Mind the gap: Employee work arrangements, work-family balance satisfaction, and turnover in international property development

Employee turnover is one of the most critical outcomes for organizations across the world with direct impacts on future success. The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry continues to face major challenges with attracting and retaining key talent as employees experience high levels of stress and specific job demands, which make work more difficult. As the AEC industry seeks to manage employee stress, well-being, and work-life balance, while also promoting diversity and ensuring retention among skilled employees, AEC organizations are managing a spectrum of flexible work arrangements across the workforce with varying degrees of success. In this study, the effect of working from home on actual employee turnover is examined using three waves of longitudinal data from 482 employees of an international property developer. In demonstrating how and why working from home is related to employee turnover, this study specifically tests the mediating effect of work-family balance satisfaction (WFBS) and the influence of the gap between actual and preferred time spent working from home. The results from the study support a moderated-mediation model showing that WFBS mediates the effect of working from home on employee turnover when there is no gap between actual and preferred work arrangements. The study results demonstrate the benefit of time spent working from home yet also show the importance of managing the gap between actual and preferred work arrangements. Based on these findings, this research extends existing boundary theory work by incorporating the influence of WFBS with the negative impact of mismatches between actual and preferred work arrangements. In practical respects, employers in the AEC industry should monitor and seek to align work arrangements with employee preferences to promote talent retention within the workforce.