Reconciling family and work life not only boosts people’s well-being, but also the work that engineers do, as has been proven in a work carried out by a team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), awarded by the Center for Financial Studies (CEF).The study is titled ‘Work-life conflict and its effect on organizational commitment and desire to remain in the organization. Study on highly qualified workers’, and is signed by María Eugenia Sánchez, Ignacio Segado and David Cegarra.
The teachers’ project analyzes how the lack of conciliation experienced by engineering professionals affects fundamental variables from a business point of view: commitment to the company and the desire to remain in it.
The results have been obtained after analyzing a sample of 846 engineering professionals. According to the winners, this has made it possible to corroborate that the lack of conciliation harms organizations and not only individuals in their private sphere.
For this reason, the work suggests that companies must develop, implement and support the use of conciliation measures for both men and women that favor the reduction of their work-life conflict and greater co-responsibility. By doing so, the teachers indicate in the project’s conclusions, they will be rewarded with a more faithful, efficient and committed workforce, and at the same time they will be promoting a more just society in terms of gender equality.
According to researcher María Eugenia Sánchez, “not only do we have to propose and support conciliation measures aimed at women, but also at men to achieve equality in the world of work.” Among the most effective conciliation measures are the rationalization of schedules, flexible hours or European working days.
The work is one of the results of the national project ‘Conciliation as an instrument of social inclusion of women engineers’ directed by Professor María Eugenia Sánchez and financed by the Women’s Institute (Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality) through grants for research related to women’s and gender studies.
The three UPCT professors are strongly involved in the dissemination of results to the business and social fabric, to raise awareness and publicize how the culture of work-life balance in small and medium-sized companies generates economic and social value through of improving the competitiveness of companies and the generation of quality jobs. In addition to researching and teaching, they are dedicated to organizing seminars, managing the website www.conciliapyme.esvisit companies and organize presentations, among other issues.
The teachers María Eugenia Sánchez, Ignacio Segado and David Cegarra have been awarded by the Center for Financial Studies in the Human Resources category. The prize, which they will collect tomorrow Thursday in Madrid, is worth 9,000 euros and, in addition, the CEF will publish the results of its research.
