Implications of family-friendly policies for organizational culture: findings from two case studies

Formal policies intended to enable employees to meet family commitments may be important indicators of an organization's intent, but they do not guarantee that the informal culture is supportive of employees' families or their attempts to manage occasionally conflicting priorities (Lewis, 1997; Lewis and Lewis, 1996). Two case studies were conducted to identify salient aspects of the culture of two organizations and the extent to which changes in culture result from the implementation of family-friendly policies. The wider issue of the ease with which purposive cultural change or organizational learning may be engendered to ameliorate employees' work-life balance is also considered.