Effects of family-supportive supervisor behaviors and organizational climate on employees

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of family-supportive supervisor behaviors and organizational climate on employees’ work–family conflict, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach To examine the causal relationship, the longitudinal panel data of the work, family and health study were used, using the data of 664 respondents who participated in surveys from all four time-points at two Fortune 500 information technology (IT) companies. Findings The results of the data analysis suggested that family-supportive supervisor behaviors have a minimal, but statistically significant, impact on work-to-family conflict and organizational work-family climate. Moreover, work-to-family conflict minimally mediated the relationship between family-supportive supervisor behaviors and employees’ turnover intentions. An organizational work-family climate had a small, but statistically significant, mediating effect between family-supportive supervisor behaviors and job satisfaction/turnover intentions. Practical implications This study has practical implications by noting that relying on only individual managers’ roles or training managers to be family-supportive may not be enough to improve family-oriented organizational culture, work–life balance and job-related outcomes. Originality/value Using a longitudinal mediation model, the authors examined the effects of family-supportive supervisor behaviors and how those behaviors impact other variables over time. Despite the expectation of such an impact, the authors found minimal effects among variables. This study is valuable because it can stimulate future research to advance the theoretical and practical understanding of family-supportive supervisor behaviors to help determine why the study found that it had very little impact on both work–family conflict and a family-friendly organizational climate to increase employees’ satisfaction to continue to work.