The military and the family are often described as "greedy" institutions, in that they have competing demands and may cause a work-family conflict among military members. Work-family conflict has been found to be an important contributor not only for organizational outcomes, including job engagement and burnout, but also for military members' psychological health. Although organizational support has been linked to better organizational outcomes, there has been limited research examining the role of organizational support to members and families in well-being of military members in Canada. Therefore, the aim of the study was to examine the role of work-family conflict and the unique and protective roles of organizational support to members and families in the well-being of military members.
Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the roles of work-family conflict, family-work conflict and organizational support in predicting job engagement, burnout, and psychological distress of military members (N = 3,852). It was found that work-family and family-work conflicts were predictive of the organizational outcomes and well-being of CAF members. Organizational and family support also served as moderators in some aspects of organizational outcomes.
This study demonstrates the importance of maintaining balance between work and family domains. Organizational support provided to the member and the family was found to be directly related to better organizational and members' well-being outcomes, and also to buffer the negative impact of the conflict between work and family. Providing support to military members and their families plays an important protective role by mitigating some of the negative impacts of work and family conflicts on organizational outcomes and members' well-being. It is, therefore, recommended that leaders not only reinforce the importance of work-life balance, but also focus their efforts on providing organizational support to members and families in order to improve the organizational outcomes and well-being among military members.