Psychosocial safety climate as resource passageways to alleviate work-family conflict: A study in the health sector in Quebec

The purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional mediating model of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and work-family interference. More precisely, it tests the direct and indirect effects of PSC on work-family conflict (WFC)/family-work conflict (FWC)-time and WFC/FWC-strain via family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB).

The structural equation method was used to test the direct effect of PSC on WFC/FWC time and strain. As for the mediation effects, they were tested by the method of indirect effects based on a bootstrap analysis (Preacher and Hayes, 2004) based on 3,000 replications with a 95% confidence interval. The statistical treatments were carried out with the AMOS software V.22.

The results show that PSC is negatively and directly related to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain. In addition, the bootstrap analyses indicate that PSC is related indirectly to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain via FSSB.

WFC is a workplace issue that warrants intervention in order to reduce organizational costs and increase worker well-being and PSC should be considered as an appropriate target for intervention (Dollard et al., 2012). However, although this management tool can be useful to reduce FWC, it is more appropriate to decrease WFC. Employers and HR managers not only should understand from the findings the importance of PSC, but also that all employees do not have the same problems, depending on the level of responsibilities at home, for example. Hence, they should offer the appropriate resources according to the need of workers. Indeed, the implementation of a unique work-family measure may not be appropriate for all workers, and it is important that employers and HR managers understand the details of WFC and FWC, as well as the possible effects of a series of different variables, in order to design the best work-family programs.

This research examined the effects of two new and specific resources at work, which are PSC and FSSB on WFC and FWC (time and strain), as recommended by Kossek et al. (2011). In addition, this study tested a new multidimensional mediating model which examined the mediation role of FSSB between PSC and time- and strain-based WFC and FWC. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine these relations. Moreover, the test of the concepts of PSC in this study provides a support for the theory of conservation of resources and proposes an extension of this theory.