home balance, such as spouses, children, staff, friends

 Can act as a “firewall” between you and other

potential boundary violators

 “My church administrator, who takes all the calls at

the church, is very good about helping me keep my boundaries up. There are also three clergy on staff here so we are able to share emergencies that come

• up. That is a great help.”

Leveraging Technology

 By using caller ID, voice mail, email (separate or

single accounts), etc.

 “Caller ID is a big help with the phone calls. We

always return phone calls, of course. We always respond, but it’s not always when the people want. When people need, yes. There is a big difference between what a person wants and what they actually need.”

Invoking Triage

 Prioritizing multiple simultaneous demands on time  Some are known in advance (conflicts in a schedule)

while others pop-up last minute (child gets sick when need to be somewhere)

 Triage = making quick but efficient diagnoses of

which crisis or problem is the most important and/or most likely to be fixed, then acting accordingly

Example of Triage Strategy

 I try and sort out between what I have to do, and what I

should do, and what I want to do. It is kind of a triage. You know, you have to do what you have to do…. Like tomorrow my kids are in this big swim meet. I would love to be there for the swim meet. I was supposed to have a volunteer job at it. But, a long-time member of our parish died, and we are going to have an enormous funeral with 500 people, and the rector is on vacation. So, there is just no question. You know, I wish I could be at the swim meet, but I can’t. On the

• ther hand, if it was an optional sort of “Can you come in

and do this on a Saturday?” you know I would say, “You know I have this big swim meet to go to. I’ll come in, in the afternoon”…. It’s ongoing triage…. You know, it’s a situation- by-situation thing, who gets the most attention.

Allowing Differential Permeability (aka “Picking and Choosing”)

 Choosing which specific aspects of work or

home life will or will not spill over – and which direction

 Leave politics at work, but bring home paperwork  “I like integrating my family in my church work, but I

don’t want to integrate my church work into my family beyond what they want to participate in.”

Controlling Work Time

Several themes within this broad tactic:

 Creating blocks of time for family or work

 Regular scheduling  Special occasions

 Banking time: if having to work extra hours,

make up the time with family later

 Choosing when to perform various tasks  Being proactive about calendar usage (e.g.,

scheduling family events first)

Finding Respite

 Remove self from the work domain for a significant amount of

time

 When you leave on vacation, are you really gone?...  One of the struggles I have had is, what do I do [for the

funeral] if I’m away and someone dies? I’m on vacation. Should I come back? Should I have boundaries? Last summer this woman… kept saying, “I’m going to die when you’re away. I just know it. And I said “Oh, no, you’re not.” And sure enough – she did. You know, I didn’t come back, and I had arranged for another priest to do [the funeral]. People haven’t complained, but inside I wonder a little bit if I should have come back. It’s interesting talking to people. They’ll say, “Well, I don’t think you should come back,” and then they’ll say, “but I would want you to come back.”

Manipulating Physical Space & Boundaries

 Erecting, or dismantling physical borders (e.g.,

doors/screens) between work and home domains

 Or creating/reducing physical distance between work and

home

 Especially pertinent for the at-home worker  Can also capitalize on the “liminal” space between work

and home (e.g., commutes)

 My brother-in-law, the artist

 One priest, who was about to move into an

adjoining home described how she was building a high fence and gate with a garden between the church and the house; she wanted to walk through a “physical barrier” as she went to and from work, but she wanted it to be beautiful. She wanted a dual-function boundary: on one hand, a trigger to change; on the other, a reminder that the transition was good.

Managing Physical Artifacts

 Using tangible items to separate or blend aspects of

each domain

 Calendars, keys, photos of people, mail

 How many of you have 1 set of keys only? 2 or

more?

 Priest who lived in rectory next to church:

“Sometimes the mailman leaves a bundle of mail in

• ur post box for the office and I just dump it off in the
• ffice so it doesn’t come home. We are vigilant

about working in whatever way we can to prevent much cross contamination between home and work.”

Setting Expectations

 Outline your preferences regarding the

work-home boundary to important stakeholders

 Spouse, children, staff members, co-workers

 General communication before a problem arises  Examples:

 Don’t interrupt me at certain times of day  You can/cannot call during vacation  Negotiating work schedule before accepting job offer

Setting Expectations

 “Thursdays are sacred time. Everybody in

this church knows it. I am absolutely not available unless you have just been run over by an eighteen wheeler. If you are headed to the emergency room, you call me, I’ll be there, but don’t you call me if you want to know whether something ought to be in the bulletin or not. Everybody knows it. I’ve never had to be mean about it. I’ve just been real clear.”

Confronting Violators

 Directly speaking with the person violating

the boundary

 Use after problem has arisen  One priest told us about a parishioner who came

to his home at night wanting to talk: “I try to say, ‘Oh, how long have you had this problem? Okay, you’ve been drinking for twenty years. Well, how about if we talk tomorrow morning?’”

Handout Part 3: Boundary Tactics

Boundary Work

Feedforward Exercise

1.

Pick the one behavior (within or across domains— home, work, other) you would like to change that would make a significant, positive difference on your preferred boundary management

2.

Describe this objective to another person

3.

Ask that person for two suggestions for the future to address your desired change

4.

Listen to hear the suggestions, then say only “thank you!”

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful By Marshall Goldsmith, Hyperion, 2007

Summary/Recommendations

 Consider your own integration and segmentation

preferences

 Consider the preferences of those around you and

how they create (in)congruence with you

 Implement boundary work tactics to manage the

discrepancies between your preferences and others’

 Help workforce gain knowledge of the specific

challenges and the tactics to overcome them

Good luck balancing your borders and bridges! Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information or to continue this dialogue!

Glen.Kreiner@psu.edu

Thank you for your participation!