Barbosa C, Bray JW, Dowd W, Mills MJ, Moen P, Wipfli B, Olson R, Kelly EL.
Return on Investment of a Work-Family Intervention: Evidence From the Work, Family, and Health Network. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2015;57 (9) :943-51.
Publisher's VersionAbstractOBJECTIVE: To estimate the return on investment (ROI) of a workplace initiative to reduce work-family conflict in a group-randomized 18-month field experiment in an information technology firm in the United States.
METHODS: Intervention resources were micro-costed; benefits included medical costs, productivity (presenteeism), and turnover. Regression models were used to estimate the ROI, and cluster-robust bootstrap was used to calculate its confidence interval.
RESULTS: For each participant, model-adjusted costs of the intervention were $690 and company savings were $1850 (2011 prices). The ROI was 1.68 (95% confidence interval, -8.85 to 9.47) and was robust in sensitivity analyses.
CONCLUSION: The positive ROI indicates that employers' investment in an intervention to reduce work-family conflict can enhance their business. Although this was the first study to present a confidence interval for the ROI, results are comparable with the literature.
Olson R, Crain TL, Bodner T, King RB, Hammer LB, Klein LC, Erickson L, Moen P, Berkman LF, Buxton OM.
A workplace intervention improves sleep: results from the randomized controlled Work, Family & Health Study. Sleep Health. 2015;1 (1) :55-65.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Study objectives: The Work, Family, and Health Network Study tested the hypothesis that a workplace intervention designed to increase family-supportive supervision and employee control over work time improves actigraphic measures of sleep quantity and quality.
Design: Cluster-randomized trial.
Setting: A global information technology firm.
Participants: US employees at an information technology firm.
Interventions: Randomly selected clusters of managers and employees participated in a 3-month, social, and organizational change process intended to reduce work-family conflict. The intervention included interactive sessions with facilitated discussions, role playing, and games. Managers completed training in family-supportive supervision.
Measurements and results: Primary outcomes of total sleep time (sleep duration) and wake after sleep onset (sleep quality) were collected from week-long actigraphy recordings at baseline and 12 months. Secondary outcomes included self-reported sleep insufficiency and insomnia symptoms. Twelve-month interviews were completed by 701 (93% retention), of whom 595 (85%) completed actigraphy. Restricting analyses to participants with ≥3 valid days of actigraphy yielded a sample of 473-474 for intervention effectiveness analyses. Actigraphy-measured sleep duration was 8 min/d greater among intervention employees relative to controls (P < .05). Sleep insufficiency was reduced among intervention employees (P = .002). Wake after sleep onset and insomnia symptoms were not different between groups. Path models indicated that increased control over work hours and subsequent reductions in work-family conflict mediated the improvement in sleep sufficiency.
Conclusions: The workplace intervention did not overtly address sleep, yet intervention employees slept 8 min/d more and reported greater sleep sufficiency. Interventions should address environmental and psychosocial causes of sleep deficiency, including workplace factors