Determinants of work-family balance satisfaction during the pandemic: Insights from Québec.

The first wave of the COVID pandemic was the most challenging for employed parents, and more specifically for women. In Québec, research has shown a deterioration in the psychological health of parents in the early weeks of the pandemic. In this research, we investigate how Québec parents who remained employed during the lockdown in 2020 perceived their work-family balance in the stressful context of new earning and caregiving constraints, drawing on survey data collected in May 2020. Our approach integrates insights from psychological, managerial and sociological literatures. We find that most parents who remained employed found their work-family balance "easy" in the first months of the pandemic, but women felt less satisfied with their work-family balance than men as well as those whose employers were less understanding and supportive, and those whose workloads increased. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of previous studies on work-family intersections, to show that gender continues to matter when family members are faced with extraordinary circumstances such as the closing of childcare and schools, even in the egalitarian context of Québec, where fathers are perceived as legitimate caregivers.

La première vague de la pandémie de COVID a été la plus difficile pour les employés avec des enfants, et plus particulièrement pour les femmes. Au Québec, la recherche a révélé une détérioration de la santé psychologique des parents au Québec dans les premières semaines de la pandémie. Dans cette recherche, nous examinons la manière dont les parents québécois demeurés en emploi pendant le confinement en 2020 ont perçu leur conciliation emploi-famille dans le contexte stressant de nouvelles contraintes en matière de revenus et de prestation de soins, en nous appuyant sur les données d'enquête recueillies en mai 2020. Notre approche intègre des notions issues de la littérature en gestion, en psychologie et en sociologie. Nos résultats montrent que la plupart des parents qui ont conservé leur emploi ont perçu leur conciliation emploi-famille comme étant « facile ¼ au cours des premiers mois de la pandémie, mais que les femmes se sont senties moins satisfaites de leur conciliation emploi-famille que les hommes, ainsi que ceux dont les employeurs ont été moins compréhensifs et moins coopératifs, et ceux dont la charge de travail a augmenté. Les implications de ces résultats sont discutées à la lumière d'études antérieures sur les intersections emploi-famille, pour montrer que le genre continue d'avoir de l'importance lorsque les membres de la famille sont confrontés à des circonstances extraordinaires telles que la fermeture des services de garde et des écoles, même dans le contexte égalitaire du Québec, où les pères sont perçus comme des dispensateurs de soins légitimes.

Parentalité, conciliation emploi-famille et composition genrée de la main-d’oeuvre dans les organisations en temps de pandémie : le cas du Québec

Le Québec est reconnu comme étant la province dont la politique familiale se rapproche le plus de celle des pays nordiques en raison de ses prestations parentales généreuses et de ses services de garde à faible coût. Outre les interventions de l’État, d’autres mécanismes comme l’engagement des grands-parents et le soutien organisationnel contribuent à faciliter la conciliation emploi-famille. C’est sur ce dernier mécanisme que nous nous penchons en documentant la conciliation des mères et des pères dans les organisations québécoises sur la base de l’analyse de données de deux enquêtes menées en 2020 d’une part auprès des employés, et d’autre part, des entreprises. Nous montrons d’abord que les parents rapportent une conciliation le plus souvent « facile », même en temps de pandémie, et que la perception des hommes et des femmes face au soutien organisationnel offert par leur employeur ne varie pas significativement selon le genre. Nous brossons ensuite un portrait des mesures de conciliation emploi-famille offertes dans les organisations qui emploient majoritairement des hommes, celles où travaillent majoritairement des femmes, et celles qui sont mixtes. Nous montrons que les milieux majoritairement masculins ont une perception plus négative des effets des mesures de conciliation dans les organisations, alors que les milieux féminins perçoivent plus positivement ses effets sur la rétention des employés et l’attractivité de l’entreprise notamment. Nous observons que la présence d’une majorité de femmes dans un milieu de travail correspond à une offre plus diversifiée de mesures de conciliation emploi-famille. La discussion permet de faire le lien entre le contexte national québécois, qui valorise la symétrie des rôles familiaux, la manière dont les parents perçoivent leur conciliation emploi-famille et l’attitude des employeurs à l’égard de cet enjeu. Précis Les organisations, tout comme les membres de la famille et l’État, peuvent contribuer à faciliter la conciliation emploi-famille. Nous nous penchons ici sur la conciliation des vies personnelle et professionnelle des parents québécois sur la base de l’analyse de données de deux enquêtes menées auprès de parents et d’employeurs en 2020. Nous documentons et comparons l’expérience de conciliation en temps de pandémie des mères et des pères;puis, tout en tenant compte de l’importance des politiques familiales au Québec, nous montrons qu’il existe une correspondance entre le genre de la majorité de la main-d’oeuvre et l’offre de mesures de conciliation emploi-famille, les milieux de travail qui emploient majoritairement des femmes manifestant plus d’ouverture à l’égard de ces mesures et y voyant plus d’avantages.Alternate :Quebec is recognized as the province whose family policy most closely resembles that of the Nordic countries, thanks to its generous parental benefits and low-cost childcare. In addition to state intervention, other mechanisms such as grandparent involvement and organizational support contribute to facilitate the work-family reconciliation. We examine this last mechanism by documenting the work-family reconciliation of mothers and fathers in Quebec on the basis of data analysis of two surveys conducted in 2020 with employees on the one hand and with employers on the other. First, we show that most parents report an “easy” reconciliation, even during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the perception of men and women regarding the organizational support offered by their employer does not vary significantly by gender. We then provide a portrait of the work-family reconciliation measures offered in organizations that employ a majority of men, those that employ a majority of women, and those that are mixed. We show that organizations that employ a majority of men have a more negative perception of the effects of work-family reconciliation measures, while organizations with a majority of women have a more positive perception the effects of work-family reconciliation measures on employee retention and the attractiveness of the company in particular. We observe that the presence of a majority of women in a workplace corresponds to a more diversified supply of measures to support work-family reconciliation. The discussion highlights the links between Quebec’s national context that values the symmetry of family roles, the way parents perceive their work-family reconciliation and the attitude of employers towards this issue.

Word from the Guest Editors: Coworking Spaces, a New Form of Collective or Socialized Entrepreneurship?

[...]well beyond our expectations, the proposals selected also demonstrate the diversity of situations that an entrepreneur can be brought to live, including in a coworking space, and that frequenting this type of place does not ensure, even if there is networking and entrepreneurial success. [...]this thematic issue contributes to a better understanding of the operating methods of a coworking space and its potentially positive effect on entrepreneurship, but while qualifying the subject and highlighting that this beneficial impact of the place is not ensured at all times. [...]of publication of this issue, two years of pandemic have passed. Author of numerous books and articles on Human Resources in the Knowledge economy, work organization, telework, coworking, work-family balance (http://www.teluq.ca/dgtremblay;https://rlibre.teluq.ca/), she has also been an invited professor in a number of universities, and presently conducts research on various forms of work organization (telework, hybrid models), work-life reconciliation, as well as women and men’s work and employment (See her CV: www.teluq.ca/dgtremblay) Arnaud Scaillerez is an associate professor in human resources management and health services management at the École des Hautes Études Publiques at the Université de Moncton (New Brunswick).

Job Demands and Job Resources Among Western Airline Cabin Crews: A Comparative Study of Canadian, German, and French Flight Attendants

Flight attendants are frontline workers in charge of onboard security, safety and customer service. They are required to perform a number of tasks requiring physical and psychological efforts associated with numerous health costs for this group of workers. In the aftermath of Covid-19, flight attendants employed at major airlines will likely be faced with increased job demands. However, little is known about how widespread job resources are among Western cabin crews. Based on recent findings in flight attendant job-demands literature along with the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework in strategic HRM, this paper questions airline leeway and choices in resource allocation to flight attendants in a cross-country comparison of perceived job demands, job resources, stress and burnout among Canadian, French and German cabin crew. Despite belonging to similar institutional contexts, German flight attendants scored consistently better than the French on most job demands and burnout, while presenting the most varied offer of organizational resources.

Towards a post-COVID geography of economic activity: Using probability spaces to decipher Montreal's changing workscapes.

In March 2020, many workers were suddenly forced to work from home. This brought into stark relief the fact that urban economic activity is no longer attached to specific workplaces. This detachment has been analysed in research on organisations and workers, but has not yet been incorporated into concepts used to document and plan the economic geography of cities. In this article, three questions are explored by way of an original survey: first, how can a shift in the location of economic activity be measured at the urban scale whilst incorporating the idea that work is not attached to a single location? Second, what is the nature of the shift that occurred in March 2020? Third, what does this tell us about concepts that have underpinned the study of urban economic form by geographers and planners? Applying concepts developed in organisation studies and sociology, we operationalise the idea that economic activity happens across multiple spaces: it occurs within a probability space, and since March 2020 it has shifted within this space. To better understand and interpret the longer-term impact of this shift on cities - downtowns in particular - we draw upon interviews with people working from home.