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03/16 PERSONALquarterly
for last minute demands. And the key for virtual workers is to
make sure they don’t feel isolated or left out of development or
other opportunities. This is called managing a blended work-
force as new form of diversity. With the growth toward global
teams this is a critical skill for organizations to develop. So es-
tablished meetings, videoconferences and having times when
people are in the office together even for virtual workers is
needed occasionally.
PERSONALquarterly:
Opponents of flexible work arrangements
argue that they lead to an intensified interference between work
and private life with potential negative effects on both. Is this
backed by empirical research?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
This occurs only if people feel pressure to
overwork or answer emails or communications from work
when they want to separate. Similarly, sometimes people
when working they do not want to have minor emails or in-
terruptions for family. The key is to come up with sensible
norms about when people are on and off the job and give them
control over texts and emails. Flexible work arrangements can
benefit people and society and companies if they are imple-
mented as a win-win proposition meeting both employee and
employer needs.
PERSONALquarterly:
How should flexible work policies be designed
such that they help employees to actually reconcile their perso-
nal and work life?
Ellen Ernst Kossek:
They need to be designed to give employees
control over where when and how long they work. They also
need to give workers boundary control on availability for elec-
tronic communication during nonwork hours and vacations in
order to avoid burnout.
PROF. DR. ELLEN ERNST KOSSEK
Basil S. Turner, Professor of Management
E-Mail:
Ellen Ernst Kossek is is the Basil S. Turner Professor at Purdue
University’s Krannert School of Management and Research Director
of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. She
holds educational degrees from Yale University, the University of
Michigan, and Mount Holyoke College. Her research has won awards
including the 2015 Rosabeth Moss Kanter award for research excel-
lence, the Families and Work Institutes’ Work-Life Legacy award for
helping to build or advance the work-life movement and the Acade-
my of Management’s Gender and Diversity Division’s Sage Scholarly
achievement award for advancing understanding of gender and
diversity in organizations. She was the first elected president of
the Work-Family Researchers Network, a founding member of the
Work Family Health Network and elected a Fellow in the American
Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organi-
zational Psychology. She was elected to serve on the Academy of
Management’s board of governors, and Chair of the Gender & Diver-
sity in Organizations Division. Prior to becoming a chaired professor
at Purdue, she was awarded the rank of University Distinguished
Professor at Michigan State University. She has been a visiting scho-
lar at Kings’ College London, Harvard Business School, the University
of Adelaide, Australia, and the University of Michigan’s Institute of
Social Research, and Center for Education of Women. Prior to beco-
ming a professor, she worked in Human Resources in Asia, Europe
and the U.S. for Hitachi, IBM & GTE.
