Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life
From Policy to Practice

A guide to harmonizing work, family, and personal life from individual and managerial perspectives.

Steven A. Y. Poelmans (Edited by), Paula Caligiuri (Author)

9780521858694, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 August 2008

328 pages, 7 b/w illus. 27 tables
23.4 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.64 kg

'This inspiring book contains profound knowledge of work-family matters pertinent to business organizations, HR practitioners, researchers, and individual career aspirations. Current and grounded in the importance of understanding today's workforce diversity and economic globalization, it provides a wide range of policy options that can be tailored to fit firm-specific strategic goals. It is truly international, and includes in-depth analysis of multiple real world examples of employers offering culturally appropriate work-family and individual career assistance programs. This will be particularly valuable for multinational organizations as they strive to transfer competence across borders through people.' Professor Nini Yang, College of Business, San Francisco State University

Organizations can no longer afford to assume that the ideal employee is male, full-time, and free from responsibilities outside work. As the percentage of women in the active work population rises, and the number of dual-income families grows, there is an ever greater demand for more flexible patterns of employment. Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life examines the organizational challenges of introducing work-life policies and practices from both an individual and a managerial perspective. Drawing on a broad range of international case studies of companies where such policies have both succeeded and failed, it acts as a practical guide for policy design and implementation. Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life will be essential reading for human resource practitioners, advanced students and academic researchers in the field of human resource management, organizational behavior, or career management.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Introduction Steven Poelmans
Part I. Describing Different Work-Life Policies/Policy Development/Pitfalls: 1. Strategic HR and work-life balance Paula Caligiuri and Nicole Givelekian
2. Reviewing policies for harmonizing work, family and personal life Steven Poelmans and Barbara Beham
3. Integrating career development and work-family policy Tammy Allen
4. Work-life balance on global assignments Paula Caligiuri and Mila Lazarova
5. IBM case Joan Giue and Oana Petrescu
Part II. Policy Design, Implementation, and Deployment: 6. Stages in the implementation of work-family policies Steven A. Y. Poelmans, Shilpa Patel and Barbara Beham
7. Policy development across borders: a framework for work-life initiatives in multinational enterprises Anne Bardoel and Helen DeCieri
Annex: ACREW Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Checklist of Work/Life Best Practice
Part III. Cultural Change: 8. Barriers to the planning, implementation and usage of work-life policies Cynthia Thompson
9. Proposing a model for cultural change Steven A. Y. Poelmans and Olena Stepanova
Epilogue: Social change Steven A. Y. Poelmans and Aline Masuda
Annex: List of Website references
Index.

Subject Areas: Personnel & human resources management [KJMV2], Business & management [KJ]