Balancing Family and Work Life. A Business Perspective

Family-Work Balance (FWB) is essential for individual employees’ health and mental state. This stream of research is well-rooted in the literature, but it is also informed mainly from a sociological or psychological perspective. The business perspective is missing, and as a result, the actual benefits of helping their employees achieve such a balance remain scarce and hardly documented. Subsequently, the managerial effort to improve perceived FWB remains desultory and highly subjective. This manuscript aims to start filling this gap and launch the effort to look at FWB from a business, relational perspective. Grounded on the Vocational-Fit theory, we offer a definition for FWB that accounts for the joint responsibility of management and employees in producing such balance. Using the evidence from 19 in-depth interviews with salespeople, we explain the key constituents of the FWB notion from this business-relational perspective, along with its drivers and impediments. Academic and practical implications for salesperson’s management are discussed, along with the directions for future research.