The study is based on empirical research. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with working parents having children under the age of eight (including eight years old). All informants were between 31-35 years old, from Fujian Province of China. The purpose of the research is to investigate how working parents experience work-life balance in their real lives. The research focuses on two aspects of working parents: work and personal life. The research theory mainly includes three aspects, namely, role balance and work-life balance, work-life conflict and inter-role conflict, and a gender perspective. These serve as explanatory tools for the subjective experience of working parents’ work-life balance. The study has answered and discussed the research questions from three aspects:(1) gender differences and flexible working arrangements. It is found that the incompatibility between fixed working hours and the family schedule requirements of working parents leads to work-life conflicts. Men and women adopt flexibility in different ways. (2) role and work-life conflict. The results show that blurring the blurred work-life boundaries has an adverse effect on both family roles and work roles. Furthermore, it is found that with the support and help of the elderly, the time conflict between family care and work for working parents can be reduced. However, if the concept of parenting between the two generations differs significantly, working parents’ sense of work-life conflict may still exist. (3) policies and measures for work-life balance. This part discusses how to better reconcile the work-life balance of working parents. It is divided into two sections, namely, the national policies and the measures of the organisations. Meanwhile, specific suggestions are given.

Work-life balance, balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv, har intresserat forskare under de senaste decennierna och flertalet studier har gjorts på ämnet. Olika perspektiv har tagits i beaktning, såväl individinriktade som organisatoriska. Denna studie belyser de mönster och faktorer som kan urskiljas och påverkar chefers work-life balance. Studien bygger på 14 kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med chefer inom olika branscher. Intervjuerna behandlade chefernas upplevelser av balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv och en tematisk analys genomfördes på det insamlade materialet. Resultatet visar att chefer i relativt hög grad upplever balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv men balansen tycks gå i vågor av perioder av stress och hög arbetsbelastning. Studien finner inga tydliga könsskillnader angående chefernas sätt att skapa balans. Däremot lyfter intervjupersonerna problematiken kring kvinnors dubbla arbete, i förvärvsarbete och hem. Slutligen kan det konstateras att arbetsuppgifternas karaktär, det flexibla arbetet och förmågan att sätta gränser mellan de olika livsdomänerna, konflikter mellan olika sociala roller, såväl som det sociala stödet och kraven som cheferna upplever är de faktorer som påverkar balansen mellan arbetsliv och privatliv i högst grad. / Work-life balance, the balance between work and private life, has been interesting researchers over the last decades, and several studies has been conducted in the field. Different perspectives have been considered, both individual and organizational. This study highlights the patterns and factors that affect managers' work-life balance. The study is based on 14 qualitative semi-structured interviews with managers in different industries. The interviews covered the managers’ experiences of work-life balance and a thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The results show that managers experience a relatively high level of work-life balance, but the balance seems to fluctuate in periods of stress and high workload. The study finds no clear gender differences regarding the managers’ way of creating balance. Although the respondents raise their attention to the issue regarding women’s double workload, both at work and at home. Finally, it can be noted that the nature of the tasks, the flexible working hours, the ability to set limits between the life domains, the conflict between different roles, as well as social support, and the demands the managers face are the factors that influence the balance between work and private life the most.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry study is to explore the barriers and opportunities women in K-12 leadership face, particularly with how they navigate conflicts in their work-life balance and in what ways they have been afforded opportunities. Work-life balance will be generally defined as the reconciliation of the conflicting demands and obligations between a women’s professional requirements and her personal life. Opportunities will be defined as events that lead to a woman’s career advancements and accomplishments. The study was designed to identify perceived barriers and opportunities during both the ascension to and experience of holding a public K-12 educational leadership position in order to explore successful strategies and factors future female leaders might use to address career ascendency and leadership development challenges. For this study, a narrative research design was used to explore, examine, and understand the female K-12 public educational leaders’ personal reflections of events and experiences, and the meaning that was extracted from those experiences. Using a categorical content analysis, themes were inductively identified within the narrative. Although the public education workforce has historically been dominated by women, evidence remains that there is a disproportionate number of women in senior leadership positions. As suggested by the review of literature, it is necessary to investigate the journey of women’s leadership development to identify how to best develop future female leaders in public K-12 education.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to contribute to a broader understanding regarding of how and whether flexible working conditions in terms of time and space affect the balance and the boundary between personal and work life for employees with a creative work. The study also aims to investigate if there are any clashes between the employee's personal and work life and where such clashes occur. Literature review: The study is based on previous organisational research. In the section we present flexible working conditions, creative work, boundaries, balance and strategies. Method: The study is a qualitative study with mainly deductive elements. Some inductive approaches have also been used during the study. Five semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the study's empirical data. The interviews were transcribed to ease the presentation of the results and to thematize the key concepts for the analysis. Results: The results section of the study presents the themes that are relevant for managing an analysis together with the literature review. Conclusions: The conclusions that are presented in the study are that there are few clashes between personal and working life. Mainly because the worker has difficulty to tell what is imbalance and what is a matter of course, but also that the worker actually is satisfied with the work situation. How the clashes are handled in order to reduce the a potential crash is through clear boundaries regarding both personal and working life. It turned out that the limits for the personal life were stronger towards the sphere of working life than working life is towards the sphere of personal life. / Syfte: Syftet med studien är att bidra med ökad förståelse för hur och om flexibla arbetsförhållanden vad gäller tid och rum, påverkar balansen och gränsdragningen mellan privatliv och arbetsliv för arbetstagare med ett kreativt arbete. Studien syftar också till att undersöka om det uppstår krockar mellan privatliv och arbetsliv för arbetstagaren och var dessa krockar i sådant fall uppstår. Litteraturgenomgång: Studien baseras på tidigare forskning i ett format om vetenskapliga artiklar. Under avsnittet presenteras litteratur kring flexibla arbetsförhållanden, det kreativa arbetet, gränsdragning, balans och strategier. Metod: Studien är av kvalitativ karaktär med främst deduktivt inslag. Viss mån av induktivt angreppssätt har även använts under studiens gång. Fem semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes för insamlandet av studiens empiri. Intervjuerna transkriberades för att underlätta vid framställningen av resultatet samt tematiseringen av nyckelbegrepp för analysen. Resultat: I studiens resultatavsnitt presenteras de teman som är av relevans för genomförandet av analysen tillsammans med litteraturgenomgången. Slutsatser: De slutsatser som presenteras i studien är att att det förekommer få krockar mellan privatliv och arbetsliv. Främst därför att arbetstagaren har svårt att urskilja vad som är obalans och vad som är en självklarhet, men därför också att personen ifråga är tillfreds med sin arbetssituation. För att minska kollisionen hanteras krockarna genom tydlig gränsdragning gällande privatlivet och arbetslivet. Det har visat sig att privatlivets gränser är starkare gentemot arbetslivets pol än vad arbetslivets dito är gentemot privatlivets pol.

This study's aim was to investigate the difference between women's an men's experience of Work-Life Balance in a seasonal based proffesion. The study investigated eventual differences in employee's experiences of Work Life Balance during on-and off season in the organization. The study was conducted through a web-based survey made by Google forms with 74 completed answers. The results showed that there was a difference in the experience of WFC and FWC between on and off season. The results showed thah there was a significant difference in the experience of FWC during the on season. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the experiene of FWC between men end women, where men experienced a higher level of FWC. The results didn't show a significant difference in the experience of WFC between men and women.

Bakgrund: Employer branding har blivit ett alltmer aktuellt fenomen i den föränderliga värld vi lever i. Det kan ses som ett verktyg för att både rekrytera och behålla anställda. Organisationer behöver ständigt anpassa sina employer branding strategier efter nuvarande förutsättningar, och modifieringar kan behöva göras för att en organisation ska kunna behålla nuvarande anställda. Syfte: Vår studie avser förklara modifiering av employer branding strategier i relation till interna och externa faktorer, i syfte att behålla anställda. Metod: Studien innehar en induktiv ansats där rollen av teori inte lagt grunden. För att förklara modifiering av employer branding strategier och vilka externa och interna faktorer som spelar in, har en fallstudie genomförts med sju informanter. Studien utgår ifrån kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med både HR-personer och medarbetare inom den valda organisationen. I studien genomförs en tematisk analys för att förstå vilka interna och externa faktorer som påverkar modifiering av employer branding strategier. Slutsats: Studiens resultat förklarar modifiering av employer branding strategier i relation till interna och externa faktorer, både baserat på HR och de anställdas syn. Utifrån resultat och analys har en modelltagits fram som illustrerar samspelet mellan interna och externa faktorer och hur dessa resulterar i modifiering av employer brandig strategier. En slutsats som kan dras är att samspelet mellan interna och externa faktorer är avgörande för en effektiv och hållbar modifiering som i sin tur gör att organisationer lyckas behålla anställda. / Background: Employer branding has become an increasingly well-known phenomenon in the changing world we live in. It can be seen as a tool for both recruiting and retaining employees. Organizations need to constantly adapt their employer branding strategies to current conditions, and modifications may need to be made to enable an organization to retain current employees. Purpose: Our study intends to explain the modification of employer branding strategies in relation to internal and external factors, in order to retain employees. Method: The study has an inductive approach where the role of theory has not laid the foundation. To explain how organizations modify employer branding strategies and which external and internal factors come into play, a case study was conducted with seven informants. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with both HR-people and employees within the chosen organization. The study conducts a thematic analysis to understand which internal and external factors influence the modification of the employer branding strategies. Conclusion: The results of the study explain the modification of employer branding strategies in relation to internal and external factors, both based on HR and the employees' opinions. Based on results and analysis, a model has been developed that illustrates the interplay between internal and external factors and how these result in modification of the employer branding strategies. A conclusion that can be drawn is that the interplay between internal and external factors is crucial for an effective and sustainable modification which in turn means that organizations succeed in retaining employees.

Workplace interventions provide a practical and important means of providing support for employees' work-family needs. However, work-family interventions are rare and are generally not thoroughly evaluated. The current study seeks to better understand the impacts of STAR ("Support. Transform. Achieve. Results."), the large-scale work-family intervention developed and implemented by the Work, Family, & Health Network (see Bray et al., 2013). Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study examines supervisors' participation in STAR through assessment of three primary supervisor-specific outcomes: training-related views and behaviors, well-being, and the work-family interface. The sample, consisting of 184 supervisors from 30 extended-care facilities throughout the northeastern United States, comes from archival data that were collected by the Work, Family, & Health Network. Results show a lack of support for STAR intervention effects on supervisor-level outcomes. Despite the lack of statistically significant effects on supervisors, it is important to note the lack of iatrogenic effects, indicating that participation in the STAR intervention did not harm supervisor outcomes. Implications, future directions, and limitations of the study are discussed.

In 2008, there were more than 5,200 workplace fatalities in the United States (BLS, 2010b). During the same time period, U.S. employees missed almost 1.1 million days from work (BLS, 2010c). Accidents are unexpected outcomes that result not only from individuals' behaviors, but from contextual factors (Krause, 1997; Reason, 1990). Therefore, unsafe behaviors have to be interpreted according to a combination of what is occurring in the environment and what the individual is doing in that environment. The present study sought to create a more comprehensive model of safety by means of macroergonomics. Macroergonomics utilizes sociotechnical systems theory to posit that a work system is composed of a personnel subsystem (i.e., ways individuals perform tasks), a technological subsystem (i.e., tasks to be performed), and external factors (Hendrick, 2002a). Perceived control over work hours, an aspect of the technological subsystem, was examined as an antecedent of work-family conflict. Supervisor instrumental support, an aspect of the personnel subsystem, was examined as a moderator of the relationships between perceived control over work hours and work-family conflict. Supervisors have an imperative role in employees' perception of control over their work hours (Kelly & Moen, 2007). Supervisor instrumental support was also hypothesized to moderate the relationships between work-family conflict and safety performance. Supervisors who support their employees in their work-family matters exceed mandatory requirements set forth to protect workers' safety and health (Mearns, Hope, Ford, & Tetrick, 2010). A majority of the 360 participants in the present study were grocery store employees who worked in the front end of the store as cashiers. Job tenure in this particular grocery store chain was an average of 7 years (SD = 5.96) and the average number of hours worked per week was 31 (SD = 8.55). The employees were an average age of 38 years old (SD = 15.25). Two hundred and sixty-two (73%) of the participants were female, 330 (92%) were White, 196 (55%) employees were married or living as married, 146 (41%) employees identified themselves as parents with children living at home, and 58 (16%) employees provided elder care. The data were analyzed using a moderated mediation model. An employee's perceived control over his/her work hours was negatively associated with work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Work-to-family conflict was not significantly associated with either safety compliance or participation. In contrast, family-to-work conflict was significantly associated with both safety compliance and participation. These findings replicate Cullen and Hammer's (2007) findings that family-to-work conflict, but not work-to-family conflict, is negatively associated with safety compliance and participation. The replication of these significant findings gives support to macroergonomics' assertion that external forces (i.e., family) can affect the safety of employees. All of the meditating and moderating relationships proposed in this dissertation were not significant. I conducted post hoc analyses to determine other possible significant paths in the model examined. The FSSB dimension of supervisor instrumental support was found to positively affect both safety compliance and participation. Supervisor instrumental support was also found to directly affect work-to-family conflict. Overall FSSB and its subdimensions demonstrated similar patterns in the hypothesized relationships and in additional relationships examined. Numerous implications can be recognized from this dissertation. First, interdisciplinary approaches to safety research are emerging and important in the pursuit of safer work environments. Macroergonomics and I/O psychology have commonalities that lend themselves to a good partnership where researchers can learn from each other and collaborate to advance the study of safety. Second, organizations need to focus on the stressors their employees experience as part of their safety programs, and numerous studies, including this dissertation, have found that family-to-work conflict impacts safety compliance and participation. Future safety research may incorporate macroergonomics, which emphasizes that focusing on one adverse aspect of the system may not be enough to create valuable change if there are other adverse factors still creating demands elsewhere in the system. This will allow for a more comprehensive model that ensures certain aspects of the system are not neglected, which can reduce effectiveness of constructs used to create positive changes.

Bakgrund: Efter Covid-19 pandemin har den flexibla arbetsformen ökat i popularitet. Tidigare forskning visar att arbetsformen både kan främja och motverka upplevelsen av work-life balance. Dessutom är nyttjandet av ett flexibelt arbete en genusfråga, eftersom förväntningarna på män och kvinnor är olika gällande varför de väljer att nyttja flexibiliteten. Kvinnans status på arbetsmarknaden riskeras att nedvärderas vid användningen av ett flexibelt arbete, vilket väcker behov av vidare forskning. I dagsläget finns ett kunskapsgap inom ämnet work-life balance när en flexibel arbetsform erbjuds, utifrån ett jämställdhetsperspektiv. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att, utifrån ett jämställdhetsperspektiv, beskriva HR-medarbetaresupplevelse av work-life balance när en flexibel arbetsform erbjuds. Metod: Studien genomförs med en deduktiv forskningsansats, en komparativ forskningsdesign samt ett tolkande förhållningssätt. Syfte och frågeställningar formuleras utifrån en dokumentanalys och befintlig inferens. En litteraturöversikt leder till studiens teoretiska ramverk som i sin tur lyfter tre huvudteman. Empiri samlas in genom tio semistrukturerade intervjuer, som sedan analyseras genom en tematisk dataanalys. Analysen av data resulterar i slutsatser och bidrag till teori och praktik. Avslutningsvis presenteras förslag till vidare forskning. Slutsats: Studiens resultat beskriver att informanterna upplever att den flexibla arbetsformens fördelar väger tyngre än dess nackdelar. En tydlig majoritet av informanterna uppskattar arbetsformen och alla belyser att den hjälper skapa en work-life balance. För att överkomma arbetsformens nackdelar krävs fasta rutiner och en inre disciplin. Därtill är chefsstöd, samt tydliga förväntningar och riktlinjer viktigt. Gällande jämställdhetsperspektivet finns ingen skillnad mellan könen vid ett flexibelt arbete i en svensk kontext. / Background: After the Covid-19 pandemic flexible work has increased in popularity. Previous research shows that flexible work both can promote and discourage the experience of work-life balance. In addition, the use of flexible work is a gender issue, as the expectations for men and women are different. The status of women in the labor market is at risk of being devalued when flexible work is used, which raises the need for further research. Currently, there is a knowledge gap within the subject of WLB when flexible work is offered, from an equality perspective. Purpose: The purpose with this study is to, from a gender perspective, describe HR employees' experience when flexible working conditions are offered. Method: The study has a deductive approach, comparative research design and an interpretive approach. The study's purpose and research questions are based on a document analysis. A literature review leads to the study’s theoretical framework. Empirical data is collected through ten semi-structed interviews, which are then analyzed through a thematic data analysis. The analysis of the data results in conclusions and contributions to theory and practice. Lastly, proposals for further research are presented. Conclusion: The study shows that the informants feel the advantages of flexible work outweigh its disadvantages. A clear majority of the informants appreciate the way of working and all highlight that it helps create a WLB. In order to overcome the disadvantages of the working form, fixed routines and an inner discipline are required. In addition, managerial support, as well as clear expectations and guidelines are important. Regarding the gender equality perspective, there is no difference between the genders in flexible work in a Swedish context.

In today's job market, but also in society in general, there is a discussion about the importance of having a good balance between work and private life, to minimize negative stress and sick leave. Middle managers are often highlighted as being exposed to these issues. The purpose of this study was to explore how middle managers' work-life balance and informal learning have an impact on each other. The aspiration was to get a better understanding of what contributes to work-related stress in relation to workplace learning in employees with both staff responsibilities and managers above them. The model of demand-control-support and informal learning have been used as a theoretical framework to analyze the empirical material collected. Through five semi-structured interviews the study has established that a healthy balance between working life and private life contributes to increasing commitment and learning in the workplace amongst middle managers. Furthermore, the study has concluded that non-formal learning in the workplace can contribute to a healthier balance between working life and private life, but also that learning in the workplace can contribute to negative stress outside of working hours. The key factors for this are opportunities to influence one's own work, have social support from managers, employees, family and friends, as well as clear demands from management. These have proven to be important in relieving stress and increasing workplace learning where there is a lack of work-life balance in middle managers. Keywords: Work-life balance, informal learning, demand-control-support, work-related stress