Not for everyone: intra-organisational divides and the stratification of access to work–life policies

Prior research documented a number of factors pertaining to employees or to organisational cultures that can prevent employees from accessing employer-driven work–life policies (WLP). Our study focuses on factors originating in the jobs themselves. We conducted 98 in-depth employee interviews in two multinational companies based in Europe and led feedback sessions with human resources executives. Three mechanisms explained the observed stratification of access to WLP across jobs: (1) the intra-organisational digital divide prevented ‘less digital’ employees from collecting information about WLP on the intranet and thus impaired awareness of the policies; (2) the divide in worksite size prevented employees on smaller worksites from accessing childcare centres, sports or health facilities and (3) the divide in job types restricted access to WLP for specific occupations. The stratification of access to WLP was not strategically driven by human resources; rather the divides were largely unintentional. Our study uncovers inequalities of access originating in the jobs themselves and provides a theoretical integration of the various sets of factors that may promote or hinder employee awareness of WLP. Our findings suggest that organisations should strive to identify these inequalities and to provide ways to cope for these, for instance by offering other forms of support.