Family-Friendly Policies in the Police: Implications for Work-Family Conflict

Although organizational decision-makers are turning toward “family-friendly” policies to reduce employee work-family strain, the usefulness of such policies, as well as perceptions of their availability, remains unclear. Thus, we examined both perceived availability of family-friendly programs as well as the actual usage of such programs for minimizing work-family conflict. Data from the Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the United States study (Delprino, O’Quinn, & Kennedy, 1995) were used from 866 married police officers. Results showed that work stress was positively related to work-family conflict. Furthermore, whereas no relationship between program usage and work-family conflict emerged, there was both a direct negative relationship between program availability and work-family conflict and family-friendly policy availability moderated the relationship between work stress and work-family conflict.