Why don't employees use family‐friendly work practices?

Abstract

Despite the growing availability of family‐friendly work practices (FFWPs), employees are sometimes reluctant to use them. One factor reportedly contributing to this is a work culture that discourages people accessing their entitlements. The purpose of the study in this paper was to explore the efficacy of McDonalds’ model that accounts for the gap between the availability and usage of FFWPs. The five dimensions of this model are managerial support, career consequences, organisational time expectations, the gendered nature of policy utilisation, and co‐worker support. The study in this paper was based on interviews with employees at four large Australian organisations. The findings indicated that family‐friendly work culture (FFWC) played a significant role in employees’ reluctance to take up their entitlements. Each of the five cultural dimensions was found to impact employee decisions. An extended framework of nine dimensions of FFWC accounting for the utilisation gap has been created.