Source: Content contributed by Alicia Grandey and Bryanne Cordeiro as a Suggested Work and Family Class Activity for the Sloan Networks’ Resources for Teaching section.

Type: Group / Class Discussion

Purpose
To explore relationships between changes in the workforce, employer-supported work-family policies and programs, and justice theory.

Steps
I usually start off my Motivation and Attitudes at Work class (PSY441) talking about the changes in the workforce, which leads up to the need for family-friendly policies. I use Greenberg & Baron, Behavior in Organizations, (5th Edition), which has a list of family-friendly policies in the first chapter. Then I start off the class with the individual thought questions (see below). Later in the course I introduce the specifics of justice theory and return to this issue.

1. Thought question for discussion: What benefits do you think will be available to you when you start working to help you balance work and family? Any?

     a.  This allows me to see how aware they are of FMLA, and also what their expectations are for the work world. It also usually illustrates that women have thought about this more than men. This leads into a discussion of expectations and reality - and what is fair (does reality violate expectations?)
   
2. Thought question for writing: Do you think it is fair for organizations to offer non-required policies such as paid parental leave and flex time to help employees balance work and family roles? Why or why not? What if you were:
     
  a. Management • why would they view the policies as fair or unfair?
  b. Coworkers of beneficiaries • who would see the policies as fair and who would not?
  c. What can organizations do to design fair policies?

Video

There is a great video clip by ABC News/Prentice Hall for the 1997 OB video library on the Daddy Track. It shows an interview with a man who believes he was fired from Microsoft after working flexible hours that allowed him to be with his children. He recorded phone calls with his manager (a woman) who said basically that the culture is not family-friendly. Good for discussion starters about whether this is fair treatment. - some men usually say it's fair since he didn't have to work for this company if that was their culture. Women are generally appalled.

Small groups discussion/debate

After discussing different types of work-family policies, divide the class into small groups. Have some groups take the role of managers, and some as line workers who have families and some who do not. The managers need to decide whether to offer discretionary family-friendly policies (such as paid parental leave), and why or why not. The line workers should discuss how they would feel about an organization that has family-friendly policies. Have the managers communicate their policy decision (so you can discuss the procedural justice aspect as well as distributive), and then open up the floor for discussion from all groups.