A social-cognitive perspective on using family-friendly benefits

To help employees better manage competing life demands, many organizations offer family-friendly benefits to their workers, including flexible scheduling, day care assistance, and leave of absence. Although there is growing evidence of positive effects associated with these benefits, little is known about factors related to their use. Using survey responses from 188 parents employed in a variety of occupations, we examined the use of a broad array of family-friendly benefits from a social-cognitive perspective. More positive work outcome expectancies related to higher rates of benefit use, and more positive family outcome expectancies and higher work-family self-efficacy related to stronger intentions to use the benefits. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between work outcome expectancies and benefit use intentions, such that more positive work outcome expectancies were associated with stronger use intentions for women, but work outcome expectancies were not related to men’s use intentions.