Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted people's work and family lives. The work-family conflict has seen an increase with the onset of the pandemic as families have found themselves in complex roles such as family sustainers, teachers for their children, and family caregivers while quarantined with the same individuals for months. Concurrently there have been expectations grown from the employers to introduce effective programs or services to support employees so that an expected amount of productivity is maintained while also maintaining a sense of care for their employees. Some of the strategies suggested in the literature include flexible scheduling, leadership communication, and team-building mechanisms. This paper aimed to suggest strategies to study the work-family conflict issues to understand better what is needed to effectively support and accommodate their employees during the pandemic as they transition to working-from-home. Some recommendations to study this issue would be to develop surveys that would aid organizations in understanding what is lacking to help support their employees. In addition, limitations and challenges were reviewed from present surveys from the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalition and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Neither looked at the support that employees received to help balance their work- family duties as they transitioned to working-from-home. These secondary data sources should include questions regarding the issues, that regardless of employer efforts, that the pandemic exacerbated are the result of customary societal norms-- women's role as primary childcare minders, their role as at-home teachers, and the continued lack of equity in home-related tasks such as grocery shopping, cleaning, and other tasks commonly given into the care of women. Women's perspectives need to be emphasized. Looking from a gendered perspective would provide a more comprehensive review of worker's responses to the pandemic, significantly how women employees were impacted, and how the work-family conflict changed in terms of complexities.
Advisor
Saiful Islam
Committee Member
Andi Lassiter
Committee Member
Christine Mollenkopf-Pigsley
Date of Degree
2021
Language
english
Document Type
APP
Degree
Master of Science (MS)
College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Isniqi, Q. (2021). COVID-19 and work-family conflict: A gendered lens required for developing organizational benefits and programs [Master’s alternative plan paper, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/1163/
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