Center for American Progress:
Helping firms by helping employees? Work-life balance in America
18 December 2015
There is a long history of debate within business, policy, and economic literature regarding whether firms can improve their performance by treating their employees well. One view is that policies to improve employees' work-life balance - such as working from home, part-time working, child care support, and generous maternity leave - are both expensive and often counterproductive for firms. For example, the U.S. internet firm Yahoo famously banned working from home in February 2013, stating in its leaked e-mail that ''Speed and quality are often sacrificed when working at home.'' In this view, improved employee work-life balance will come at the expense of substantially lower profits for most firms. An alternative view is that improving employees' work-life balance may simultaneously raise firms' profits. For example, the U.S. airline JetBlue allows its call-center employees to work flexible hours from home in order to attract highly skilled employees, such as college educated women with young children, so that JetBlue can offer superior customer service.
This article was published by the Center for American Progress on December 18, 2015
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Related publications
Helping firms by helping employees? Work-life balance in America, Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, Daniela Scur and John Van Reenen, Center for American Progress, December 2015
Related links
Nicholas Bloom webpage
Raffaella Sadun webpage
Daniela Scur webpage
John Van Reenen webpage
Growth Programme webpage
Management Practices and Organisational Structures research webpage