RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF A WORK-FAMILY INTERVENTION: EVIDENCE FROM THE WORK, FAMILY, AND HEALTH NETWORK

Purpose: To estimate the return on investment (ROI) to the workplace of implementing initiatives to reduce work-family conflict (WFC) and improve the health and well-being of workers and their families.

Method: We conducted a ROI of a group-randomized 18-month multisite controlled trial in a large information technology firm in the United States. A multicomponent intervention designed to reduce WFC was delivered to the intervention group over the course of a 4 month period. The analytic sample consisted of 960 employees (480 in each arm). Variables used to calculate the ROI were differences between trial arms in intervention costs and four organizational outcomes: (1) productivity, represented by presenteeism i.e., being present at work but working at a reduced capacity, (2) paid time off lost by the employee at the end of the calendar year, (3) voluntary termination, and (4) health care utilization. The first three measures of organizational benefits were monetized using employees’ compensation. Health care utilization was valued using unit costs from the literature. The intervention was costed using a micro-costing approach. All dollar amounts were discounted at 3 percent annually. Cross-sectional regression models were run to estimate the intervention effect on intervention costs and organizational outcomes. To take into account the joint uncertainty on organizational outcomes and intervention costs, and the clustered nature of the trial, the standard error of the ROI was calculated using non-parametric two-stage bootstrap combined with seemingly unrelated regression followed by a first order Taylor series approximation of the ROI function. A series of one-way sensitivity analyses were performed.

Result: The biggest contributor to savings was a lower number of voluntary terminations for intervention participants. After adjusting for baseline differences, the intervention led to company savings of $2,187 per participant, throughout an 18-month period. The net cost of the intervention was $691 per participant (2011 prices). The overall ROI was 2.167 (95% CI -7.34 to 11.68). This result was robust in sensitivity analyses.

Conclusion: The intervention yielded a positive ROI. Despite non-significant results, it appears that employers’ investment in an intervention to reduce WFC can further enhance their business. This was the first study to present a measure of uncertainty of the ROI estimate taking into account that the ROI is a ratio of two random variables.