Analysis of Factors Influencing the Implementation of a Work-Family Balance System in Companies

Abstract

Flexible working hours is a policy tool for work-family balance that supports workers to secure time to raise children while maintaining their work life. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors influencing the introduction and use of flexible working hours in companies, and to obtain implications for policy effectiveness through comparative analysis with the reduction of working hours during childcare. To this end, the characteristics of company, HR management, and organizational culture were analyzed as major influencing factors. For the analysis data, the 7th Female Managers Panel Survey (2018) was used, and statistical analysis was conducted for a total of 346 companies. As a result of the analysis, public sector institutions, the presence of a union, the proportion of highly educated women, and transparent HR management were significant in the implementation of flexible working hours, a corporate autonomous system. On the other hand, in the case of reduction of working hours during childcare, which is a legally mandatory system, the size of the company, whether there is a difference in promotion due to gender discrimination practices, and the perception of the CEO were significant. In particular, the results of this study, which confirmed that rational HR management is an important factor in the implementation of both systems, suggests that policy effectiveness can only be enhanced when HR management improvement in the aspect of work-family balance is accompanied.