Work-family conflict among IT specialty workers in the US

ABSTRACT

Specialty workers are a source of critical, locally scarce technical skills. This study aimed to understand the experience of work-family conflict among specialty workers in the US by exploring the process of transitioning from working in their home countries to working in the US. While participants perceived initial difficulties in adapting to the new environment, over time, they experienced lower work-family conflict in the US compared to working in their own home countries. In their home countries, where work and family domains were considered separate and culturally defined boundaries separating these domains are rigidly maintained; these participants relied heavily on family support to manage work-family conflict. Moving to the US, where greater integration of work and family domains is prevalent, these participants managed work-family conflict by revisiting altered demands, accessing alternate organizational resources and learning new skills to create and maintain work-family boundaries. This study contributes to the nascent body of literature on work-family relations in the context of international migration by highlighting a specific case of Indian specialty workers who adopt different boundary-spanning strategies to manage work-family conflict in changed social and working conditions. In essence, participants managed work-family conflict by using enhanced autonomy to increase flexible working and accessing other resources such as supervisory support and organizational flexible working policies.

RESUMEN

Los trabajadores especializados son una fuente de habilidades técnicas crítica y escasa a nivel local. El objetivo de la presente investigación es comprender el conflicto ocasionado entre el ámbito familiar y el laboral que experimentan los trabajadores especializados en EE.UU observando el proceso de transición del trabajo en sus países de origen hacia el trabajo en los EE.UU. Aunque los participantes percibieron dificultades iniciales para adaptarse al nuevo entorno, con el trascurso del tiempo la situación de conflicto entre el trabajo y la familia era menor en EE.UU en comparación a la que experimentaban en sus países de origen. En sus países de origen, donde el ámbito laboral y el familiar eran concebidos de forma separada y las fronteras culturalmente definidas que delimitaban estos ámbitos se mantenían de forma rígida; estos participantes dependían en gran medida del apoyo de su familia para lidiar con el conflicto entre la familia y el trabajo. Cuando se trasladaron a EE.UU, donde prevalece una mayor integración del ámbito laboral y familiar, estos participantes gestionaron el conflicto entre familia y trabajo reconsiderando exigencias modificadas, accediendo a recursos de organización alternativos y aprendiendo nuevas destrezas para crear y mantener las fronteras entre el trabajo y la familia. El presente estudio contribuye a la investigación emergente sobre las relaciones entre la familia y el trabajo en el contexto de la migración internacional subrayando un caso específico de trabajadores indios que adoptan diferentes estrategias para expandir sus fronteras y así gestionar el conflicto entre el ámbito laboral y el familiar en unas condiciones sociales y laborales diferentes. Fundamentalmente, los participantes pudieron gestionar este conflicto haciendo uso de una acentuada autonomía para fomentar el trabajo flexible y accediendo a otros recursos tales como el apoyo de supervisión y políticas laborales de organización flexibles.

KEYWORDS:

• Boundary management strategies
• temporary workers
• resources and demands
• work-family conflict
• IT specialty workers

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• Estrategias de gestión de fronteras
• trabajadores temporales
• recursos y demandas
• conflicto entre el trabajo y la familia
• trabajadores especializados en TIC

Acknowledgements

We thank Erin Kelly for her valuable inputs, and suggestions in the design, execution and initial review of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lalitha Urs is a doctoral student at the department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research interests include motivation, work family balance and goal pursuit.

Dr. Aaron M. Schmidt is the Marvin D. Dunnette Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research focuses on various aspects of work motivation, particularly goal revision, self-efficacy and the self-regulation of time and effort.

Notes

1 The decision on employment duration rests with the employing organization.

2 A specialty worker’s job requires the application of a highly specialized body of knowledge acquired through a specific course of higher education (US Dept. of State, 2012).

3 In general we refer to spouse and children as family. References to extended family are made in the context of family social support which is a major resource for managing work-family conflict.

4 People who had become permanent resident status or naturalized citizens of the US after having worked on a specialty worker visa were excluded from the sample.

5 55% of participants were graduates in Engineering or Management. Participants had spent an average of 4 years on the H1B visa with a majority of them being employed as information technology (IT) consultants by large organizations (with more than 5000 employees) in the IT sector. A third of the sample indicated that their employment was contingent on project exigencies resulting in uncertainty in their employment status.

6 The bracketing of personal experiences allows the researcher to set aside personal experiences, so that the focus is on the participant along with their experiences and meanings associated with them.

7 The participant names that appear in this paper are pseudonyms.

8 In this study, responses to questions relating to factors that aided/improved management of work-family conflict was coded as resources, while those that were perceived to lead or accentuate this conflict was coded as demands.