When employees and supervisors (do not) see eye to eye on family supportive supervisor behaviours: The role of segmentation desire and work-family culture

Helping employees juggle work and family responsibilities is crucial at a time when the boundaries between work and family life are increasingly blurred. Family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSBs) contribute to this and benefit both employees and organizations. Yet, employees and supervisors do not necessarily agree about the displayed FSSBs. We explore how employee–supervisor (dis) agreement concerning FSSB perceptions relates to employees' intrinsic motivation and turnover intentions. Moreover, we incorporate work–family culture and employees' desire for segmentation as boundary conditions. Using 569 employee–supervisor dyads from El Salvador, we found that intrinsic motivation is highest when employees and supervisors agree about strongly exhibited FSSBs, but only when employees desire work/home segmentation. When employees desire integration, such FSSB agreement is associated with relatively low intrinsic motivation. Moreover, turnover intentions are lowest when employees and supervisors agree that the supervisor exhibits a strong level of FSSBs, but only when work–family culture is strong. We contribute to FSSB research by demonstrating the importance of employees and supervisors seeing eye to eye (the level of) FSSBs, as well as the need for a good fit with the work–family culture of an organization and employees' desire for segmentation. •Employee-supervisor agreement on FSSBs relates positively to employees' intrinsic motivation.•Only in a strong work-family culture and when employees and supervisors agree on high levels of FSSBs, retention is highest.•When employees wish to segment, intrinsic motivation is highest in case of strong employee-supervisor FSSB perceptions.•When employees wish to integrate, intrinsic motivation is highest in case of weak employee-supervisor FSSB perceptions.