RECOGNIZING FACULTY: HEATHER CLULEY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR, GRADUATE PROGRAMS HRD, PSYCHOLOGICAL & BRAIN SCIENCES
Heather Cluley, associate director and assistant teaching professor, Graduate Programs HRD, Psychological & Brain Sciences, discusses her research on work and family
Can you tell us about your research and its implications?
I am a work-family researcher. I study the relationships between organizational/human resource policies, leadership practices, and employee experiences at the interface between work and family. Specifically, I have studied how couples with young children co-manage their careers and day-to-day work-family decisions and the social identities they hold that inform decision-making. I have studied day-to-day fluctuations in work-family boundaries and the experiences that are related to those fluctuations. I also have studied the work-family experiences of women with home-based small businesses.
As the dual-income couple is the modal family type in the United States and Canada, it’s is important to understand the decisions and experiences couples have in navigating their careers and multiple life roles. Of course, work and family roles happen within the framework of societal and organizational norms and practices, but people do have a fair amount of latitude in the choices they make about the types of work they do, the types of organizations for which they are willing to work, and the solutions they implement to make work in the context of their lives. Those choices and solutions are shaped, in part, by how they wish to “balance” work and family roles and, for couples, how they expect to divide and share work and nonwork responsibilities.
What motivated you to pursue this line of research? Can you tell us a little about your journey?
In retrospect, I became a work-family researcher because of the people I met at formative stages in my career journey. I had a really great professor during my Master’s degree named Joanie Connell and I completed my Capstone Project with her consulting firm, Flexible Work Solutions. She supervised my research on the career, work, and family values of different generations in the workplace and mentored me about my own work and family trajectory. When I started my PhD at Concordia University in Montreal, I began working as a research assistant with a work-family researcher named Tracy Hecth. This position allowed me to practice many different skills and to get to know Tracy well. She became a great role model for me. Eventually, I decided to focus my dissertation in the area of work-family integration and she was my supervisor. We still work on projects together and remain close friends.
What is your favorite aspect of your research?
I like that my research is relatable for nearly everyone. Many people struggle with different aspects of balancing work, family and other obligations. For young professionals, it can be about launching their careers, but also learning to set boundaries, negotiate roles and form good habits around work and well-being. For young families, life becomes very busy and they experiment with many options, but do not realize they are constrained by many layers of social and political limiters (such as lack of an organized childcare system and working cultures that vilify working parents). When I started presenting my research at professional events, some of the mature folks in the business community expressed that they saw little value in this notion of “work-life balance.” Then a few years later, I started hearing from them that this was an important line of inquiry. Many had sent their daughters to law school or to become engineers and now those daughters were gainfully employed, happily married, and starting families of their own. They saw their adult children struggling with the dual-income lifestyle that many of them had never experienced.
What are you hoping to pursue next in your research?
Dual income couples are ubiquitous, but there is much to be learned about the work-family experiences of other types of co-parents, single parents, etc. I plan to continue to study the day-to-day decisions of working parents as they navigate the ups and downs of everyday life within organizational and social contexts, but broaden my work to these other populations who may have similar or different experiences.
What drew you to Villanova?
What originally drew me to Villanova was the beautiful campus so close to my new home. I would drive by and think that it looked like a nice place to work. I began attending the Villanova Women's Professional Network events and found that the people I met were welcoming and kind. I eventually learned that that was the Villanova way – the culture on campus centered around the values of Caritas, Unitas & Veritas, making Villanova a lovely, supportive community to practice scholarship and intellectual endeavors.
What are one or two “takeaways” from your research for our readers?
There are many different ways to be a dual income couple and people need and want different things at different stages of their family and career. Often though, organizational cultures and policies do not reflect the diversity of programs that would serve this diversity of needs. Organizations can be more creative in their work-family approaches in order to attract and retain better talent, help employees thrive, and meet and exceed organizational goals.
