The effects of family leave policy on employees and agencies in New York State government: Organizational dynamics and policy evaluation

An ongoing concern in human resources management is the balancing of employees' work and family responsibilities. The efforts to resolve the difficulties of balancing work and family responsibilities have been reflected in the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993, the first national level family leave policy in the United States. This dissertation examines family leave administration and its effects on state employees and agencies in New York State (NYS) government. The study specially pays attention to the importance of organizational factors affecting family leave administration and the outcome of family leave policy.;Relying upon multiple research methods, surveys, in-depth interviews, a case study, agency data, and government documents, the study analyzes family leave use by the NYS employees and the organizational dynamics of family leave administration among stakeholders in agencies.;The findings indicate that family leave administration demanded a more service oriented function of personnel administration rather than traditional role of personnel administration. Moreover, the roles of personnel administrators have been emphasized as coordinators and communicators for family leave administration. The case study results demonstrated that female employees have more difficulties in balancing work and family responsibilities than male employees. The data analyses of family leave use by state employees also showed that female employees are much more likely to take family leave than male employees.;This research demonstrates the importance of organizational culture, such as work units' and supervisors' understanding and support for employees' family responsibilities to meet the goals of family leave policy. As exploratory research, this study also found that personnel administrators' commitment to family leave policy was significantly associated with state employees' satisfaction with balancing work and family responsibilities. Furthermore, the case study demonstrated that teamwork management moderates family leave administration to obtain the outcome of family leave policy.;Finally, this study discusses the implications of the findings for public management: (1) New Challenges for Public Personnel Administration and Family Leave Policy; (2) Organizational Culture and New Dimension of Teamwork Management; (3) Awareness of Quality of life in Work and Home and Performance; (4) Social Value of Balanced Gender Role Expectation and Family Leave; (5) Implications for Future Family Leave Policy and Benefit Programs. In order to succeed family leave implementation, the study concludes that internal self-evaluation efforts related to organizational culture, benefit information, the communication process, personnel offices' commitment and capacity, and needs assessment for employees should be emphasized in public organizations.