Flexible work arrangements are increasingly common in industrialized countries. Lately their growth has been driven by the promotion of work-life balance, which has a significant impact on both employees' perspective towards the organization and their lives. Among other factors work-life balance has a positive effect on individual life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and work engagement. Flexibility helps employees resolve problems which commonly arise due to conflicts between home and work. However, the relationship between flexible working arrangements and a successful work-life balance is not as clear-cut as one might expect. In my master thesis, I was interested in how flexible work arrangements relate to work-life balance among employees in organization X. I also wondered whether flexibility was associated with job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and work engagement and how these constructs relate to work-life balance. In this context, I was interested in whether there were gender differences in perceived work-life balance among employees with flexible work arrangements. Finally, I explored the role of perceived organizational support in work-life balance. The study included employees with flexible working arrangements (N = 130) and employees with a traditional working model (N = 25). I collected data using both quantitative and qualitative methods. I found that in organization X, flexibility had no impact – employees who have the option of flexible working and employees who do not have this option were equally successful in balancing work and life, and do not differ in life satisfaction, job satisfaction or work engagement. Despite findings in other studies, which stated that women are more successful in balancing work and life when offered flexibility, the impact of gender on work-life balance in the organization X was not found. On the contrary, the results support the finding that perceived organizational support significantly reduces work-life conflict.
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