A comparison of types of support for lower-skill workers: Evidence for the importance of family supportive supervisors

The work–family literature to date does not offer a clear picture in terms of the relative importance of different types of supports for balancing work and family demands. Grounded in conservation or resources theory, we develop an integrative model relating multiple forms of social support, both formal (i.e., work–life benefit use) and informal (supervisor work–family support and family support) to work-interference-with-family and family-interference-with-work and task and contextual performance. We chose to focus our study on lower-skill workers because, despite being a relatively large segment of the workforce, these workers are relatively understudied in the work–family literature. Results revealed that supervisor support is a key form of support in this sample. Supervisor support had negative same domain (work-interference-with-family) and cross domain (family-interference-with-work) effects with work–family conflict, as well as positive relationships with task and contextual performance. Family support was negatively related to family-interference-with-work; whereas use of work–life benefits was not significantly related to either form of work–family conflict or any of the performance variables. The implications of our results for conservation of resources theory and practical implications to employers of lower-skill workers are discussed.

► We develop a model relating forms of social support to work-family conflict and job performance.
► We test the model using an understudied sample of lower-skill workers.
► Results revealed supervisor support as a key form of support in this sample.
► Supervisor support had negative relationships with work-family conflict.
► Supervisor support also had positive relationships with job performance.