work life balance during work from home research paper

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Factors Associated With Work-Life Balance and Productivity Before and During Work From Home

Tejero, Lourdes Marie S. PhD; Seva, Rosemary R. PhD; Fadrilan-Camacho, Vivien Fe F. MD, MPH

Technology Transfer and Business Development Office, University of the Philippines Manila (UPM) (Dr Tejero); UPM College of Nursing (Dr Tejero); Industrial and Systems Engineering, Gokongwei College of Engineering, De La Salle University (Dr Seva); Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, College of Public Health (Dr Fadrilan-Camacho), University of the Philippines Manila, Manila, Philippines.

Address correspondence to: Lourdes Marie S. Tejero, PhD, College of Nursing, University of the Philippines Manila, Pedro Gil Street, Manila, Philippines ( [email protected] ).

Funding sources: None.

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Ethical consideration: This research protocol was approved in 2020 by the De La Salle University Research Ethics Review Committee (REO protocol code: FAF.007.2019-2020.T2.GCOE).

Clinical Significance: Working from home (WFH) is a prevailing condition globally due to the pandemic. Workers are exposed to job-related and psychosocial factors that can lead to adverse health effects. Such factors should be identified to facilitate targeted preventive actions for promoting work-life balance and productivity while working from home.

Objectives: 

Considering the prevailing work from home (WFH) arrangement globally due to COVID-19, this paper aims to compare job-related and psychosocial factors before and during WFH setup; and to determine the relationship of these factors to work-life balance (WLB) and productivity.

Methods: 

A total 503 employees from 46 institutions answered the online questionnaire, 318 of whom met the inclusion criteria. Paired t test and structural equation modeling (SEM) with multigroup analysis were used for the statistical analyses.

Results: 

Psychological detachment (PD), sleep, stress, social support (SS), WLB, and productivity declined during WFH. SEM showed that PD significantly influenced stress and sleep, subsequently affecting productivity. SS significantly helped the participants maintain WLB.

Conclusion: 

The key to increasing productivity and WLB during WFH is to foster PD and SS among employees.

One of the occurrences emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic is the work-from-home (WFH) arrangement on an unprecedented global scale. WFH scheme has revolutionized the way we do our work to achieve the same outcomes that are comparable if not better than previous arrangements. It provided workers with opportunities to manage their time and allocate their resources to achieve organizational objectives. Moreover, WFH reshapes the psycho-social and environmental aspects surrounding one's work, more specifically those in the home setting, which are intimately related to the person.

While WFH arrangement was gaining popularity in the Philippines even before the pandemic, there is limited local data on it as an alternative work arrangement and its impact on health and productivity. During the pandemic, community quarantine measures are enforced that have led to restrictions on business operations to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in the country. Employers albeit not ready are forced to transition and adapt to the new normal way of operating their businesses. They have adopted WFH arrangements to help minimize the impact of the pandemic on their businesses and employees.

Work-life balance (WLB) is a focal aspect of interest in several research studies about work even before the pandemic forced employees to WFH. Poor WLB is associated to self-reported poor health for both men and women. 1,2 With the advent of WFH schemes dominating the work arrangements worldwide, WLB takes on a different dimension with various factors affecting it, especially in the home setting where the delineation between work and home becomes blurred. Another area of concern in the WFH setting is the issue of productivity. The COVID-19 pandemic forced entire families to stay at home, so the situation and the workplace may not be very conducive to work. The lack of space at home and appropriate office furniture and equipment can also influence the efficiency and safety of employees doing computer-related tasks.

At the beginning of the pandemic, employees were not able to divide their time well because they were used to fixed working hours and specific routines. 3 Workers with families had to take care of children and household chores that may conflict with work-related tasks, thereby reducing the amount of time for productive work. This is especially true for women who have to juggle their time between the demands of their careers and parenting. 4

Literature Review

With most of their employees remotely working at home, companies are interested to know its impact on productivity. 5 Employers are blind to the activities of their employees and rely on information obtained from digital communication and online meetings. Productivity studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic had inconsistent results. Productivity of Chinese employees suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic due to self-regulation issues and problems with technology. 6 Evidently, not all people have the discipline to work without supervision. Interference from family and bouts of loneliness can affect the performance of tasks during WFH. Most researchers in Hungary working from home spent more time at work but were less efficient because of their inability to collaborate with their colleagues. 7 Although technology can support virtual meetings the need for immediate consultation and feedback is not possible in the WFH setting. However, knowledge workers in Europe found that WFH is more efficient because it minimizes unproductive time on meaningless tasks at work and allows them to focus on their job. These differences support further investigation of factors affecting productivity in the WFH environment.

Although productivity may suffer during WFH, it can potentially help promote work-life balance (WLB). Working at home allows parents to spend more time with their children and the high job autonomy (JA) and scheduling flexibility can help minimize work–family conflict. 8 Greater autonomy in determining working hours and managing tasks improved the productivity of employees that worked from home due to COVID-19. 6 JA is defined as “the extent to which work can provide great freedom, independence and discretion of the individual in work scheduling and determine the procedures to be used in implementing them.” 9 Mache et al, 10 found that the freedom to choose working hours minimizes the perception that the job is mentally demanding. However, autonomy has negative effects on people that do not have a high level of discipline. It caused them to slow down and not achieve their goals.

Not all employees that WFH achieve WLB because it depends on the atmosphere at home and the support provided by family members. 11 During the COVID-19 pandemic, workload affected work–home balance among Chinese employees that worked from home during its early stages. 12 Professional women with children may find working at home more challenging because of the greater demand for caring. Women are expected to take care of children with little help from the husband. 13 Young internet on-line workers, on the other hand, reported a significantly lower satisfaction with WLB and a higher negative work–home interaction because they spent more time at work. 14 The competing demands of work and family life can create stress and anxiety for some workers. Working from home blurs the boundaries between work and personal time. Employees that are not able to establish boundaries from work to non-work have poor psychological detachment (PD). 15

PD implies not thinking about work or doing work-related duties at home. 16 It is one of the significant predictors of well-being because some work situations can be unsettling and worrisome. It was found to have a significant negative effect on stress among employees working from home due to COVID19. 17 PD is related to employee engagement at work. Highly engaged employees find it difficult to distance themselves from their work. Sonnentag et al, 18 discovered that striking a balance between work and leisure is crucial in promoting employees’ well-being. The use of information and communication technology (ICT) while working from home can affect PD because it was found to be disruptive to sleep. Boundary crossing between work and family does not necessarily affect sleep quality or consistency unless there is a problem with PD. 19

Work-related difficulty in sleeping has been related to inability to detach from work. For WFH employees, the use of electronic devices is a job requirement to facilitate communication. Employees with high work-related smartphone use experience ego depletion when dealing with self-control demands at work. Sleep quality, however, attenuates this interaction. In cases of high sleep quality, next-day self-control processes at work are no longer affected by work-related smartphone use. 20 Sleep pattern is also related to productivity at work. Productivity of Korean nurses was adversely affected by poor sleep quality due to shiftwork. 21 Although shiftwork may not apply to people working from home, the disruption of schedule and working hours extending until late at night can also lead to poor sleep quality.

Sleep disorder and stress are very common work-related health problems. 22 Job stress is defined as something in the work environment that is perceived as threatening or something in the workplace which gives an individual an experience of discomfort. 23 It is the psychological and physical state that results when the resources of the individual are not sufficient to cope with the demands and pressures of work situations or family affairs or both. Studies showed that it is a significant determinant of employee productivity and performance. 24–26 It is a major problem for such employees that fail to balance the competing demands of work and family. It significantly influenced the productivity of employees without spouses and young employees that WFH. 17 Social support provided by family members and superiors, however, dampens the effect of stress and promotes quality of work life. 26,27 Employees that receive adequate support also showed high levels of productivity. 28 Social support (SS) of supervisors and colleagues minimizes the strain among employees because it cushions the effect of work–family conflict. 29 Work from home employees during the COVID-19 pandemic cited SS as a means to overcome loneliness and feelings of isolation. 12 It is associated with job satisfaction, work–family enrichment and mediates the relationship between stress and job satisfaction. 30 Low supervisor and coworker support had been associated with tiredness and sleeping difficulties. 31

Keeping employees productive and healthy are important concerns of companies that allowed their employees to work from home due to the COVID19 pandemic. There is a dearth of literature on the level of employee productivity before and during the pandemic. Since all family members were forced to work at home to prevent the spread of the virus, the current situation cannot be compared with earlier studies of productivity on employees working from home. All family members had to share the space at home so work distraction is inevitable. Productivity and WLB is affected by factors related to the conflicting demand between work and family and the support system available to the employee. Thus, this paper aims to compare job-related and psychosocial factors before and during WFH setup and determine the relationship of job-related and psychosocial factors to WLB and productivity. The hypothesized relationships among the variables are shown in Fig. 1 . This research query helps delineate the drivers to productivity and WLB while WFH. In doing so, employees as well as employers are guided which aspects to focus on towards the attainment of higher productivity while maintaining a healthy WLB, thereby harnessing employees’ full potential. Comparing the WFH set up with the prior arrangement, that is, working in the office, establishes a baseline comparator to evaluate the WFH productivity and WLB. Thus, this gives more credence in determining the desirability of WFH scheme and how to make the most out of it especially during the pandemic.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Participants and data collection tool.

The study utilized convenience sampling of employees from various institutions belonging to different industries in the Philippines. Study participants were selected based on the following inclusion criteria: (1) used computer while working from home (2) worked from home for at least 2 months.

The authors identified institutions that are part of their network representing various industries. They wrote to the administrators of these institutions to invite their employees to participate in the online survey, not only for research purposes but also to promote health, safety, and productivity while on WFH through a webinar conducted for them at the end of the data gathering. The self-administered online questionnaire utilized in the study was pretested among 10 employees from various business establishments. The questionnaire was revised according to the assessment findings of the pre-test. The first part of the questionnaire is on sociodemographic data while the succeeding parts are questions pertaining to the measures of interest in this study before and during WFH. The authors sent the online questionnaire with a corresponding cover letter to the administrators and employees of participating institutions.

Anonymity and confidentiality were ensured in the administration and handling of the data. The study was given ethics approval in 2020 by the De La Salle University Research Ethics Review Committee (REO protocol code: FAF.007.2019-2020.T2.GCOE).

The three items on PD were taken from the Recovery Experience Questionnaire. 16 The scale used showed good psychometric properties. 32 The items included were “I forget about work after working hours,” “I don’t think about work at all outside working hours,” and “I distance myself from work.” Scale ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with higher scores indicating higher PD.

The question to evaluate sleep quality (SQ) was “How do you evaluate this night's sleep?” It was taken from Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index 33 and was rated on a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good). 34

Social support (SS) was assessed with three questions taken from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQII) using a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always): “How often do you get help and support from your colleagues?”; “How often are your colleagues willing to listen to your work -related problems at work?”; and “How often do your colleagues talk with you about how well you carry out your work?”

JA was measured in terms of decision-making autonomy using a 5-point likert scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The three questions were based on the Work Design Questionnaire 35 : “The job gives me a chance to use my personal initiative or judgment in carrying out the work”; “The job allows me to make a lot of decisions on my own”; and “The job provides me with significant autonomy in making decisions.”

Workload perception (WLD) was measured with three items from the Kurz-fragebogen zur Arbeitsanalyse (KFZA) instrument 36 using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (seldom or 1% to 25% of the time) to 5 (always or 76% to 100% of the time). The questions included were “Do you have to do overtime?”; “Is your workload unevenly distributed so it piles up?”; and “How often do you exceed required work hours?”

The three questions for stress (STR) were taken from the subscale in the second version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire-COPSOQ II. 37 Problems in relaxing, irritability, and tension are the aspects of STR that were asked. Items were scored on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (seldom or 1% to 25% of the time) to 5 (always or 76% to 100% of the time). Research supports the psychometric qualities of the scale. 32

The scale to evaluate work-life balance (WLB) was based on three items from the work-life conflict scale. 38 The first one considers the effect of work on personal life. The second item pertains to personal matters which make work challenging. Lastly, the third question is how personal life can drain a person's energy. The respondents scored questions on WLB from 1 (seldom or 1% to 25% of the time) to 5 (always or 76% to 100% of the time).

An item on self-reported productivity (PROD) was scored from 1 (strongly Disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The item was adapted from a web-based survey determining the characteristics and outcomes of telework. 39

STATA 15.0 (StataCorp SE, College Station, TX) was used for descriptive data analysis. Categorical variables were summarized using frequency and proportion. The normality distribution of continuous variables was determined using Shapiro-Wilk test. Mean and standard deviation (SD) were used to summarize continuous quantitative data that met the normality assumption while median and range were used for continuous data that were not normally distributed.

Paired t tests to compare means before and during WFH were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to determine the relationships among the factors affecting work-life balance and productivity. Results with P -value of <0.05 are considered statistically significant. Multigroup analysis was done to assess relationships among variables before and during WFH. Since PD, SS, JA, WLB, WLD, and STR were not directly measurable, these were estimated using various indicators classifying these as latent variables. Relationships between the latent variables and the relationships of other observed variables were assessed using SEM.

The SEM model was assessed using several goodness-of-fit statistics such as root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), and comparative fit index (CFI). Model fit was considered to be good if: RMSEA less than 0.05, TLI and CFI more than or equal to 0.90. Data preparation and all statistical analyses for the SEM were done with SPSS 21.0 (IBM Corp.: Armonk, NY) and AMOS 21.0 (IBM Corp.: Armonk, NY).

The management of a total of 46 business establishments, academic institutions, and government agencies agreed to have their employees participate in this study. Based on the inclusion criteria, 318 responses were included in the analysis from a total of 503 study participants that answered the online survey. Of the 503 participants, 26 did not WFH, 18 were not computer-users, 59 started WFH even before the pandemic, 48 only answered the section on sociodemographic profile, and 34 did not accomplish the section pertaining to their working conditions prior to the pandemic.

T1 shows the sociodemographic profile of the study participants including their occupational level and the type of industry where they belong. The median age of the study participants is 33.5 years, ranging from 21 to 64 years. Majority of the participants are women (61.64%) and single (58.49%).

Results also show that 7 months is the median duration of working from home among the study participants. Five is the median number of people in the household, up to a maximum of 18. While one child is the median number of children less than 18 years old with a maximum of seven children. Almost half (46.54%) of the participants are living with a partner or spouse. There are 21.70% who have comorbidities while 7.23% of the participants are smokers.

In terms of occupational level, most of the participants belong to the non-managerial level (53.14%) while the least belong to the top management (2.20%) level. The top three industries where the study participants are employed are education (38.36%), government administration (11.00%), and information technology (8.81%).

T2 presents the mean differences of the variables while on WFH set-up during the pandemic compared with before WFH, that is, while working in the office or institution. All the three measures for PD show that participants are less able to detach themselves from work while WFH. Results also show that the participants’ quality of sleep is worse during WFH. Findings for stress indicate that participants have more problems in terms of relaxation, irritability, and tension while WFH. The same trend is observed with WLB and PRO wherein the measures for these two factors indicate worse conditions where the study participants have poor WLB and low productivity during WFH. For the job-related factors, social support from coworkers is significantly less on all measures during WFH set-up. Conversely, there is no significant difference for job autonomy on all measures before and during WFH. As for workload perception, only measures on overtime and exceeding required work hours are significantly increased on WFH.

Structural Equation Modeling

The relationships of the factors in the model were analyzed using SEM. The composite reliabilities of the constructs are PD = 0.65, SS = 0.73, JA = 0.75, WLB = 0.60, and STR = 0.60. The multivariate normality of data was also established.

Data obtained from the survey included ratings before and during the WFH set-ups, thus, 2 groups of data were included in the analysis of the structural model using multigroup analysis. The overall model fit statistics indicate a good fit to the data (chi-square/d.f. = 3.41; RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.90; TLI = 0.88).

T3 summarizes the maximum likelihood estimates of path coefficients, standard error, and P values calculated before and during WFH. Relationships between variables in the model were shown by the path coefficients. The results indicated that PD significantly influences STR and SQ. Employees who are not able to forget and distance themselves from work experience higher STR and poor SQ both before and during WFH. SS significantly helps the participants maintain WLB, especially colleagues’ willingness to listen to work-related problems. However, SS only affects stress during WFH. Employees who have low social support are more stressed in a WFH set-up. JA does not affect STR or WLB but significantly affects PRO while working from home. Those who experience high job autonomy are more productive during WFH. SQ also has a significant effect on PRO for both situations while SS only affects PRO before WFH where employees who have social support felt productive before WFH. STR has no significant effect on PRO both before and while WFH.

Several factors affect productivity while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perceived workstation suitability helps improve productivity whereas stress adversely affects it among younger people and those without spouses. On the other hand, workstation ergonomic suitability and musculoskeletal symptoms have no significant effect on productivity. 17

Comparing WFH versus pre-pandemic office work set-up, WFH is shown to pose more challenges as indicated by the respondents. PD is more difficult to attain while on WFH since there is no physical distinction between work and home obligations. Traveling to and from the office acts as a natural boundary between work and home which disappeared in WFH. Boundary setting is a helpful mechanism in attaining PD 40 but is challenging to establish in WFH where family obligations may get intertwined with one's work. When one is unable to psychologically detach oneself from work, one experiences a higher stress level. 41 This is supported by the results of this study where there is increased stress level with decreased PD.

PD has the largest effect on STR in the structural model before and during WFH. With work being done at home without the clearly defined work hours, job-related concerns constantly recur in the mind from rising to bedtime, thus increasing the stress level. As for the respondents’ workload, they work beyond their working hours and often go on overtime while on WFH. Workload contributes to stress and affects job performance. 42 Furthermore, PD was shown to moderate the effects of job demands on burnout and depression. 43 Without the defined boundaries between work and home, one easily drifts to one's job while at home. Company superiors, expecting employees to be at home, schedule meetings even late at night. Work can also pile up for employees that are not disciplined enough to work during normal working hours and work until late hours at night. Chinese employees working at home from various industries during the COVID-19 outbreak experienced many work interruptions at home that negatively affect their work effectiveness. 6

Another difference between WFH and working in the office is the SS which is markedly reduced on WFH as shown in this study. In the structural equation model, SS affected STR but only during WFH. Being physically present in the office facilitates communication among colleagues ranging from official meetings to casual dealings with officemates during work hours and breaktimes. Often, the latter dealings are avenues to listen and show support, give feedback, and align expectations. Perceived social support was shown to affect WLB while working in the office. 44 On WFH, such dealings are difficult to attain, save a call or message. Online meetings focus on business related discussions. Psychological needs are not met due to the isolation brought about by working from home. 6 This is felt more acutely in cultures where people are used to social gatherings and interactions that characterize most of the respondents in this study. This reduced SS further contributes to increasing STR. With increased STR, SQ suffers 45 as shown in this study. A person gets preoccupied with anxious thoughts while under STR, thereby overwhelming the mind with concerns, depriving it of the needed sleep. This study showed that PD and STR have significant influence on SQ before and during WFH. The path coefficients show that the effect on SQ is more pronounced during WFH which may be attributed to prolonged preoccupation about job concerns until the night especially for those who are unable to establish boundaries between work and personal life during WFH.

There are many factors affecting PRO, but we only considered the effects of SQ, SS, JA and STR in the structural equation model. Of all these factors, SQ is the only one that has a significant effect to PRO before and during WFH. A person who does not get enough sleep experiences fatigue and impairments in performance manifested by decreased attention and memory function. 46 It is interesting to note that the impact of SQ to PRO is greater prior to WFH as shown in the SEM results. Moreover, in the comparison of means, participants reported better sleep before WFH. Since our participants are not shiftworkers, work time did not affect their SQ prior to WFH. They follow the usual routine of working in the morning and sleeping at night. However, during the pandemic, this routine was disrupted as employees were given the flexibility to work at their own time. This has led to extending working hours at night 6 which is congruent with their reported increase in work hours and overtime during WFH. Catching sleep in the morning may be difficult especially for married employees and those with children that are also confined at home.

JA only affected PRO significantly during WFH. The flexibility given to employees in carrying out their tasks at home influences their feeling of being productive. The WFH situation forced many process changes to continue business operations. The autonomy given to employees to customize their methods to suit the situation positively contributes to their PRO. Although ratings of PRO are lower during WFH than prior, JA proved to be a crucial means of allowing the respondents to cope with the new setup. This is consistent with other research findings where job autonomy and self-leadership are correlated with productivity during WFH. 47 Considering the various factors present in the home environment affecting productivity that are totally different from those in the office, job autonomy fosters initiative in exploring ways to enhance productivity in a different or even unfavorable setting. Unlike JA, SS only affected PRO significantly before WFH. Face to face interactions prior to WFH allows employees to quickly resolve work-related issues because they are all in one place and it is easy to seek help from colleagues. This may not be the case during WFH where it is difficult to ask help due to scheduling of meetings and technology problems. SS also significantly influenced WLB before and during WFH. Although there is limited SS in the WFH setting, it still influenced WLB. This is consistent with a study of academics in Malaysia that showed that support from coworkers and supervisors predict work-life balance. 48 The assistance provided by colleagues at work, with all the constraints imposed by WFH, seemed to help maintain WLB of employees.

WLB suffers during WFH. With difficulties distancing oneself from work, increased stress, reduced social support, more overtime, etc, there is hardly quality time for personal life. Moreover, productivity is likewise reduced in WFH, despite more hours put into one's work. The cyclical effect of stress 49 is supported in this study.

Several limitations of the study are identified. External validity should be treated with caution since we have a small sample of heterogenous group of participants with varying demographic characteristics. Moreover, productivity was measured using only one question and as reported by the respondents which are subjective to the respondents’ contexts. Also, WLB and STR have low composite reliabilities which may be due to the variation in the context on how the questions on the said variables are interpreted by the respondents.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has shown that job-related and psychosocial factors declined significantly during WFH compared with working in the office previously. WLB and PRO suffered during WFH. Among the factors affecting PRO, SQ registered the highest impact which in turn was greatly affected by STR. Among the factors affecting STR, PD had the highest effect. Moreover, the path PD-SQ-PRO is significant, making SQ the mediating variable between PD and PRO. Hence, the key to increasing PRO during WFH is to foster PD among employees. Setting boundaries facilitate PD which is established by the employees themselves and from employers or supervisors by ensuring protected time for work as well as for personal life. Moreover, SS significantly affected WLB both before and during WFH. Hence, fostering SS among employees is highly beneficial. Data on job-related and psychosocial factors will aid policy-makers and employers to plan and implement targeted interventions that will promote work-life balance and productivity among employees while working from home.

Acknowledgments

Appreciation and gratitude to the 46 institutions that participated in this research.

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COVID-19; productivity; social support; structural equation modeling; work from home; work load; work-life balance

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• Published: 29 January 2022
• Volume 42 , pages 30665–30677, ( 2023 )

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The present study aims to contribute to the research of future possibility of Work from Home (WFH) during the pandemic times of Covid 19 and its different antecedents such as job performance, work dependence, work life balance, social interaction, supervisor’s role and work environment. A structured questionnaire was adopted comprising of 19 questions with six questions pertaining to work related infrastructure at home. Data was collected from 138 full time employees working from home which revealed the influence of work dependence, work environment and work life balance which were hypothesized to be directly related to the willingness to work from home in future if given an opportunity. Qualitative analysis revealed that job performance, social interaction and supervisor’s role related hypothesis are refuted. The study tries to bridge the gap between the existing research done in past during normal course of time and current pandemic. The current research of WFH during the Covid 19 in employees working from home in India is an attempt to assess the antecedents in current situation. These results have important theoretical and practical implications.

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Introduction

The threat of a Covid 19 cataclysm has greatly increased over the past few months. The recent Covid 19 outbreak has brought the world to a standstill. Soon after the emergency was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), all the nations including India began to enforce stringent rules of lockdown in order to curtail the spread of the deadly virus. All the offices, schools, manufacturing units, organizations, shopping malls, markets except healthcare and essential services were shutdown with a view to break the chain of spread. World is reeling in the midst of the novel corona-virus (COVID-19) pandemic with fear of rising death toll due to the deadly virus. Soon after WHO declared the COVID 19 as a pandemic, the Government of India has announced a complete lockdown. In this pandemic situation people from all over the world are facing difficulty to do work in the work place. It has advised companies to implement work from home policy for their staff as part of encouraging social distancing to curb spread of novel corona virus infection.

Hypothesis testing results with SEM

Six factor model of work from home

Due to the unprecedented circumstances, the employees from all the sectors have been impacted significantly. The social distancing and the self-isolation measures imposed by the Government has brought basic structural changes in the way employees work in organizations. Work from home these days has become the need of the hour for most of the working population in the contemporary way of work life and has become common for many employees around the globe (Vilhelmson & Thulin, 2016 ). The office workspace is now combined with the personal space. This has brought a mammoth change in the way employees work. The digital transformation and the virtual workspace have made the employees work together despite located in distinct places. The research conducted by Windeler et al. (Windeler et al., 2017 ) shows that maintaining a certain level of social interaction is important for employees’ functioning when they work from home. Extensive research has been done earlier which centred on the influence of work from home on employee performance (Allen et al., 2015 ; Bailey & Kurland, 2002 ; De Menezes & Kelliher, 2011 ; Gajendran & Harrison, 2007 ; Martínez Sánchez et al., 2007 ). Whereas some studies have also shown that working from home leads to better performance (Allen et al., 2015 ; Vega et al., 2014 ), others warn that working from home leads to social and professional isolation that confines knowledge sharing (Crandall & Gao, 2005 ; Arun Kumar & Shekhar, 2020 ) and leads to the intensification of labour (Felstead & Henseke, 2017 ; Kelliher & Anderson, 2009 ).

Previous researchers focused on working from home (Baker et al., 2007 ). Due to strong surge in employment of women and growing dual earners, flexible working has become important for balanced work and personal life (Russell et al., 2009 ). In modern times, employees have started to adopt various technologies to interconnect devices at home. The influence of technology on the routine home life is studied in earlier research (Grinter et al., 2005 ). Innovative technology and telecommunication have increased the possibility of working from the home. Work from home settings for the employee’s quality of working life were discussed in the earlier studies (Shamir & Salomon, 1985 ). The extensive review of literature has revealed that home office has positive influence and traditional office has negative influence on work life balance when job related factors and family related factors in three work settings namely traditional office, virtual office and home office was studied (Hill et al., 2003 ). Research of work from home during pandemic or emergency is limited due to the sudden upheaval it has created in the recent times.

In this paper an attempt is made to study the various factors related to willingness to work from home in future and its impact on performance, supervision, social interactions with teams. This study also attempts to study the relationship between various factors relating to WFH during the pandemic. It even attempts to study the effect of isolation from the physical workspace and the challenges encountered by the employees working in virtual workspace during the pandemic.

The corona virus pandemic popularly known as Covid 19 has left many employees confined to their homes. The present study focuses on the need arising due to corona pandemic across the world which has further restricted movement across different places during the lockdown. During this period the employees were asked to work from home without affecting organization’s productivity at the same time ensuring social distancing measures which were followed during the lockdown. The present study is trying to access the willingness and the future possibility of WFH as a post pandemic measure. This study shows our preparedness for the next level of new normalcy of virtual workspace. As a precautionary measure if there is an additional requirement to further curtail the movement of people or in order to cut down certain costs without effecting the productivity, the organizations may prefer employees to continue work from home. This study helps the organizations to understand the challenges and the preparedness of future contingencies.

Methodology

Respondents and research approach.

In this cross-sectional study, people from India were requested to participate in the study. Respondents were contacted and requested to fill the questionnaire online through google forms in WhatsApp. The participants were assured of anonymity and confidentiality of data. Their prior consent and willingness to participate in survey was taken. Both female and male respondents were included in the study. The study aimed to examine educated and qualified young professionals within the working age group working from home during the Covid 19 crisis. The convenient sampling technique was implied for collecting the data. Respondents were included in this study only if they were willing to respond. In total, more than 200 questionnaires were distributed. 138 of the total respondents accepted to participate in the study. The response rate for the study was calculated to be 70% which is sufficient to conduct the further analysis. All the participants who filled the form were employees working from home due to lockdown restrictions imposed by the nation, in order to break the chain of transmission of novel corona virus (Covid 19). The field work of the study was conducted during June to December 2020. Each section had several questions related to a particular construct. The first section in the questionnaire consisted of the basic demographic information of the participants, which includes age, gender, marital status, children, educational level and whether they were willing and able (whether they had the infrastructure) to work from home.

To provide the current status of WFH during lockdown comprehensively, the respondents were asked to answer the questions divided into 7 parts which are work related infrastructure at home, job performance, work dependence, work life balance, social interactions, supervisor’s role, work environment and willingness to work from home in future (Shown in Appendix Table  1 ).

Work from home practices in pandemic COVID-19 situation demonstrates multifaceted phenomena. The aim of this paper is to gain deeper insight of willingness to work from home post COVID-19. This paper is based on primary data as well as secondary data. The survey method was adopted to conduct the study. Based on the review of literature and the researcher’s understanding of the concept, a structured questionnaire was adopted.

The questionnaire consisted of 6 demographic questions, 6 pertaining to work infrastructure and 19 questions related to the core essence of the study (See Appendix Table 1 ). Questions on work related infrastructure at home was borrowed from the study done by Garg & van der Rijst, 2015 with slight modifications. The reliability of the questionnaire was checked by calculating the Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha value (See Table 2 ). This value depicts the reliability of a single uni-dimensional latent construct. The Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha of the overall scale for this study was calculated to be 0.708. A Cronbach’s coefficient alpha value of 0.60 was suggested as threshold for the Cronbach’s alpha reliability and acceptability (Pallant, 2013 ). This confirmed the internal consistency of the current study.

Job Performance

Job Performance was measured using three item scale used by Raghuram et al. ( 2001 ); Sims et al. ( 1976 ). This scale was also used by Garg and van der Rijst ( 2015 ). The sample question for job performance is “The measures of my job performance are clear.” One question pertaining to this has been added by the authors though not in scale as it is relevant for analysis “Employee engagement is more during the lock down”. Each item was measured using 5-point Likert scale with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The Cronbach alpha value for Job Performance is 0.75.

Work Dependence

Work dependence was measured using three item scale used in study done by Sims et al. ( 1976 ). The sample item is “My performance does not depend on working with others.” The scale items are anchored with strongly disagree as 1 and strongly agree as 5. The Cronbach alpha value for Work dependence is 0.84.

Work Life Balance

Work life balance during lockdown was measured using three item scale developed for the purpose of study. The sample questions are “Overall I am comfortable” (not considered due to model fit issues), “I am able to balance both work and household during the lock down” and “I feel it is difficult to maintain work life balance as I have to remain available all the time”. Each item was measured using 5-point Likert scale with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The Cronbach’s alpha value for this factor is 0.75.

Social Interaction

Social interaction was measured using three item scale used by Raghuram et al. ( 2001 ). This scale was also used by Garg and van der Rijst ( 2015 ). The sample item is “The work-related meetings in my office are adequate to build good working relationships”. The scale is anchored with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The Cronbach’s alpha value for this factor is 0.642.

Supervisors Role

Supervisor’s role was measured using three item scale developed for the purpose of study. The sample question is “My superior is very supportive in addressing problems during the lock down”. Each item was measured using 5-point Likert scale with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The Cronbach’s alpha value for this factor is 0.781.

Work Environment

Work environment was measured using three item scale used by Fonner and Roloff ( 2010 ). This scale was also used by Garg and van der Rijst ( 2015 ). The sample item is “I am distracted by other things going on in my work environment, such as background noise?”. The scale is anchored with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The Cronbach’s alpha value for this factor is 0.66.

Willingness to Work from Home in Future

The dependent variable willingness to work from home in future (FWFH) post covid crisis was measured using single item “I feel post pandemic also work from home permits should be given”. This was measured using 5-point Likert scale with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree.

Data Synthesis

To test the hypothesized model, a Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 28) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS 28) was used for the study. The research analysis was conducted using two-step approach. Measurement model and Structural models were tested. The measurement model was checked for validity, internal consistency and reliability. To test the scale items Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used. Present study reported Comparative Fit index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Root Mean Residuals (RMR). The six latent constructs of the measurement model are tested to check if all the coefficients indicate FWFH. The coefficient values show that work dependence, work life balance and work environment are significant determinants of FWFH.

Extensive literature review has revealed the existing models developed by various researches. The Model framework proposed by Nordin et al., 2016 is as under. Previous research findings and the model framework set by Nordin et al., 2016 was studied. The change in the circumstances advocate the need for supplementary variables to the existing model. We would like to study the moderating effect of pandemic lockdown on employee preference to WFH post pandemic.

H1: There is a positive influence of job performance on employee’s willingness to FWFH

As it is identified by many researchers and evident from the previous literature that job performance is one of the essential components in the study of work from home. The authors Garg and van der Rijst ( 2015 ) have studied the relationship between the job performance and professional isolation. Job performance and work from home are related and are inter dependent. When there is clear understanding of job performance and when the job indicators are quantifiable, work from home possibility is more even after pandemic. Therefore, it is hypothesized as there is a positive influence of job performance on work from home in future.

H2: There is a negative influence of work dependence on employee’s willingness to FWFH

In past research was directed towards the importance of telecommuting and increasing work dependence (Vana et al., 2008 ). The study made by Garg and van der Rijst ( 2015 ) found that work dependence had a weak positive relation to experience with virtual work. The focus of present study is to assess the willingness of employees to work from home post pandemic. The present study is during the peculiar times of Covid 19 which makes the concept of WFH a unique one.

H3: There is a negative influence of social interaction on employee’s willingness to FWFH

Another important component of factors influencing willingness to work from home in future (FWFH) is Social Interaction. Previous studies (Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ) have highlighted that work from home with less social interaction in employees will make them aggravated due to isolation. Mintz-Binder & Allen, 2019 observed the factor social contact in terms of virtual meetings and online interactions. Many researchers in the past have focussed on the need to maintain firm and well-built interpersonal social relationships. There exists a negative influence of social interaction on work from home in near future.

H4: There is a positive influence of supervisor’s role on employee’s willingness to FWFH

Raghuram and Fang ( 2014 ) have studied the role of the supervisor in controlling the employees working from home. Previously Lautsch et al. ( 2009 ) have studied the general perceptions regarding supportiveness of supervisors. Madlock ( 2012 ) has studied the leadership styles and their results suggested that supervisors occupied in work oriented more than relational oriented leadership style in the virtual workplace.

H5: There is a negative influence of work environment on employee’s willingness to FWFH

According to Wheatley ( 2012 ), work from home eliminates the workplace related distractions and allows to work productively without interruptions. The results of the present study are in agreement with the study conducted by Golden ( 2007 ) which pointed out that the virtual technology like e-mail and online-conferences to interact with other employees lack the warmth and social presence of face-to-face interaction.

H6: There is a positive influence of work life balance on employee’s willingness to FWFH

Study conducted by Venkatraman et al. ( 1999 ) emphasised that working overtime informally without any extra payment affects the personal life of the employees. The study conducted by Tietze and Musson ( 2010 ) elicits that balance between work and home is essential to understand the relationship between household and professional life. The results of the present study agreed with a balanced work and family life will have greater willingness to work from home. Thus, the proposed hypothesis is that there is a positive influence of work life balance on the employee’s willingness to work from home in future (FWFH).

Demographic Profile of Respondents

The study consisted of 138 participants working from home during the lockdown. 21% of respondents were female whereas 79% were male. The largest group 58% fall in the age group of 18–25 years, 34% of respondents were in 26–35 years of age group and 36–45 years of the age group is represented by 8% in the current study. The largest group 50% are Professionals (None of them are front end medical workers), 24% are IT software employees and others represent 26% (Design engineers, BPO employees and backend support). In terms of the highest educational qualification, 45% of participants were degree/diploma holders, 40% were postgraduates and 16% were holding a professional qualification. None of them were below graduation level, the group is mature.

Data Screening

The responses were complete in all aspects. There is no missing data in the columns. Also, observed quite normally distributed data of our latent factors and other variables like job performance, work dependence, social interaction, supervisor’s role, work environment and work life balance. To measure the multivariate normality, kurtosis and skewness measures were used which was generated using AMOS 26. The data exhibited normal distribution which ranged from −1.3 to 2.04. The threshold value for Kurtosis and Skewness is −2 to +2 (Byrne, 2010 ). However, the value of 2.04 does not violate the normality. The threshold is 3.3 according to Skarpness, 1983 . This number indicates a good fit. Multivariate Analysis was suggested by Hu & Bentler, 1998 as an indication of goodness of fit. The multivariate measure in the study is 15.472 at critical ratio 1.298. The data is perfectly well behaved.

The present study has attempted to explore the structural relationship between the multiple factors relating to Work from Home. Questions were measuring the variables on five point Likert scale. This was run in SPSS 28 using Varimax with Normalization method for rotation. The rotation and iteration were run until the ultimate clear pattern matrix arrived. The factor patterns arrived under each column were thoroughly diagnosed to understand the plausible cross-loadings of factors and elimination of redundant variables (Brown & Moore, 2012 ). Six factors were identified under different heads like job performance (JP), work dependence (WD), work life balance (WLB), social interaction (SI), supervisor’s role (SR) and work environment (WE). These six factors explained were calculated from the sum of squared loadings from the structure matrix. The total accumulated variance explained is 71.709% for work from home during pandemic. The total variance explained by first factor job performance is 13.65%, the second factor work dependence is 13.656%, work life balance is 12.965, social interaction is 12.450, supervisor’s role is 10.392 and work environment is 8.998. Absolute values below 0.5 were eliminated. During the principal axis factoring, few items cross loaded on another component and few items in scale were deleted due to low factor loadings. An item in the job performance scale “There are objective criteria by which my performance can be evaluated” was cross loaded on supervisor’s role component during factor analysis. Third item in work life balance was deleted due to poor loading. The rotation converged in 7 iterations. Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was significant at 000 indicating the result was acceptably valid. In addition to this, the model fit indices were verified for the proposed factor structure. The CFA result yielded an adequate fit. The CMIN = 164.268, CMIN/df = 1.711, CFI = 0.922, RMSEA = 0.08, RMR = 1.55 (See Appendix Table 3 ). The overall model exhibited a good fit. The Harman single factor test was used for examining if the problem of common method variance (CMV) exists or not. All the factors have not significantly loaded on a single factor. This test confirms that CMV is not a significant problem in this study.

The job performance scaled on three measures. It is easy to measure and quantify employee performance (with path coefficients = 0.932), the measures of employee job performance are clear (with path coefficients = 0.829), the feeling that employee engagement is more during the lockdown (with path coefficients = 0.704). The hypotheses that there exists a positive influence of job performance on employee’s willingness to WFH in future is refuted with estimate of 0.003 at p value greater than 0.05. There is a negative influence of work dependence on employee’s willingness to WFH in future. In this factor three aspects of work dependence are measured, the extent to which the employee performance depends on working with others (with path coefficients 0.892), the need to work independently for performing the best (with path coefficients 0.872), the nature of work in terms of independent task or projects (with path coefficients 0.675). All three are significant with p value less than 0.05. However, the study has revealed the negative influence of Work Dependence on employee’s willingness to work from home in future post pandemic situation. It may be inferred that the higher degree of WFH is associated with weakened work dependence. This is due to the inter-dependence of departments for work completion. Like for example, the dependence on IT department for setting up remote access to all the employees for completion of work during the sudden lockdown. Next, social interaction was measured. The first item, social interactions are more in the current lock down situation (deleted due to low loadings), The work-related meetings in my office are adequate to build good working relationships (with path coefficient 0.915), the social events in virtual office are adequate to build a sense of community (with path coefficient 0.725). The research hypotheses relating to negative influence of social interaction on employee’s willingness to WFH in future is refuted in the current study. The relationship between social interaction and willingness to WFH in future is −0.193 at p value greater than 0.05. Thus, we refute the hypothesis.

The results of the present study hypothesize that there is a positive influence of supervisor’s role on employee’s willingness to WFH in future has been refuted. In the present study focused on three aspects of supervisory role. The first being close supervision of work during the lockdown (with path coefficients 0.902). Secondly, employees understanding on the criteria for evaluating the performance was studied (with path coefficients 0.760). Lastly, the support extended by the superior in addressing problems during the lockdown (with path coefficients 0.673) was studied. The supervisor’s role estimated −0.002 at p value more than 0.05. Thus, hypothesis is rejected under study that there is a positive influence of supervisor’s role on employee willingness to WFH in future.

Hypothesis results have revealed that there is a significant negative influence of work environment on employee’s willingness to WFH in future (with path coefficients −0.245). In this factor, three aspects of work environment were measured, the interruption caused when colleagues talk in virtual meetings (with path coefficients 0.746) and the distraction caused by other things going on in the work environment, such as background noise (with path coefficients 0.802) and feeling of pressure because meetings take away from work (with path coefficients 0.632) are measured under this head. Moreover, it consumes lot of productive time to effecting work particularly for the complex type of tasks. It may be inferred that the higher degree of willingness to WFH is associated with weakened work environment.

Work life balance is measured using three items. Overall comfort working from home (with path coefficient 0.630), employee’s ability to balance both work and household during the lock down (with path coefficient 0.909) and feeling of difficulty in maintaining work life balance due to the pressure of remaining available all the time (deleted due to low loadings). There is a positive influence of work life balance on employees willingness to WFH in future with regression estimate of 0.546 at p value less than 0.05. It may be inferred that higher degree of work life balance has an incremental effect on willingness to WFH.

Assessment of Reflective Model

Reliability analysis.

Cronbach Alpha was used to assess the inter item consistency between measurement variables. Cronbach’s Alpha for all the factors put together was 0.708. Post factorization, the Cronbach’s Alpha for job performance was 0.750, work dependence was 0.844, work life balance was 0.75, social interaction was 0.64, superior’s role was 0.781 and work environment was 0.66. All these values are above 0.6 indicating acceptable internal consistency (Nunnally, 1978 ). Next, Composite Reliability (CR) was assessed. CR values ranged from 0.753 to 0.865 higher than minimum requirement of 0.7 (see Appendix Table  4 ).

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was assessed using Average Variance Explained (AVE). The AVE values ranged from 0.533 to 0.684 higher than 0.5 threshold. The factor loadings exceeded 0.5 minimum requirement (Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ). Thus, Convergent Validity was assured.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is assured by comparing the square root of AVE and inter-correlations between other constructs as exhibited in Appendix Table  5 . The diagonal bold numbers in the table indicate square root of AVE and the non-diagonal numbers are the correlations between constructs signifying discriminant validity.

Content Validity

It is very important to take utmost care while designing the questionnaire. The questionnaire was simple in its structure and the language used was easy to understand. This was principally designed to get better content validity.

Structural Model Testing

Hypothesis testing.

In the structural model analysis, multi-dimensional model was hypothesised and tested for significance. While testing the objectives under the study, it was encountered that three out of six path coefficients were considered statistically significant. Work dependence (with path coefficients −0.345), work environment (with path coefficients −0.245), work life balance (with path coefficients 0.546) are significantly related to employee willingness to WFH in future post pandemic. While job performance, social interaction and supervisor’s role are not statistically significant (See Appendix Table  6 ).

As predicted in Hypothesis 2, work dependence is negatively associated with FWFH (β = −0.345, p < 0.05). Hypothesis 5, work environment is negatively associated with FWFH (β = −0.245, p < 0.05). Hypothesis 6, work life balance is negatively associated with FWFH (β = 0.546, p < 0.05). Hypothesis 2, 5 and 6 are supported.

Unexpectedly, Hypothesis 1 that states that there exists a positive influence of job performance on FWFH was not supported. Hypothesis 3, that there is a negative influence of social interaction on FWFH was also not supported. Finally, Hypothesis 4, that there is a positive influence of supervisor’s role on FWFH was also not statistically significant (See Fig. 1 )

Number of variables relating to work infrastructure at home, work dependence, virtual meetings, supervision, performance, social interactions with co-workers, challenges encountered and work life balance were measured in this study (See Fig. 2 ). Based on the availability of work related infrastructure at home during lock down, this part of the survey tries to access the willingness and the future possibility of WFH if required. 82% of respondents confirmed that they are ready to work from home if they are given an opportunity and if such situations demand in future. Moreover, 82% had confirmed that they have internet connection at home, 50% of total respondents confirmed that they have air-conditioning at home, 60% respondents confirmed that they have separate space to work from home, 79% of participants opined that their home office were silent. 87% had computer/laptop/headphones and other accessories required for WFH. This indicates that most of them have access to basic work related infrastructure. It also indicates the future possibility of work from home. 79% of respondents agree that they felt there is a close supervision of work during the lockdown out of which 29% of respondents strongly agreed. This indicates that the amount of supervision over their work has increased comparatively. 76% agreed that they felt that employee engagement is more during the lock down out of which 26% of them strongly agreed. None of them strongly disagreed that employee engagement is more during lockdown.

In perceived organizational support, the survey made an attempt to study the superior’s support towards the team members in addressing various work related problems during the remote working scenario. It has been observed that superiors strongly support their teams when they confront any problems relating to work. Majority of them 83% agreed that they have a very supportive work environment out of which 23% of participants strongly agreed. Moreover, 71% agreed that social interactions were must, whereas 7% denied its importance. However, 21% were neutral.

The social events in virtual offices needs to be adequate to build a sense of community and break the social isolation among the teams. 61% agreed that they had adequate social events with co-workers in virtual office whereas 29% of them were neutral and only 10% of participants complained of not having adequate social events.

With respect to the adequacy of work related meetings, 68% of the participants agreed that the work-related meetings in the virtual office were adequate. This indicates that most of the employees working from home are closely connected through work related meetings. This is a good indicator of building a work relationship even during the lockdown in-spite of physical isolation. Only 5% feel that there are not much adequate interactions in terms of work related team meets as before.

Team meetings are a great way to come together with the colleagues and clients both inside and outside of the organization. The online platforms which are being commonly used in Indian scenario are zoom, google meet, webex, microsoft teams, go to meeting, kaizala and skype other service providers which they agreed to be very effective tools for managing virtual teams. However, it is also observed that certain problems and challenges with respect to internet connectivity, server issues, call drops, hacking and data insecurity during the lockdown were encountered. The study found that 55% of respondents agreed that messaging and chat has improved the team effectiveness. This study has revealed the role of technology in building the virtual workspace. Another problem which has surfaced during the study is the fact that the pressure to be available online all the time has affected the work life balance. 63% of participants agreed that post pandemic also work from home permits should be given. Thus, 63% of employees are comfortable with work from home.

The evidence conferred suggests that WFH is on the whole beneficial to both organizations and its employees. Majority of the respondents agreed to WFH post pandemic with clarity on their performance indicators and enhanced productivity, it can be concluded that WFH during the pandemic is an overall WIN-WIN situation for the employees and the corporate (Garg & van der Rijst, 2015 ). However, home space has become the work area affecting the overall work life balance with long working hours, pressure to be available all the time. In conclusion, the tech problems associated with remote working due to unpreparedness with respect to COVID 19 cataclysm has contributed to the existing challenges of the employees and organizations. It has also been observed that remote working has built a pressure on the home networks which led to frequent interruption in the regular working. Moreover, hacking and data security threats have added to the existing problems. Poor network quality coupled up with frequent call drops, server and connectivity problems are few more issues noticed.

With this, it can be concluded that despite all these challenges faced by the employees the exemplary attitude of employees towards WFH is commendable. It has been observed that majority of respondents have agreed to WFH post lockdown which truly exhibits the spirit to cooperate and abide by the nations call towards adhering to the timely health guidelines without affecting the productivity.

The current seismic circumstances are directing organizations and its employees into a new era of WFH. Employee engagement and supervision coupled alongside supervisor’s support is the only way ahead. Catching up formally and informally through conference calls is the only mode to build teams effectiveness and team inclusion without compromising the productivity and the work enthusiasm is the new reality.

Implications of the Study

The change in the place of working calls for the attention of the labour laws. The Government needs to redefine the existing labour laws in the country. The traditional laws related to workplace requires to be replaced with the changing needs of WFH. This calls for framing of new HR policies in organisations in order to ensure perfect work life balance.

Limitations of Study and Scope for Further Research

Nevertheless, the present study has limitations. The study is limited to a small group of participants of private organizations including young educated working professionals, IT software employees, design engineers, BPO employees and backend support employees working from home. In this study, employees working in essential services and health care were excluded. The recommended future direction for research would be to study using a feasibly larger sample of survey and test the validity. The study is social desirability response bias. Although the anonymity was assured to the respondents there could be a possibility of bias in participation. Social desirability response bias in self report research as pointed out by authors Van de Mortel ( 2008 ) may have transpired. The present study calls for the attention of researchers towards WFH in educational sector and challenges of smart teaching and learning. The impact of WFH and professional isolation on physical and mental well-being should also be further investigated in order to develop preparedness of management during contingencies.

Data Availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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Neha Tunk conceived the idea and A Arun Kumar developed qualitative and quantitative design to undertake the empirical study. A Arun Kumar extracted research paper with high repute, filtered the content based on keywords and generated the concept relevant to the study. A Arun Kumar verified the analytical method and supervised the study. The interviews were conducted by Neha Tunk in English language. A Arun Kumar contributed to the critical revision and final approval of the version to be published.

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Tunk, N., Kumar, A.A. Work from home - A new virtual reality. Curr Psychol 42 , 30665–30677 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02660-0

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Research Article

Learning from work-from-home issues during the COVID-19 pandemic: Balance speaks louder than words

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

Roles Formal analysis, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

• Amanda M. Y. Chu, 
• Thomas W. C. Chan, 
• Mike K. P. So

• Published: January 13, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969
• Reader Comments

During the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, many employees have switched to working from home. Despite the findings of previous research that working from home can improve productivity, the scale, nature, and purpose of those studies are not the same as in the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. We studied the effects that three stress relievers of the work-from-home environment–company support, supervisor’s trust in the subordinate, and work-life balance–had on employees’ psychological well-being (stress and happiness), which in turn influenced productivity and engagement in non-work-related activities during working hours. In order to collect honest responses on sensitive questions or negative forms of behavior including stress and non-work-related activities, we adopted the randomized response technique in the survey design to minimize response bias. We collected a total of 500 valid responses and analyzed the results with structural equation modelling. We found that among the three stress relievers, work-life balance was the only significant construct that affected psychological well-being. Stress when working from home promoted non-work-related activities during working hours, whereas happiness improved productivity. Interestingly, non-work-related activities had no significant effect on productivity. The research findings provide evidence that management’s maintenance of a healthy work-life balance for colleagues when they are working from home is important for supporting their psychosocial well-being and in turn upholding their work productivity.

Citation: Chu AMY, Chan TWC, So MKP (2022) Learning from work-from-home issues during the COVID-19 pandemic: Balance speaks louder than words. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0261969. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969

Editor: Mohammad Hossein Ebrahimi, Shahrood University of Medical Sciences, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Received: June 1, 2021; Accepted: December 14, 2021; Published: January 13, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Chu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Due to ethical restrictions, data are available from The Education University of Hong Kong for researchers who meet the criteria for access to sensitive data. Data requests will need to be submitted to Dr. Amanda Chu, Principal Investigator ( [email protected] ) for access to sensitive data.

Funding: This work was partially supported by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research grant “Big Data Analytics on Social Research” (grant number CEF20BM04). The funding recipient was MKPS. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Covid-19 leads to working from home.

Before the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, most companies had not adopted the work-from-home (or working from home, WFH) approach. Employees needed to go to their offices on every working day. During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have been and are continuing to be advised to maintain social distancing to minimize the chance of infection [ 1 ]. To control the crisis, some countries and cities even need to institute lockdown measures to restrict the activities of their citizens [ 2 ]. However, under social distancing and lockdown policies, many employees are not able to go to their offices as usual. To maintain business operations, a majority of companies have responded improvisationally by introducing new WFH arrangements, although most of them have had little experience with such arrangements [ 3 , 4 ]. Because WFH can reduce infection rates and is accompanied by the low economic costs of confinement [ 5 ], it should be a suitable measure for facing the COVID-19 challenge. However, not everyone is happy with working from home or is able to carry it out [ 6 ].

Consequences of working from home

The WFH arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic may have an impact on employees’ psychological well-being and, by extension, on their work performance. Because many employees have been forced to make WFH arrangements as a result of social distancing or lockdown policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, their WFH experiences may differ from those of employees in earlier studies, who were voluntarily working from home for a variety of reasons [ 4 , 7 , 8 ].

Indeed, the forced home confinement during lockdowns to control COVID-19 might affect individuals’ psychological well-being, including increasing their chances of disturbed sleep and insomnia because of the stressful situation and lack of positive stimuli [ 9 ]. Previous studies have confirmed the association between lockdown and negative psychological outcomes [ 10 ], such as higher stress levels [ 11 ]. However, the impact of WFH on workers’ psychological well-beings is not yet known. Being forced to engage in WFH but also unprepared for it may cause added stress on employees. On the positive side, remote employees have a high control of their working schedule and are able to work flexibly, which may have a positive impact on their job satisfaction [ 7 ]. They can adjust their working time so that they can fulfill other demands in their life, including family matters. A study [ 12 ] revealed that job flexibility could reduce work-to-home conflicts (conflicts caused by work issues interrupting home issues), and those reduced conflicts may help employees lower the distress of not fulfilling their family responsibilities.

Previous research has also suggested that positive psychological well-being is important for maintaining productivity in the workplace [ 13 ] although relatively little research has been done to study negative psychological well-being on employees’ job performance, especially during the WFH period. In addition, giving employees autonomy at home, along with controlling their boundaries, such as whether they conduct non-work-related activities during working hours, may be a great concern for employers [ 14 ]. According to the stress mindset theory, stress can be either enhance or debilitate one’s productivity [ 15 ] and growing evidence has shown that mindset shapes one’s stress response [ 16 ]. If employees hold the mindset that stress is debilitating, they will tend to focus on negative information from stressors, and that in turn will reinforce their negative beliefs and cause them to take action to avoid the stressors. In contrast, if employees hold the mindset that stress is enhancing, they will focus on positive information about stressors and will face their stresses and cope well with them [ 17 ]. By applying the stress mindset theory, we believe that when employees face stress, some can cope with it and maintain their focus on their work tasks while others may move on to other tasks to avoid the stress, instead of focusing on their work tasks. Those other tasks could be non-work-related activities, such as playing sports, shopping, and handling family matters. However, little empirical research has been conducted in these areas because they involve sensitive questions, such as whether the respondent is feeling stressed, and whether the respondent is conducting non-work-related activities during working hours [ 18 ]. Respondents are less willing to provide honest responses when they are asked such sensitive questions directly, and that dishonesty leads to response bias [ 19 ]. Therefore, we adopted the modified randomized response technique (RRT) to collect data on stress and non-work-related activities during working hours.

This research sought to investigate how the WFH environment affects individuals’ psychological well-being, and in turn how WFH impacts their work productivity and the frequency with which they conduct non-work-related activities during working hours when they are working from home.

Materials and methods

Methodology, participants..

A purposeful sample of 500 full-time employees in Hong Kong who experienced WFH for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic was recruited online. The survey took place in early September 2020, which was near the end of the second period of growth in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong [ 20 ]. Table 1 shows a summary of the respondents’ demographic data. Such a diversity of participants reduces potential bias caused by the influence of socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Survey design.

We identified our target respondents through personal networks and referrals, and then contacted them via emails and informed them of the study’s rationale. After confirming that the individuals were indeed our target respondents, we invited them to complete our self-administrated online questionnaire. All respondents were informed of the following in the first page of the online questionnaire: (1) the researcher’s name, affiliation, and contact details; (2) the topic and the aim of the study; and (3) the assurance that information about participation was anonymous and would be gathered on a voluntary basis. We obtained the respondents’ consent by asking them to click a button on the screen before starting the questionnaire. The study was conducted according to the prevailing guidelines on ethics in research, and it was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of The Education University of Hong Kong (reference number 2019-2020-0104).

Sensitive questions and confidentiality.

To ensure full confidentiality of the participants’ responses, we made the survey anonymous, and applied the RRT for the sensitive questions about stress and non-work-related activities during working hours. We followed the guidance of Chong et al. (2019) and Chu et al. (2020) [ 18 , 21 ] by implementing the RRT and constructing a covariance matrix for the responses. For details of the RRT procedure and application of RRT, readers may refer to Chong et al. (2019) and Chu et al. (2020) [ 18 , 21 ].

To ensure that the respondents understood the purpose of using the RRT to further protect their privacy and clearly understood how to answer the RRT questions, we also included a brief introduction to the RRT procedures before we asked the RRT questions.

All items in the survey were measured on a seven-point Likert scale. Unless otherwise specified, we provided seven options for each item, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and we asked each respondent to pick the option that best described the situation.

Constructs and items

To build the research model, we constructed our survey questions on the basis of seven constructs, with each construct consisting of two to three items. A complete list of items is available in the S1 Table .

Company support.

Communication with colleagues and access to technical support are important for enabling a smooth transition to WFH [ 22 ]. Following the work of Sull et al. (2020) [ 22 ], we developed three items to measure company support. A high score indicated strong support from the company for employees who were working from home.

Supervisor trust.

When employees work from home, they have little opportunity to meet with their supervisors [ 23 ]. In the absence of supervisors and employees working face-to-face, supervisors’ trust in their subordinates is an important contribution to successful WFH [ 24 ]. We used three items to measure supervisor trust, with a high score indicating a high level of supervisors’ trust in their employees during WFH.

Work-life balance.

A favorable environment and a healthy balance between working time and personal time could be an advantageous result of WFH [ 25 ]. With reference to Chaiprasit and Santidhirakul (2011) [ 26 ], we developed three items to measure work-life balance during WFH, with a high score indicating a good work-life balance.

On the basis of the existing literature, we developed three items to measure employees’ level of stress: sleep quality [ 27 ], loss of energy [ 28 ], and depressed mood [ 29 ]. A high score indicated a high level of stress during WFH.

For the current study, we modified the three items relating to happiness that were developed by Chaiprasit and Santidhirakul (2011) [ 26 ]. The original items were in a five-point Likert scale, but we converted them into a seven-point Likert scale for measurement consistency in our study. A high score indicated a high level of happiness during WFH.

Non-work-related activities.

During WFH, family issues and entertainment activities can distract employees from their work [ 30 ]. Following Ford et al. (2020) and Javed et al. (2019) [ 31 , 32 ], we developed two items referring to these two possible distractions to measure the respondents’ non-work-related activities and we used a seven-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (very many times), to quantify the respondents’ engagement in non-work-related activities [ 33 ]. A high score indicated a high frequency of conducting non-work-related activities during working hours when working from home.

Work productivity.

We adopted the top three factors from the Endicott Work Productivity Scale [ 34 ] as items for measuring work productivity. The items were originally in a five-point scale, ranging from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“almost always”), but we modified the wording to adapt the scale to our context on WFH and our seven-point Likert scale approach. A high score indicated a high level of perceived productivity during WFH.

Research model and hypotheses

Wfh environment and psychological well-being..

Employees have had no choice but to work from home when their companies or government policies have required it in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. For WFH to be successful, company support is necessary in three areas. First, some employees have insufficient equipment for WFH, and some may lack sufficient knowledge of the use of telecommunication technology [ 35 ]. Companies need to support their employees by providing them with the necessary equipment [ 36 ] and training them in the use of new technology [ 37 ]. Second, to avoid any impact of WFH on employees’ home time, companies have to set clear guidelines for distinguishing between work time and home time [ 38 ]. Third, companies have to decide when to start WFH and when to resume the normal working mode, and then they have to give their employees sufficient notice about the need to switch modes. We expected that company support during WFH would enhance job happiness [ 39 ] and would moderate the stresses from work and family. Therefore, we developed the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1a : Company support will negatively affect employees’ stress when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 1b : Company support will positively affect employees’ happiness when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we have already noted, employers and employees do not see each other face-to-face in the WFH working environment. Thus, on one hand, employees have to show their employers that they are self-disciplined in completing their tasks on time and maintaining the expected quality of work [ 40 ] and, on the other hand, employers have to trust their employees that they have already tried their best in working on their assigned tasks [ 41 ]. In fact, some previous literature has mentioned that trust is the most critical factor in making WFH a success [ 42 ]. Therefore, we expected that supervisors’ trust in their subordinates would be important in maintaining employees’ happiness and reducing their stress on work [ 43 ]. Correspondingly, we developed the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 2a : Supervisor trust will be negatively related to employees’ stress level when the employees are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 2b : Supervisor trust will be positively related to employees’ happiness when the employees are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A previous study of managers and fitness trainers discovered that loss of work-life balance could potentially boost the level of work-related stress because the workers spent extra time on work and did not have sufficient time for other life matters [ 44 ]. The association between a poor work-life balance and perceived job stress, which is caused by conflict between one’s job and other life activities, was further confirmed in a previous study on Australian academics [ 45 ]. The researchers explained that difficulty in maintaining work-life balance caused employees to feel additional stress. Moreover, research by Haar et al. (2014) [ 46 ] revealed that work-life balance was negatively related to depression across seven cultures in Asia, Europe, and Oceania, whereas work-life balance was positively associated with job and life satisfaction. Another study on healthcare employees also discovered a positive relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction [ 47 ]. In addition, Fisher (2003) [ 44 ] found that having a good work-life balance could minimize the interference between employees’ work life and their personal life, thus allowing them to maintain their job engagement and family involvement at the same time, and fostering greater happiness in their work. Thus, we formulated the following two hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 3a : Work-life balance will be negatively related to employees’ stress level when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 3b : Work-life balance will be positively related to employees’ level of happiness when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psychological well-being, non-work-related activities, and productivity.

Previous studies have revealed the causal relationship that increased stress leads to a reduction in employees’ productivity [ 48 – 50 ]. Indeed, chronic stress can have several negative effects on employees, including insomnia, concentration difficulty, and increased risk of depression, all of which are likely to reduce productivity.

Some employees may choose to conduct non-work-related activities (e.g., non-work-related computing) while at work [ 33 ]. In our context, non-work-related activities are not referring to necessary activities such as going to the washroom or having a short break. We are considering situations in which an employee chooses to conduct non-work-related activities during work hours even if he or she could do those activities later. The reasons for conducting non-work-related activities during work hours are varied. Some studies have suggested that non-work-related activities can be caused by resistance and lack of management [ 51 , 52 ]. If an employee has a negative impression of the company or of management, that worker will have a low level of working engagement. In other words, a stressful working environment or management style can generate negative feelings in employees, and those negative feelings may motivate them to do something unrelated to their work during work hours. Accordingly, we formulated Hypotheses 4a and 4b as follows:

• Hypothesis 4a : Employees’ stress level will be negatively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Hypothesis 4b : Employees’ stress level will be positively related to employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In contrast, happiness can have a positive impact on employees’ productivity. Under a classic piece rate setting, happier individuals have greater productivity than less happy individuals do, no matter whether the happiness derives from long-term or short-term events [ 53 ]. If employees think that they can achieve happiness by performing better at work, they will work harder for that reinforcement [ 54 ]. Therefore, the following hypothesis was also included:

• Hypothesis 5 : Employees’ happiness will be positively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, employees may have difficulty in concentrating on their work when they are working from home because of the lack of an organizational climate and in response to interruptions from family members [ 55 ]. In particular, employees who have children need to shoulder extra child care duties because of school closures [ 56 , 57 ]. At the same time, a feeling of insecurity because of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases also can distract employees [ 10 ], perhaps promoting them to conduct non-work-related activities during working hours at home to drive themselves out from the feeling of insecurity. Two major types of non-work-related activities are (1) activities fulfilling some demand in one’s life, such as caring for children, doing housework, or other activities that the person cannot escape when working from home; and (2) entertainment activities, such as playing video games and sports during working hours [ 31 , 32 ]. Some previous research has suggested that conducting non-work-related activities at work, such as using the Internet for personal purposes in the workplace, can affect job performance [ 52 , 58 ]. Hence, the final hypothesis we postulated was as follows:

• Hypothesis 6 : Employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours will be negatively related to their work productivity when they are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Statistical analysis

We tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS statistical software. The main purpose of using SEM in our analysis was to test the hypotheses about the constructs that we determined from the observed items we collected from the respondents [ 59 ].

To ensure that our model had a consistent construction, we analyzed the convergent validity and discriminant validity of the constructs by considering their Cronbach’s alpha values, average variance extracted (AVE) values, and square root of AVE values, on the respective constructs and the item loadings. Cronbach’s alpha measures the internal consistency of constructs [ 60 ]. The average variance extracted provides the average of variation explained by a construct [ 61 ].

Moreover, we assessed the model fit using (1) absolute fit indexes, including the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and (2) incremental fit indexes, including the comparative fit index (CFI) and the normed fit index (NFI) [ 62 ].

After confirming that the model was consistent and had a good fit, we examined the model by SEM. We then calculated the significance of each path using a two-tailed t -test to test the cause and effect relationships among the constructs.

Model consistency

We list the summary statistics, including the mean and standard deviation of each item, the item loadings, and the Cronbach’s alpha of each construct in Table 2 . The correlations between constructs, average variances extracted (AVEs), and the square roots of the AVEs are listed in Table 3 . The Cronbach’s alpha of each construct was above the benchmark value of acceptable reliability 0.7 [ 63 ], thus suggesting a good internal consistency of each construct. In order to ensure that each item represented its construct, each item needed to have a loading larger than 0.4 [ 64 , 65 ]. All of the item loadings in our research exceeded 0.4, and the AVE value for each construct was larger than 0.5 (except one, which was 0.5), thus demonstrating that the items satisfied the requirements for convergent validity [ 66 , 67 ]. In addition, the square root of the AVE of each construct was larger than its correlations with all of the other constructs [ 67 ] meaning that the discriminant validity was at an acceptable level.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969.t003

Model goodness of fit

The cut-off criteria of a good model fit are: RMSEA < 0.06, and GFI, CFI, and NFI ≥ 0.9 [ 68 – 71 ]. In this case, the study’s model demonstrated a satisfactory fit (RMSEA = 0.061; CFI = 0.947; GFI = 0.919; NFI = 0.922).

Testing of hypotheses

We report the standardized path coefficients and the significance of each of the hypotheses in Fig 1 . Based on a significance level of 5%, four hypotheses were significant and six were not significant.

N.S. represents not significant. *** indicates a p -value less than 0.01. The numbers to the right of the hypotheses’ numbers are the standardized path coefficients.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969.g001

The research findings supported Hypotheses H3a, H3b, H4b, and H5. Hypothesis H3a was supported ( β = -0.222, p < 0.001), indicating that work-life balance was negatively related to the employees’ stress level when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H3b was also supported ( β = 0.750, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ work-life balance was positively related to their happiness when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H4b was supported ( β = 0.626, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ stress level was positively related to the employees’ participation in non-work-related activities during working hours when those employees were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypothesis H5 was supported ( β = 0.418, p < 0.001), indicating that employees’ happiness had a positive effect in promoting their work productivity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many employees who were accustomed to working in the office and did not have previous WFH experience to do their work from home during part of the pandemic, because of social distancing or lockdown policies. In this research, we sought to investigate the effects that switching to WFH in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had on employees’ psychological well-being and, by extension, on their work productivity. We applied the stress mindset theory to study the relationships between three stress relievers (company support, supervisor trust, and work-life balance) on the positive and negative sides of employees’ psychological well-being (happiness versus stress), which in turn affected their job performance (productivity and non-work-related activities during working hours) when they were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, among the three stress relievers we studied, work-life balance is the only reliever that have influenced on the employees’ psychological well-being. At the same time, this reliever has a positive effect on one’s psychological well-being by promoting happiness and relieving stress. Our research findings also suggest that when employees feel happy in their WFH arrangements, their work productivity increases. Surprisingly, when the employees encountered stress in their WFH arrangements, they still maintained their work productivity, but at the same time, they participate more in non-work-related activities to relieve their stress. The good news is that their non-work-related activities did not affect their work productivity. Our study takes the lead in developing a research model that shapes the relationship between employees’ WFH environment and their psychological well-being and performance in relation to sudden and forced WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a methodological contribution, our study adopted the modified randomized response technique to ask the sensitive questions involved in the study, including queries about the employees’ negative psychological well-being status and their engagement in non-work-related activities. We provided extra protection to their privacy by using this survey method, so as to encourage them to provide truthful responses when answering such sensitive questions. Management may wish to consider adopting the same methodology in an effort to collect honest responses when sensitive questions are involved in the workplace.

Regarding the effect of stress relievers on psychological well-being, we found that having a healthy work-life balance promotes happiness and also relieves stress. However, WFH does not imply an improvement in work-life balance, especially when the employees do not have a suitable environment to work. Employees should have a private workspace, which allows access to a strong and stable Internet connection, and has sufficient equipment to carry out their work at home. If employees encounter difficulties when they are working from home, management should provide the employees with flexible arrangements and alternative approaches to work. For example, if an employee does not have a comfortable environment to work, management may arrange a private space or room in the office for the employees given that a proper social distance is maintained.

As is the case in other fast-paced metropolises, Hong Kong has long followed the standard practice of employees working in a formal office environment and offering them no flexible working options [ 72 ]. During the pandemic, when the employees are allow to work from home, some companies have also set strict rules, such as requiring staff to stay at home during working hours or to answer calls from supervisors within three tones. However, a blurred boundary between work space and home space can make it difficult for employees to set a clear line of separation between their work and their home life [ 73 ]. Under a work-life balance working approach, it is assumed that employees can reserve enough time to handle non-work-related life issues and activities while managing their work tasks. Although some previous studies have suggested that non-work-related activities in the workplace affect work productivity [ 52 , 58 ], our research findings did not support that argument in regard to WFH. In other words, performing non-work-related activities during work hours at home does not necessarily appear to impact work productivity. In fact, when employees are feeling burned-out, they could relieve stress via such non-work-related activities and hence maintain their work engagement. For example, at the time when use of the Internet was just emerging in the workplace, Internet recreation in the workplace was found to make employees more creative [ 74 ] and help employees to become accustomed to the new and advanced systems [ 75 ].

Therefore, management may wish to offer their employees a flexible working hour to help the employees to meet their needs when they are working from home [ 57 ]. Management could also encourage employees to set boundaries, as long as the committed working hours per week are achieved, thereby enabling them to secure the balance between their work and home life. Feeling happy, satisfied, and enthusiastic when working from home can help workers maintain a high level of productivity [ 76 ].

Limitations and future research

The present study had certain limitations. First, the significance of the research findings is dependent on the reliability of self-reports. To minimize bias, in this study we attempted to collect the most representative responses, including through application of the RRT for sensitive questions and through use of an anonymous, web-based survey, as well as through the choice of highly diverse participants. A pretest and pilot test were also conducted before the actual survey, to ensure the quality of the study. Second, this study was based on 500 employees in Hong Kong, a group that certainly cannot represent the worldwide population. In addition, the working and living environments in Hong Kong may be significantly different from those in other regions or countries. Additionally research among more heterogeneous samples will be needed to test the research model.

Conclusions

Although managers are trying their best to maintain their employees’ work productivity at the same level as that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also important for them to maintain a good balance for their employees between work and life and provide flexibility in their working time and arrangements. Our research findings suggest that a healthy balance between work and home life makes employees feel happier, and in turn has a significant effect on them maintaining a good level of work productivity when they are required to switch to WFH. Meanwhile, an imbalance between work and life would have a negative impact on employees’ psychological well-being, spurring them to carry out non-work-related activities during working hours. Interestingly, those non-work-related activities apparently do not influence WFH employees’ work productivity. We conclude that balance is the key to successful implementation of sudden and forced WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and achieving a smooth transition from working at the office to working from home.

Supporting information

S1 table. list of all items and measures..

Suffixes with–S and–U indicate that the items are sensitive questions and are paired with unrelated questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261969.s001

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The impact of work-from-home on employee performance and productivity: a systematic review.

1. Introduction

2.1. study-selection strategy, 2.2. study design inclusion and exclusion criteria, 2.3. quality of assessment, 2.4. synthesis, 3.1. study characteristics, 3.1.1. location, 3.1.2. aims of the study, 3.2. study methodology, 3.2.1. study sample, 3.2.2. nature of the study and design, 3.3. findings, 4. discussion, 5. conclusions, 6. limitations and future research, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Anakpo, G.; Nqwayibana, Z.; Mishi, S. The Impact of Work-from-Home on Employee Performance and Productivity: A Systematic Review. Sustainability 2023 , 15 , 4529. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054529

Anakpo G, Nqwayibana Z, Mishi S. The Impact of Work-from-Home on Employee Performance and Productivity: A Systematic Review. Sustainability . 2023; 15(5):4529. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054529

Anakpo, Godfred, Zanele Nqwayibana, and Syden Mishi. 2023. "The Impact of Work-from-Home on Employee Performance and Productivity: A Systematic Review" Sustainability 15, no. 5: 4529. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054529

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• DOI: 10.35870/IJMSIT.V1I1.231
• Corpus ID: 234182986

Employees’ Work-Life Balance Reviewed From Work From Home Aspect During COVID-19 Pandemic

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Work-life balance -a systematic review

Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of Management

ISSN : 0973-1954

Article publication date: 15 December 2021

Issue publication date: 31 July 2023

This study aims to systematically review the existing literature and develop an understanding of work-life balance (WLB) and its relationship with other forms of work-related behavior and unearth research gaps to recommend future research possibilities and priorities.

Design/methodology/approach

The current study attempts to make a detailed survey of the research work done by the pioneers in the domain WLB and its related aspects. A total of 99 research work has been included in this systematic review. The research works have been classified based on the year of publication, geographical distribution, the methodology used and the sector. The various concepts and components that have made significant contributions, factors that influence WLB, importance and implications are discussed.

The paper points to the research gaps and scope for future research in the area of WLB.

Originality/value

The current study uncovered the research gaps regarding the systematic review and classifications based on demography, year of publication, the research method used and sector being studied.

• Work-life balance
• Flexibility
• Individual’s ability to balance work-life
• Support system
• WLB policy utilization
• Societal culture

S., T. and S.N., G. (2023), "Work-life balance -a systematic review", Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of Management , Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 258-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/XJM-10-2020-0186

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Thilagavathy S. and Geetha S.N.

Published in Vilakshan – XIMB Journal of Management . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

In this technological era, work is becoming demanding with changing nature of work and working patterns (Thilagavathy and Geetha, 2020 ). The proactive, aggressive and demanding nature of business with the intention of reaching the top requires active involvement and comprehensive devotion from the employees, thereby compromising their work-life balance (WLB) (Turanlıgil and Farooq, 2019 ). Research concerning the work-life interface has exploded over the past five decades because of the changing trends in the nature of gender roles, families, work and careers (Powell et al. , 2019 ). Researchers in this domain has published many literature reviews with regard to WLB. It is argued that the study of WLB remains snowed under by a lack of conceptual clarity (Perrigino et al. , 2018 ). Thus, research and theory only partially view the employees’ work-life needs and experiences.

How WLB is conceptualized in the past?

What are the factors that significantly influenced WLB?

In which geographical areas were the WLB studies undertaken?

Which sectors remain unstudied or understudied with regard to WLB?

Methodology

We systematically conducted the literature review with the following five steps, as shown in Figure 1 . The first step was to review the abstracts from the database like EBSCO, Science Direct, Proquest and JSTOR. The articles from publishers like ELSEVIER, Emerald insight, Springer, Taylor and Francis and Sage were considered. The literature survey was conducted using the search terms WLB, balancing work and family responsibility and domains of work and life between the period 1990 to 2019. This search process led to the identification of 1,230 relevant papers. Inclusion criteria: The scholarly articles concerning WLB published in the English language in journals listed in Scopus, web of science or Australian business deans council (ABDC) were included in this review. Exclusion criteria: The scholarly articles concerning WLB published in languages other than English were not taken into consideration. Similarly, unpublished papers and articles published in journals not listed in Scopus, web of science or ABDC were excluded.

In the second step, we identified the duplicates and removed them. Thus, the total number of papers got reduced to 960. Following this, many papers relating to work-life spillover and work-life conflict were removed, resulting in further reduction of the papers to 416. Subsequently, in the third step, the papers were further filtered based on the language. The paper in the English language from journals listed in Scopus, web of science or ABDC were only considered. This search process resulted in the reduction of related papers to 93. The fourth step in the search process was further supplemented with the organic search for the related articles, leading to 99 papers illustrated in Appendix Table 1 . In the fifth step, an Excel sheet was created to review the paper under different headings and the results are as follows.

Literature review

Evolution and conceptualization of work-life balance.

WLB concern was raised earlier by the working mothers of the 1960s and 1970s in the UK. Later the issue was given due consideration by the US Government during the mid of 1980. During the 1990s WLB gained adequate recognition as the issue of human resource management in other parts of the world (Bird, 2006 ). The scholarly works concerning WLB have increased, mainly because of the increasing strength of the women workforce, technological innovations, cultural shifts in attitudes toward the relationship between the work and the family and the diversity of family structures (Greenhaus and Kossek, 2014 ). The research works on WLB include several theoretical work-family models. Though the research on WLB has expanded to a greater extend, there are considerable gaps in our knowledge concerning work-family issues (Powell et al. , 2019 ).

Moreover, in studies where WLB and related aspects are explored, researchers have used different operational definitions and measurements for the construct. Kalliath and Brough (2008) have defined WLB as “The individual’s perception that work and non-work activities are compatible and promote growth in accordance with an individual’s current life priorities.” WLB is “a self-defined, self-determined state of well being that a person can reach, or can set as a goal, that allows them to manage effectively multiple responsibilities at work, at home and in their community; it supports physical, emotional, family, and community health, and does so without grief, stress or negative impact” (Canadian Department of Labor, as cited in Waters and Bardoel, 2006 ).

Figure 2 depicts the flowchart of the framework for the literature survey. It clearly shows the factors that have been surveyed in this research article.

Individual factors

The individual factors of WLB include demographic variables, personal demands, family demands, family support and individual ability.

Work-life balance and demography.

WLB has significant variations with demographic variables (Waters and Bardoel, 2006 ). A significant difference was found between age (Powell et al. , 2019 ), gender (Thilagavathy and Geetha, 2020 ) and marital status (Powell et al. , 2019 ) regarding WLB. There is a significant rise in women’s participation in the workforce (Jenkins and Harvey, 2019 ). WLB issues are higher for dual-career couples (Crawford et al. , 2019 ).

Many studies were conducted on WLB with reference to sectors like information technology (IT), information technology enabled services, Banking, Teaching, Academics and Women Employment. A few WLB studies are conducted among services sector employees, hotel and catering services, nurses, doctors, middle-level managers and entrepreneurs. Only very scarce research has been found concerning police, defense, chief executive officers, researchers, lawyers, journalists and road transport.

Work-life balance and personal demands.

High work pressure and high family demand lead to poor physical, psychological and emotional well-being (Jensen and Knudsen, 2017 ), causing concern to employers as this leads to reduced productivity and increased absenteeism (Jackson and Fransman, 2018 ).

Work-life balance and family demands.

An employee spends most of the time commuting (Denstadli et al. , 2017 ) or meeting their work and family responsibilities. Dual career couple in the nuclear family finds it difficult to balance work and life without domestic help (Dumas and Perry-Smith, 2018 ; Srinivasan and Sulur Nachimuthu, 2021 ). Difficulty in a joint family is elderly care (Powell et al. , 2019 ). Thus, family demands negatively predict WLB (Haar et al. , 2019 ).

Work-life balance and family support.

Spouse support enables better WLB (Dumas and Perry-Smith, 2018 ). Family support positively impacted WLB, especially for dual-career couples, with dependent responsibilities (Groysberg and Abrahams, 2014 ).

Work-life balance and individual’s ability.

Though the organizations implement many WLB policies, employees still face the problems of WLB (Dave and Purohit, 2016 ). Employees achieve better well-being through individual coping strategies (Zheng et al. , 2016 ). Individual resources such as stress coping strategy, mindfulness emotional intelligence positively predicted WLB (Kiburz et al. , 2017 ). This indicates the imperative need to improve the individual’s ability to manage work and life.

Organizational factor

Organizational factors are those relating to organization design in terms of framing policies, rules and regulations for administering employees and dealing with their various activities regarding WLB ( Kar and Misra, 2013 ). In this review, organizational factors and their impact on the WLB of the employee have been dealt with in detail.

Work-life balance and organizational work-life policies.

The organization provides a variety of WLB policies (Jenkins and Harvey, 2019 ). Employee-friendly policies positively influenced WLB ( Berg et al. , 2003 ). Further, only a few IT industries provided Flexi timing, work from home and crèches facilities (Downes and Koekemoer, 2012 ). According to Galea et al. (2014) , industry-specific nuance exists.

Work-life balance and organizational demands.

Organizations expect employees to multi-task, causing role overload (Bacharach et al. , 1991 ). The increasing intensity of work and tight deadlines negatively influenced WLB (Allan et al. , 1999 ). The shorter time boundaries make it challenging to balance professional and family life (Jenkins and Harvey, 2019 ). Job demands negatively predicted WLB (Haar et al. , 2019 ).

Work-life balance and working hours.

Work does vacuum up a greater portion of the personal hours (Haar et al. , 2019 ). This causes some important aspects of their lives to be depleted, undernourished or ignored (Hughes et al. , 2018 ). Thus, employees find less time for “quality” family life (Jenkins and Harvey, 2019 ).

Work-life balance and productivity.

Organizational productivity is enhanced by the synergies of work-family practices and work-team design (Johari et al. , 2018 ). Enhanced WLB leads to increased employee productivity (Jackson and Fransman, 2018 ).

Work-life balance and burnout.

WLB is significantly influenced by work exhaustion (burnout). Negative psychological experience arising from job stress is defined as burnout (Ratlif, 1988). Increased work and non-work demands contribute to occupational burnout and, in turn, negatively predict WLB and employee well-being (Jones et al. , 2019 ).

Work-life balance and support system.

Support from Colleagues, supervisors and the head of institutions positively predicted WLB (Ehrhardt and Ragins, 2019 ; Yadav and Sharma, 2021 ). Family-supportive organization policy positively influenced WLB (Haar and Roche, 2010 ).

Work-life balance and employee perception.

The employee’s perception regarding their job, work environment, supervision and organization positively influenced WLB (Fontinha et al. , 2019 ). Employees’ awareness concerning the existence of WLB policies is necessary to appreciate it (Matthews et al. , 2014). The employee’s perception of the need for WLB policies differs with respect to their background (Kiburz et al. , 2017 ).

Work-life balance and job autonomy.

Job autonomy is expressed as the extent of freedom the employee has in their work and working pattern ( Bailey, 1993 ). According to Ahuja and Thatcher (2005) , autonomy and flexibility enable employees to balance competing demands of work-life. Job autonomy will enhance WLB (Johari et al. , 2018 ).

Work-life balance and job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction is the driving force for task accomplishment and employees’ intention to stay (Brough et al. , 2014 ). Employees’ positive perception concerning their job enhances job satisfaction (Singh et al. , 2020 ; Yadav and Sharma, 2021 ). WLB and job satisfaction are positively correlated (Jackson and Fransman, 2018 ).

Work-life balance and organizational commitment.

Alvesson (2002) describes organizational commitment as a mutual and fair social exchange. WLB positively predicted organizational commitment (Emre and De Spiegeleare, 2019 ). Work-life policies offered by an organization lead to increased loyalty and commitment (Callan, 2008 ).

Work-life balance and work-life balance policy utilization.

The utilization of WLB policies (Adame-Sánchez et al. , 2018 ) helps meet job and family demands. Despite the availability of WLB policies, their actual adoption is rather small (Waters and Bardoel, 2006 ) and often lag behind implementation (Adame-Sánchez et al. , 2018 ).

Work-life balance and organizational culture.

Employees perceive WLB policy utilization may badly reflect their performance appraisal and promotion (Bourdeau et al. , 2019 ). Hence, seldom use the WLB policies (Dave and Purohit, 2016 ). The perception of the organization culture as isolated, unfriendly and unaccommodating (Fontinha et al. , 2017 ); a lack of supervisor and manager support and a lack of communication and education about WLB strategies (Jenkins and Harvey, 2019 ). This leads to counterproductive work behavior and work-family backlash (Alexandra, 2014 ). As a result, growing evidence suggests a dark side to WLB policies, but these findings remain scattered and unorganized (Perrigino et al. , 2018 ). Organizational culture significantly affects WLB policy utilization (Callan, 2008 ; Dave and Purohit, 2016 ).

Societal factors

Societal changes that have taken place globally and locally have impacted the individual’s lifestyle. In this modern techno world, a diversified workforce resulting from demographic shifts and communication technology results in blurring of boundaries between work and personal life (Kalliath and Brough, 2008 ).

Work-life balance and societal demands.

Being members of society, mandates employee’s participation in social events. But in the current scenario, this is witnessing a downward trend. The employee often comes across issues of inability to meet the expectation of friends, relatives and society because of increased work pressure. Societal demands significantly predicted WLB (Mushfiqur et al. , 2018 ).

Work-life balance and societal culture.

Societal culture has a strong influence on WLB policy utilization and work and non-work self-efficacy. Specifically, collectivism, power distance and gendered norms had a strong and consistent impact on WLB Policy utilization by employees (Brown et al. , 2019 ). Women’s aspiration to achieve WLB is frequently frustrated by patriarchal norms deep-rooted in the culture (Mushfiqur et al. , 2018 ).

Work-life balance and societal support.

WLB was significantly predicted by support from neighbors, friends and community members (Mushfiqur et al. , 2018 ). Sometimes employees need friend’s viewpoints to get a new perspective on a problem or make a tough decision (Dhanya and Kinslin, 2016 ). Community support is an imperative indicator of WLB ( Phillips et al. , 2016 ).

Analyzes and results

Article distribution based on year of publication.

The WLB studies included for this review were between the periods of 1990–2019. Only a few studies were published in the initial period. A maximum of 44 papers was published during 2016–2019. Out of which, 17 studies were published during the year 2019. In the years 2018, 2017 and 2016 a total of 12, 7 and 8 studies were published, respectively. The details of the article distribution over the years illustrate a rising trend, as shown in Figure 3 .

Geographical distribution

Papers considered for this review were taken globally, including the research works from 26 countries. American and European countries contributed to a maximum of 60% of the publications regarding WLB research. Figure 4 illustrates the contribution of different countries toward the WLB research.

Basic classification

The review included 99 indexed research work contributed by more than 70 authors published in 69 journals. The contribution worth mentioning was from authors like Allen T.D, Biron M, Greenhaus J. H, Haar J.M, Jensen M.T, Kalliath T and Mc Carthy A. The basic categorization revealed that the geographical distribution considered for this review was from 26 different countries, as shown in Figure 4 . The research was conducted in (but not limited to) countries like Africa, Australia, Canada, China, India, Israel, The Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, the USA and the UK. American and European countries together contributed to the maximum of 60% of publications. Further, the categorization uncovered that 7 out of the 99 journals contributed to 30% of the WLB papers considered for this review, clearly illustrated in Table 1 .

Methodology-based categorization of papers

The basic information like research methods, sources of data, the proportion of papers using specific methodologies were considered for methodology-based categorization. The categorization revealed that 27 out of 99 papers reviewed were conceptual and the remaining 72 papers were empirical. The empirical papers used descriptive, exploratory, explanatory or experimental research designs. Further, categorization based on the data collection method revealed that 69 papers used the primary data collection method. Additionally, classification uncovered that 57 papers used the quantitative method, whereas 11 papers used the qualitative approach and four used the mixed method. The most prominent primary method used for data collection was the questionnaire method with 58 papers, while the remaining 20 papers used interview (10), case study (5), experimental studies (3), daily dairy (1) or panel discussion (1).

Sector-based categorization of papers

The sector-based categorization of papers revealed that 41.6% (30 papers) of research work was carried out in service sectors. This is followed by 40.2% (29 papers) research in the general public. While one paper was found in the manufacturing sector, the remaining nine papers focused on managers, women, the defense sector, police and the public sector, the details of which are showcased in Table 2 .

Research gap

Individual factor.

The literature survey results demonstrated that the impact of employee education and experience on their WLB had not been examined.

The literature survey has uncovered that the relationship between income and WLB has not been explored.

The influence of domestic help on WLB has not been investigated.

Much of the research work has been carried out in developed countries like the US, UK, European countries and Australia. In contrast, very scarce research works have been found in developing countries and underdeveloped countries.

Not much work has been done in WLB regarding service sectors like fire-fighters, transport services like drivers, railway employees, pilots, air hostesses, power supply department and unorganized sectors.

A review of the relevant literature uncovered that studies concerning the individual’s ability to balance work and life are limited. The individual’s ability, along with WLB policies, considerably improved WLB. Individual strategies are the important ones that need investigation rather than workplace practices.

Kibur z et al . (2017) addressed the ongoing need for experimental, intervention-based design in work-family research. There are so far very scares experimental studies conducted with regard to WLB.

Organizational factor.

A very few studies explored the impact of the WLB policies after the implementation.

Studies concerning the organizational culture, psychological climate and WLB policy utilizations require investigation.

Organizational climates influence on the various factors that predict WLB needs exploration.

Societal factor.

The impact of the societal factors on WLB is not explored much.

Similarly, the influence of societal culture (societal beliefs, societal norms and values systems) on WLB is not investigated.

Discussion and conclusion

The current research work aspires to conduct a systematic review to unearth the research gaps, and propose direction for future studies. For this purpose, literature with regard to WLB was systematically surveyed from 1990 to 2019. This led to identifying 99 scientific research papers from index journals listed in Scopus, the web of science or the ABDC list. Only papers in the English language were considered. The review section elaborated on the evolution and conceptualization of WLB. Moreover, the literature review discussed in detail the relationship between WLB and other related variables. Further, the research works were classified based on the fundamental information revealed that a maximum of 44 papers was published during the year 2016–2019. The geographical distribution revealed that a maximum of research publications concerning WLB was from American and European countries. Further, the basic classification revealed that 7 out of the 69 journals contributed to 30% of the WLB papers considered for this review. The methodology-based classification unearthed the fact that 73% of the papers were empirical studies. Additionally, the categorization uncovered that 79% ( n = 57) of papers used quantitative methods dominated by survey method of data collection. Sector-based categorization made known the fact that a maximum of 41.6% of research work was carried out in the service sector. The research gaps were uncovered based on the systematic literature review and classifications and proposed future research directions.

Limitations

We acknowledge that there is a possibility of missing out a few papers unintentionally, which may not be included in this review. Further, papers in the English language were only considered. Thus, the papers in other languages were not included in this systematic review which is one of the limitations of this research work.

Implications

The discussion reveals the importance and essentiality of the individual’s ability to balance work and life. Consequently, the researchers have proposed future research directions exploring the relationship between the variables. WLB is an important area of research; thus, the proposed research directions are of importance to academicians. The review’s finding demonstrates that there are very scarce studies on the individual’s ability to balance work and life. This leaves a lot of scopes for researchers to do continuous investigation in this area. Hence, it is essential to conduct more research on developing individuals’ ability to balance work and life. There are a few experimental studies conducted so far in WLB. Future experimental studies can be undertaken to enhance the individual’s ability to balance work and life.

Flow chart of the steps in systematic review process

Framework for the literature review

Distribution of papers based on year of publication

Geographical distribution of papers across countries

Journals details

Table 1 List of papers included in the review

Adame-Sánchez , C. , Caplliure , E.M. and Miquel-Romero , M.J. ( 2018 ), “ Paving the way for competition: drivers for work-life balance policy implementation ”, Review of Managerial Science , Vol. 12 No. 2 , pp. 519 - 533 , doi: 10.1007/s11846-017-0271-y .

Ahuja , M. and Thatcher , J. ( 2005 ), “ Moving beyond intentions and towards the theory of trying: effects of work environment and gender on post-adoption information technology use ”, MIS Quarterly , Vol. 29 No. 3 , pp. 427 - 459 .

Allan , C. , O'Donnell , M. and Peetz , D. ( 1999 ), “ More tasks, less secure, working harder: three dimensions of labour utilization ”, Journal of Industrial Relations , Vol. 41 No. 4 , pp. 519 - 535 , doi: 10.1177/002218569904100403 .

Alvesson ( 2002 ), Understanding Organizational Culture , Sage Publications , London . 10.4135/9781446280072

Bacharach , S.B. , Bamberger , R. and Conely , S. ( 1991 ), “ Work-home conflict among nurses and engineers: mediating the impact of stress on burnout and satisfaction at work ”, Journal of Organizational Behavior , Vol. 12 No. 1 , pp. 39 - 63 , doi: 10.1002/job.4030120104 .

Bailey , T.R. ( 1993 ), “ Discretionary effort and the organization of work: employee participation and work reform since Hawthorne ”, Teachers College and Conservation of Human Resources , Columbia University .

Bardoel , E.A. ( 2006 ), “ Work-life balance and human resource development ”, Holland , P. and De Cieri , H. (Eds), Contemporary Issues in Human Resource Development: An Australian Perspective , Pearson Education , Frenchs Forest, NSW , pp. 237 - 259 .

Berg , P. , Kalleberg , A.L. and Appelbaum , E. ( 2003 ), “ Balancing work and family: the role of high - commitment environments ”, Industrial Relations , Vol. 42 No. 2 , pp. 168 - 188 , doi: 10.1111/1468-232X.00286 .

Bird , J. ( 2006 ), “ Work-life balance: doing it right and avoiding the pitfalls ”, Employment Relations Today , Vol. 33 No. 3 , pp. 21 - 30 , doi: 10.1002/ert.20114 .

Bourdeau , S. , Ollier-Malaterre , A. and Houlfort , N. ( 2019 ), “ Not all work-life policies are created equal: career consequences of using enabling versus enclosing work-life policies ”, Academy of Management Review , Vol. 44 No. 1 , pp. 172 - 193 , doi: 10.5465/amr.2016.0429 .

Brough , P. , Timm , C. , Driscoll , M.P.O. , Kalliath , T. , Siu , O.L. , Sit , C. and Lo , D. ( 2014 ), “ Work-life balance: a longitudinal evaluation of a new measure across Australia and New Zealand workers ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 25 No. 19 , pp. 2724 - 2744 , doi: 10.1080/09585192.2014.899262 .

Callan , S.J. ( 2008 ), “ Cultural revitalization: the importance of acknowledging the values of an organization's ‘golden era’ when promoting work-life balance ”, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal , Vol. 3 No. 1 , pp. 78 - 97 , doi: 10.1108/17465640810870409 .

Crawford , W.S. , Thompson , M.J. and Ashforth , B.E. ( 2019 ), “ Work-life events theory: making sense of shock events in dual-earner couples ”, Academy of Management Review , Vol. 44 No. 1 , pp. 194 - 212 , doi: 10.5465/amr.2016.0432 .

Dave , J. and Purohit , H. ( 2016 ), “ Work-life balance and perception: a conceptual framework ”, The Clarion- International Multidisciplinary Journal , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 98 - 104 .

Denstadli , J.M. , Julsrud , T.E. and Christiansen , P. ( 2017 ), “ Urban commuting – a threat to the work-family balance? ”, Journal of Transport Geography , Vol. 61 , pp. 87 - 94 , doi: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2017.04.011 .

Downes , C. and Koekemoer , E. ( 2012 ), “ Work-life balance policies: the use of flexitime ”, Journal of Psychology in Africa , Vol. 22 No. 2 , pp. 201 - 208 , doi: 10.1080/14330237.2012.10820518 .

Dumas , T.L. and Perry-Smith , J.E. ( 2018 ), “ The paradox of family structure and plans after work: why single childless employees may be the least absorbed at work ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 61 No. 4 , pp. 1231 - 1252 , doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.0086 .

Ehrhardt , K. and Ragins , B.R. ( 2019 ), “ Relational attachment at work: a complimentary fit perspective on the role of relationships in organizational life ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 62 No. 1 , pp. 248 - 282 , doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.0245 .

Emre , O. and De Spiegeleare , S. ( 2019 ), “ The role of work-life balance and autonomy in the relationship between commuting, employee commitment, and well-being ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 32 No. 11 , pp. 1 - 25 , doi: 10.1080/09585192.2019.1583270 .

Fontinha , R. , Easton , S. and Van Laar , D. ( 2017 ), “ Overtime and quality of working life in academics and non-academics: the role of perceived work-life balance ”, International Journal of Stress Management , ( in Press ).

Fontinha , R. , Easton , S. and Van Laar , D. ( 2019 ), “ Overtime and quality of working life in academics and non-academics: the role of perceived work-life balance ”, International Journal of Stress Management , Vol. 26 No. 2 , pp. 173 , doi: 10.1037/str0000067 .

Galea , C. , Houkes , I. and Rijk , A.D. ( 2014 ), “ An insider’s point of view: how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 25 No. 8 , pp. 1090 - 1111 , doi: 10.1080/09585192.2013.816862 .

Greenhaus , J.H. and Kossek , E.E. ( 2014 ), “ The contemporary career: a work–home perspective ”, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , Vol. 1 No. 1 , pp. 361 - 388 , doi: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091324 .

Groysberg , B. and Abrahams , R. ( 2014 ), “ Manage your work, manage your life ”, Harvard Business Review , Vol. 92 No. 3 , pp. 58 - 66 , available at: https://hbr.org/2014/03/manage-your-work-manage-your-life

Haar , J.M. and Roche , M. ( 2010 ), “ Family-supportive organization perceptions and employee outcomes: the mediating effects of life satisfaction ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 21 No. 7 , pp. 999 - 1014 , doi: 10.1080/09585191003783462 .

Haar , J.M. , Sune , A. , Russo , M. and Ollier-Malaterre , A. ( 2019 ), “ A cross-national study on the antecedents of work-life balance from the fit and balance perspective ”, Social Indicators Research , Vol. 142 No. 1 , pp. 261 - 282 , doi: 10.1007/s11205-018-1875-6 .

Hughes , R. , Kinder , A. and Cooper , C.L. ( 2018 ), “ Work-life balance ”, The Wellbeing Workout , pp. 249 - 253 , doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-92552-3_42 .

Jackson , L.T. and Fransman , E.I. ( 2018 ), “ Flexi work, financial well-being, work-life balance and their effects on subjective experiences of productivity and job satisfaction of females in an institution of higher learning ”, South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences , Vol. 21 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 13 , doi: 10.4102/sajems.v21i1.1487 .

Jenkins , K. and Harvey , S.B. ( 2019 ), “ Australian experiences ”, Mental Health in the Workplace , pp. 49 - 66 . Springer , Cham .

Jensen , M.T. and Knudsen , K. ( 2017 ), “ A two-wave cross-lagged study of business travel, work-family conflict, emotional exhaustion, and psychological health complaints ”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , Vol. 26 No. 1 , pp. 30 - 41 , doi: 10.1080/1359432X.2016.1197206 .

Johari , J. , Yean Tan , F. and TjikZulkarnain , Z.I. ( 2018 ), “ Autonomy, workload, work-life balance, and job performance among teachers ”, International Journal of Educational Management , Vol. 32 No. 1 , pp. 107 - 120 , doi: 10.1108/IJEM-10-2016-0226 .

Jones , R. , Cleveland , M. and Uther , M. ( 2019 ), “ State and trait neural correlates of the balance between work-non work roles ”, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging , Vol. 287 , pp. 19 - 30 , doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2019.03.009 .

Kalliath , T. and Brough , P. ( 2008 ), “ Work-life balance: a review of the meaning of the balance construct ”, Journal of Management & Organization , Vol. 14 No. 3 , pp. 323 - 327 , doi: 10.1017/S1833367200003308 .

Kar , S. and Misra , K.C. ( 2013 ), “ Nexus between work life balance practices and employee retention-the mediating effect of a supportive culture ”, Asian Social Science , Vol. 9 No. 11 , p. 63 , doi: 10.1016/j.soscij.2019.03.008 , doi: 10.5539/ass.v9n11p63 .

Kiburz , K.M. , Allen , T.D. and French , K.A. ( 2017 ), “ Work-family conflict and mindfulness: investigating the effectiveness of a brief training intervention ”, Journal of Organizational Behavior , Vol. 38 No. 7 , pp. 1016 - 1037 , doi: 10.1002/job.2181 .

Mushfiqur , R. , Mordi , C. , Oruh , E.S. , Nwagbara , U. , Mordi , T. and Turner , I.M. ( 2018 ), “ The impacts of work-life balance (WLB) challenges on social sustainability: the experience of nigerian female medical doctors ”, Employee Relations , Vol. 40 No. 5 , pp. 868 - 888 , doi: 10.1108/ER-06-2017-0131 .

Perrigino , M.B. , Dunford , B.B. and Wilson , K.S. ( 2018 ), “ Work-family backlash: the ‘dark side’ of work-life balance (WLB) policies ”, Academy of Management Annals , Vol. 12 No. 2 , pp. 600 - 630 , doi: 10.5465/annals.2016.0077 .

Phillips , J. , Hustedde , C. , Bjorkman , S. , Prasad , R. , Sola , O. , Wendling , A. and Paladine , H. ( 2016 ), “ Rural women family physicians: strategies for successful work-life balance ”, The Annals of Family Medicine , Vol. 14 No. 3 , pp. 244 - 251 .

Powell , G.N. , Greenhaus , J.H. , Allen , T.D. and Johnson , R.E. ( 2019 ), “ Introduction to special topic forum: advancing and expanding work-life theory from multiple perspectives ”, Academy of Management Review , Vol. 44 No. 1 , pp. 54 - 71 , doi: 10.5465/amr.2018.0310 .

Ratliff , N. ( 1988 ), “ Stress and burnout in the helping professions ”, Social Casework , Vol. 69 No. 1 , pp. 147 - 154 .

Singh , S. , Singh , S.K. and Srivastava , S. ( 2020 ), “ Relational exploration of the effect of the work-related scheme on job satisfaction ”, Vilakshan – XIMB Journal of Management , Vol. 17 Nos 1/2 , pp. 111 - 128 , doi: 10.1108/XJM-07-2020-0019 .

Srinivasan , T. and Sulur Nachimuthu , G. ( 2021 ), “ COVID-19 impact on employee flourishing: parental stress as mediator ”, Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance Online Publication , doi: 10.1037/tra0001037 .

Thilagavathy , S. and Geetha , S.N. ( 2020 ), “ A morphological analyses of the literature on employee work-life balance ”, Current Psychology , pp. 1 - 26 , doi: 10.1007/s12144-020-00968-x .

Turanlıgil , F.G. and Farooq , M. ( 2019 ), “ Work-Life balance in tourism industry ”, in Contemporary Human Resources Management in the Tourism Industry , pp. 237 - 274 , IGI Global .

Waters , M.A. and Bardoel , E.A. ( 2006 ), “ Work-family policies in the context of higher education: useful or symbolic? ”, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources , Vol. 44 No. 1 , pp. 67 - 82 , doi: 10.1177/1038411106061510 .

Yadav , V. and Sharma , H. ( 2021 ), “ Family-friendly policies, supervisor support, and job satisfaction: mediating effect of work-family conflict ”, Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of Management , doi: 10.1108/XJM-02-2021-0050 .

Zheng , C. , Kashi , K. , Fan , D. , Molineux , J. and Ee , M.S. ( 2016 ), “ Impact of individual coping strategies and organizational work-life balance programmes on australian employee well-being ”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management , Vol. 27 No. 5 , pp. 501 - 526 , doi: 10.1080/09585192.2015.1020447 .

Further reading

Allen , T.D. ( 2012 ), “ The work and family interface ”, in Kozlowski , S.W.J. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Psychology , Vol. 2 , Oxford University Press , New York, NY , pp. 1163 - 1198 .

Bell , A.S. , Rajendran , D. and Theiler , S. ( 2012 ), “ Job stress, wellbeing, work-life balance and work-life conflict among Australian academics ”, Electronic Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 8 No. 1 , pp. 25 - 37 .

Biron , M. ( 2013 ), “ Effective and ineffective support: how different sources of support buffer the short–and long–term effects of a working day ”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , Vol. 22 No. 2 , pp. 150 - 164 , doi: 10.1080/1359432X.2011.640772 .

Carlson , D.S. and Kacmar , K.M. ( 2000 ), “ Work-family conflict in the organization: do life role values make a difference? ”, Journal of Management , Vol. 26 No. 5 , pp. 1031 - 1054 , doi: 10.1177/014920630002600502 .

Clark , S.C. ( 2000 ), “ Work/family border theory: a new theory of work/family balance ”, Human Relations , Vol. 53 No. 6 , pp. 747 - 770 , doi: 10.1177/0018726700536001 .

Daipuria , P. and Kakar , D. ( 2013 ), “ Work-Life balance for working parents: perspectives and strategies ”, Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management , Vol. 2 No. 1 , pp. 45 - 52 .

Gregory , A. and Milner , S. ( 2009 ), “ Editorial: work-life balance: a matter of choice? ”, Gender, Work & Organization , Vol. 16 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 13 , doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2008.00429.x .

Hirschi , A. , Shockley , K.M. and Zacher , H. ( 2019 ), “ Achieving work-family balance: an action regulation model ”, Academy of Management Review , Vol. 44 No. 1 , pp. 150 - 171 , doi: 10.5465/amr.2016.0409 .

Adame-Sánchez , C. , Caplliure , E.M. and Miquel-Romero , M.J. ( 2018 ), “ Paving the way for coopetition: drivers for work–life balance policy implementation ”, Review of Managerial Science , Vol. 12 No. 2 , pp. 519 - 533 , doi: 10.1007/s11846-017-0271-y .

Adame , C. , Caplliure , E.M. and Miquel , M.J. ( 2016 ), “ Work–life balance and firms: a matter of women? ”, Journal of Business Research , Vol. 69 No. 4 , pp. 1379 - 1383 , doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.111 .

Adame-Sánchez , C. , González-Cruz , T.F. and Martínez-Fuentes , C. ( 2016 ), “ Do firms implement work–life balance policies to benefit their workers or themselves? ”, Journal of Business Research , Vol. 69 No. 11 , pp. 5519 - 5523 , doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.04.164 .

Ahuja , M. and Thatcher , J. ( 2005 ), “ Moving beyond intentions and towards the theory of trying: effects of work environment and gender on post-adoption information technology use ”, MIS Quarterly , Vol. 29 , pp. 427 - 459 .

Alam , M. , Ezzedeen , S.R. and Latham , S.D. ( 2018 ), “ Managing work-generated emotions at home: an exploration of the ‘bright side’ of emotion regulation ”, Human Resource Management Review , Vol. 29 No. 4 , doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2018.12.002 .

Alexandra , B.T. ( 2014 ), “ Fairness perceptions of work−life balance initiatives: effects on counterproductive work behaviour ”, British Journal of Management , Vol. 25 , pp. 772 - 789 .

Allan , C. , O'Donnell . M. and Peetz , D. ( 1999 ), “ More tasks, less secure, working harder: three dimensions of labour utilization ”, Journal of Industrial Relations , Vol. 41 No. 4 , pp. 519 - 535 .

Allen , T.D. ( 2001 ), “ Family-Supportive work environments: the role of organisational perceptions ”, Journal of Vocational Behavior , Vol. 58 No. 3 , pp. 414 - 435 .

Antonoff , M.B. and Brown , L.M. ( 2015 ), “ Work–life balance: the female cardiothoracic surgeons perspective ”, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery , Vol. 150 No. 6 , pp. 1416 - 1421 , doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2015.09.057 .

Barber , L.K. , Conlin , A.L. and Santuzzi , A.M. ( 2019 ), “ Workplace telepressure and work life balance outcomes: the role of work recovery experiences ”, Stress and Health , Vol. 35 No. 3 , doi: 10.1002/smi.2864 .

Beckman , C.M. and Stanko , T.L. ( 2019 ), “ It takes three: relational boundary work, resilience, and commitment among navy couples ”, Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 63 No. 2 , doi: 10.5465/amj.2017.0653 .

Bell , A.S. , Rajendran , D. and Theiler , S. ( 2012 ), “ Job stress, wellbeing, work-life balance and work-life conflict among Australian academics ”, Electronic Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 8 , pp. 25 - 37 .

Bird , J. ( 2006 ), “ Work life balance: doing it right and avoiding the pitfalls ”, Employment Relations Today , Vol. 33 No. 3 , pp. 21 - 30 .

Boiarintseva , G. and Richardson , J. ( 2019 ), “ Work-life balance and male lawyers: a socially constructed and dynamic process ”, Personnel Review , Vol. 48 No. 4 , pp. 866 - 879 , doi: 10.1108/PR-02-2017-0038 .

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Brown , H. , Kim , J.S. and Faerman , S.R. ( 2019 ), “ The influence of societal and organizational culture on the use of work-life balance programs: a comparative analysis of the United States and the Republic of Korea ”, The Social Science Journal , doi: 10.1016/j.soscij.2019.03.008 .

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Callan , S.J. ( 2008 ), “ Cultural revitalisation: the importance of acknowledging the values of an organization’s ‘golden era’ when promoting work-life balance ”, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal , Vol. 3 No. 1 , pp. 78 - 97 .

Cannizzo , F. , Mauri , C. and Osbaldiston , N. ( 2019 ), “ Moral barriers between work/life balance policy and practice in academia ”, Journal of Cultural Economy , Vol. 12 No. 4 , pp. 1 - 14 , doi: 10.1080/17530350.2019.1605400 .

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Acknowledgements

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Compliance of ethical standard statement: The results reported in this manuscript were conducted in accordance with general ethical guidelines in psychology.

Corresponding author

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Remote Work Statistics And Trends In 2024

Updated: Jun 12, 2023, 5:29am

Table of Contents

Key remote work statistics, remote work by industry and occupation, remote work by demographics, remote work preferences (surveys, sentiment, etc.), benefits and challenges of remote work, remote work trends.

The paradigm of traditional workspaces has undergone a seismic shift thanks to the Covid pandemic. As a result, remote work has emerged as a dominant trend, requiring human resources departments to pivot faster than ever before. In this comprehensive analysis, we present the most recent remote work statistics that are shaping the professional world and working environments across the nation.

As we navigate through the ever-evolving world of post-pandemic work in 2023, several key remote work statistics stand out. They not only offer insight into the current state of remote work but also provide a glimpse into its future.

As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work a hybrid model

Currently, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, illustrating the rapid normalization of remote work environments. Simultaneously, a significant 28.2% of employees have adapted to a hybrid work model. This model combines both home and in-office working, offering flexibility and maintaining a level of physical presence at the workplace [1] .

Despite the steady rise in remote work, the majority of the workforce (59.1%) still work in-office [1] . This percentage underscores the fact that while remote work is on an upswing, traditional in-office work is far from obsolete.

By 2025, 32.6 million Americans will work remote by 2025

Looking ahead, the future of remote work seems promising. According to Upwork, by 2025, an estimated 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely, which equates to about 22% of the workforce [2] . This projection suggests a continuous, yet gradual, shift towards remote work arrangements.

98% of workers want to work remote at least some of the time

Interestingly, workers’ preference for remote work aligns with this trend. A staggering 98% of workers expressed the desire to work remotely, at least part of the time [3] . This overwhelming figure reflects the workforce’s growing affinity towards the flexibility, autonomy and work-life balance that remote work offers.

93% of employers plan to continue conducting job interviews remotely

From the employers’ perspective, the acceptance of remote work is evident as well. A remarkable 93% of employers plan to continue conducting job interviews remotely [4] . This indicates a willingness to adapt to virtual methods and signals the recognition of remote work as a sustainable option.

16% of companies operate fully remote

About 16% of companies are already fully remote, operating without a physical office [5] . These companies are pioneers in the remote work paradigm, highlighting the feasibility of such models and paving the way for others to follow.

It’s evident that some industries and job roles are more geared towards remote work than others. Understanding these trends helps us predict the direction remote work will take in the future.

The computer and IT sector leads as the top industry for remote work in 2023 [6] . This aligns with the fact that tasks in this sector are often digital in nature, requiring only a reliable internet connection.

Other industries aren’t far behind. Marketing, accounting and finance, and project management have embraced remote work, using digital tools and platforms to ensure work continuity. The medical and health industry has also seen a shift towards remote work, primarily driven by the rise of telehealth services and the digitization of health records.

Even sectors such as HR and recruiting and customer service, traditionally reliant on physical offices, are experiencing the benefits of remote work. Virtual collaboration tools have enabled these industries to operate effectively, irrespective of location.

Shifting the lens to the most sought-after remote job roles, accountant tops the list in 2022. This showcases how traditional office functions, such as accounting, can successfully adapt to a remote format.

Other prominent remote job postings include executive assistant, customer service representative and senior financial analyst. These roles, although diverse, can all be performed effectively with the right technology, without the need for a physical office.

Recruiters, project managers, technical writers, product marketing managers, customer success managers and graphic designers also feature prominently on the list of remote roles. The wide variety of these roles signifies the expanding scope of remote work across different fields.

These industry and occupation-specific statistics highlight the widespread acceptance of remote work. With the evolution of digital tools and changing work norms, remote work is no longer a niche concept but a growing trend spanning various fields.

The top industry for remote workers in 2024 is computer and IT

• Computer and IT
• Accounting and Finance
• Project Management
• Medical and Health
• HR and Recruiting
• Customer Service

An accountant was the most common remote job posting in 2022

• Executive Assistant
• Customer Service Representative
• Senior Financial Analyst
• Project Manager
• Technical Writer
• Product Marketing Manager
• Customer Success Manager
• Graphic Designer

A closer look at the demographics of remote work in 2023 offers fascinating insights into who is embracing this work model and how it’s affecting their livelihoods.

The highest percentage of remote workers are aged 24 to 35

The age group most likely to work remotely are those aged 24 to 35 [7] . Within this demographic, 39% work remotely full time and 25% do so part time. This suggests that the younger workforce values the flexibility and autonomy offered by remote work, which could have implications for businesses looking to attract and retain this talent group.

Education also plays a significant role in remote work accessibility. Those with higher levels of education have a better chance at remote work. This could be a consequence of the qualities of roles that necessitate postgraduate qualifications, which usually involve cognitive labor that can be done anywhere.

Workers with more education are more likely to have remote work options

A higher percentage of men work remote than women.

In terms of gender, there is a higher percentage of men who work from home than women. Specifically, 38% of men work remotely full time, and 23% part time. Comparatively, 30% of women work remotely full time, and 22% part time. These figures suggest a gender gap in remote work, highlighting the need for more inclusive remote work policies to ensure equal opportunities.

Remote workers on average earn $19,000 more than in-office workers

Remote work also seems to have a positive impact on earnings. Remote workers, in comparison, make an average of $19,000 more than those in the office [1] . Remote workers make an average of $74,000, while in-office workers typically have an average salary of $55,000.

Those who opt for a hybrid work model report the highest average salary at $80,000. This may be attributed to the flexibility and balance that hybrid work offers, enabling workers to maximize their productivity and potentially take on more responsibilities.

These demographic insights serve as a snapshot of the current remote work landscape. Understanding these patterns can help employers design remote work policies that cater to their workforce's needs and preferences, while also bridging any gaps in accessibility and pay.

As remote work becomes more prevalent, it’s important to understand workers’ sentiments towards this evolving model. Surveys and studies offer revealing insights into workers’ preferences and how remote work impacts their lives.

57% of workers would look for a new job if their current company didn’t allow remote work

One of the most compelling statistics indicates that 57% of workers would consider leaving their current job if their employer stopped allowing remote work [6] . This figure underscores the value that workers place on the flexibility and autonomy associated with remote work.

35% of remote employees feel more productive when working fully remote

Productivity is another significant factor that influences workers’ remote work preferences. Thirty-five percent of remote employees feel more productive when working fully remotely [8] . This could be due to reduced commute times, fewer in-person distractions or the ability to design a work environment that suits their needs.

65% report wanting to work remote all of the time

Sixty-five percent of workers desire to work remotely all the time, highlighting the popularity of this work model [6] . At the same time, 32% prefer a hybrid schedule, which combines the best of both worlds—flexibility from remote work and collaboration opportunities from in-office work.

71% of remote workers said remote work helps balance their work and personal life

When it comes to work-life balance, a crucial aspect of employee well-being, remote work seems to be making a positive impact. Seventy-one percent of remote workers stated that remote work helps balance their work and personal life [9] . However, it’s important to acknowledge that 12% reported that it hurts their work-life balance, indicating that remote work may not suit everyone.

Understanding these preferences is vital for organizations as they design their remote work policies. The goal should be to harness the benefits of remote work—such as increased productivity and improved work-life balance—while addressing potential drawbacks to ensure a positive remote work experience for all employees.

Embracing remote work comes with its own set of benefits and challenges, impacting both employees and employers in various ways. Understanding these aspects can help in creating effective strategies for managing remote work.

Remote workers say that flexible hours are the top benefits of working remotely

69% of remote workers report increased burnout from digital communication tools.

However, the transition to remote work is not without its challenges. Sixty-nine percent of remote workers experience increased burnout from digital communication tools [10] . The constant stream of digital communication can lead to mental fatigue, underscoring the need for proper work boundaries and digital wellness strategies.

53% of remote workers say it’s harder to feel connected to their coworkers

Another challenge associated with remote work is the lack of face-to-face interaction. Surveys of remote workers report finding it harder to feel connected to their coworkers [9] . Yet, 37% feel that remote work neither hurts nor helps with connection to coworkers. This highlights the need for effective communication and team-building strategies in a remote setting.

Research shows that employers can save $11,000 per employee when switching to remote work

While the challenges are noteworthy, remote work also offers significant financial benefits for employers. Research shows that employers can save $11,000 per employee when switching to remote work [11] . These savings come from reduced costs associated with office space, utilities and other resources.

In essence, while remote work offers tangible benefits including flexible hours and cost savings, it also presents challenges such as digital burnout and reduced social connection. Employers and employees need to work together to maximize the benefits while effectively addressing the challenges to create a healthy and productive remote work environment.

The shift towards remote work has brought several notable trends to the forefront, shaping how companies and employees approach this model of work.

60% of companies use monitoring software to track remote employees

The use of monitoring software is one trend that’s gained traction. As many as 60% of companies now rely on such tools to track remote employees [12] . While these tools can aid productivity and accountability, they also pose privacy considerations, highlighting the need for transparency and consent in their use.

73% of executives believe remote workers pose a greater security risk

Cybersecurity has also become a major concern for businesses. A significant 73% of executives perceive remote workers as a greater security risk [13] . This concern stresses the need for robust security protocols and employee education about safe digital practices in a remote work setting.

32% of hybrid workers report they would take a pay cut to work remotely full time

Another trend that showcases the preference for remote work is the willingness of employees to accept financial trade-offs. A surprising 32% of hybrid workers state they would consider a pay cut to work remotely full time [14] . This reflects the high value workers place on the flexibility and autonomy remote work provides and could potentially impact how companies structure compensation in the future.

Each of these trends provides valuable insights into the evolving dynamics of remote work. As we continue to adapt to this new work landscape, understanding these trends will be crucial in shaping effective remote work policies and practices.

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How to balance work & life while working from home

What is the best way to balance your professional and personal life? We’ve rounded up our 6 top tips to make sure you continue to enjoy both as much as possible

2020 hasn’t been an easy year for anyone to say the least. A year where the world was hit with a pandemic that saw us forced to change how we work, and how we play…

The adjustments we all had to make brought with them challenging collisions between our personal lives and professional lives. We needed to adapt to new ways of working, communicating, learning, shopping, and the rest. This also meant that creating a work/life balance became even harder than usual. 

How do we take a zoom meeting for work at the same time that we need to pick the kids up from school? How do we study for exams while the whole house is at home making noise? How do we switch off at the end of the work/school day and do something ‘just for fun’ when there isn’t much to do? We’re sure each and every one of you asked yourselves a variation of one of those questions at least once or twice throughout the past year.

So what is the best way to balance your professional and personal life? We’ve rounded up our 6 top tips to make sure you continue to enjoy both as much as possible

1. Schedule your Time

When working from home it’s often difficult to schedule time for work and time for personal things. The days seem to roll into each other and before you know it you’re working in the middle of the night and wasting time on other tasks during the day. Therefore, it’s important to schedule your time and plan your days.

By setting work hours during the day, break times, and time for personal issues, you’ll be able to  keep focused  and productive every day. Planning ahead often helps with juggling these elements especially when there’s a lot going on and helps to keep you on a logical schedule.

Additionally, investing in time tracking and productivity tools is also beneficial. There are lots of tools you can use to make sure you’re getting your tasks done each day. For example,  BlockSite’s focus mode feature enables you to control your schedule via the Pomodoro technique. You can break down your tasks into intervals and then take short breaks. With work mode, you can also set times when to block websites and when to browse freely, meaning you don’t need any willpower, as BlockSite does all the work for you

2. Nurture your Network

We all need people to help us from time to time. In business and in our personal lives it’s important to nurture our networks. What do we mean by this? Well, for example, if you have children at home during these unprecedented times – it’s just as important to make your work colleagues aware of this, and your schedule surrounding them as it is to ask for help from family and friends in keeping them occupied.

Another example, while working from home is making sure that you keep your ‘working relationships’ alive. This can often be difficult when you’re not in front of your colleagues and need to hold meetings online, but make sure you keep in touch and in the ‘loop’ with the business world even from home. This way, you’ll be able to make sure you’re keeping on top of your work and staying in the know with those important to your career. 

3. Organize your Environment

To keep focused throughout the day, it’s important to make sure you have a good ‘work environment.’ To be honest, one of the main benefits of working from home is that you’re able to choose your own workspace however, while the sofa might be a comfy place to start, it’s important to find a dedicated spot in your home that you associate with your job and are able to leave when your ‘job’s is done for the day. 

If it’s an option, the best place is a room that you don’t use for ‘personal’ hours of the day. It might be a good idea to set up a home office where you can close the door and remove all distractions. It’s also important to make sure you have everything you need to get your work done before you begin as this will make working from home easy, comfortable, and efficient. 

Additionally, in terms of organizing your environment, it’s also important to make sure you keep your house and home and not entirely an office. Make sure you have spaces in your home that aren’t for work but rather for chilling out and taking time for yourself. This will help you stay balanced throughout the day.

4. Practice Self Care

Remember that puzzle you wanted to finish? That run you wanted to go on to clear your head? Or that book you wanted to read? – It’s important that you make time for all those things too. By practicing self-care, you’ll be able to keep things in perspective and take some time out, even while you’re at home. Self-care is important as it allows us that ‘me time’ we all cherish and let’s face it, could all do with at least once a day. It is also the smartest personal and professional investment you can make. 

Why? We hear you ask, well because as Inc Magazine reported “If you don’t continually cultivate self-awareness, dance with your own fears, and push yourself out of your comfort zone, you won’t grow. And if you don’t evolve as a person and a business owner, you’ll eventually hit a wall you can’t breakthrough.”

Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to every facet of your mind and body in order to be the best version of yourself! How can you do this? There is a different kind of nourishment for every part of you. For example;

• The body is nourished with healthy food 🥗
• The heart is nourished with joy, compassion, and love ❤️
• The mind is nourished with knowledge 📚
• The spirit is nourished with equanimity and self-awareness🧘🏻‍♂️

Decide what element of self-care you’re most drawn to and make sure you take time out of your day to take care of number 1. 

5. Use Technology

To maintain your  productivity , you should be aware of the technology you can use to help you. With millions of people working from home, we have all found ways to stay social through creative and virtual options. With everything from trivia nights to birthday parties, conference calls, and board meetings – Zoom has been there to help.

It’s no shock, therefore, that daily downloads of the Zoom app have increased 30x year over year and the app has been the top free app for iPhones in the United States since March 18, according to Bernstein Research and Apptopia. Zoom said daily users spiked to 200 million in March, up from 10 million in December. 

Additionally, services such as BlockSite have also been on hand to help you with proper time management and scheduling your day. Such services have allowed us all to stay productive, focused and in the zone – wherever we may be working from. 

However, this is all great for our professional lives but how does it benefit our personal lives? Well, by being able to socialize while social distancing through online platforms – we can still do the majority of the things we love and see the people who mean the most to us.

Make sure you stay up to date on the latest technology platforms that can help you both personally and professionally during these times.

6. Know your Strengths and Weaknesses

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses gives you a better understanding of yourself and how you function. It also helps you to grow more and gives people around you the chance to understand what you’re good at, and where you might need help.

For example, your biggest personal strength would be something that comes easily for you. Maybe you’re good with numbers, maybe you’re a great cook or maybe you are great at writing. Whatever it may be, make sure you’re aware of your strengths and use them to your advantage.

However, it is equally important to be aware of your weaknesses in order to grow and improve in these areas. Maybe you could improve at keeping in touch with people, maybe you need to  improve your time management  or maybe you need to improve your number skills. Whatever it may be make sure you communicate these areas to family, friends, and colleagues to help solve these issues and better them. 

Regarding strengths and weaknesses, it’s important to communicate. You’ll help others around you get to know you better and you’ll be able to get to know yourself better in the process. 

If something is difficult or confusing for you, it is important to express this feeling. One way to communicate this is by using a feeling and need statement. For example, ‘I’m feeling confused and I need your help’. This will help start a conversation that will help to begin problem-solving and trying to develop strategies. 

If something is easy or you feel really confident in doing it, it is also important to communicate using a feeling need statement as well for example, ‘I’m feeling motivated and I need to keep going with this.’ This will also help start a conversation to highlight strengths and areas of interest.

Keep positive 

Overall, It’s important to keep positive during these challenging times and remember to be realistic in the process. Not everything is going to be smooth sailing and not everything will be really hard. Learn to balance the good with the bad, the professional with the personal and you’ll be on the road to success in no time!

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Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges

Balazs Aczel

1 Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

Marton Kovacs

2 Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

Tanja van der Lippe

3 Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Barnabas Szaszi

Associated data.

All research materials, the collected raw and processed anonymous data, just as well the code for data management and statistical analyses are publicly shared on the OSF page of the project: OSF: https://osf.io/v97fy/ .

The flexibility allowed by the mobilization of technology disintegrated the traditional work-life boundary for most professionals. Whether working from home is the key or impediment to academics’ efficiency and work-life balance became a daunting question for both scientists and their employers. The recent pandemic brought into focus the merits and challenges of working from home on a level of personal experience. Using a convenient sampling, we surveyed 704 academics while working from home and found that the pandemic lockdown decreased the work efficiency for almost half of the researchers but around a quarter of them were more efficient during this time compared to the time before. Based on the gathered personal experience, 70% of the researchers think that in the future they would be similarly or more efficient than before if they could spend more of their work-time at home. They indicated that in the office they are better at sharing thoughts with colleagues, keeping in touch with their team, and collecting data, whereas at home they are better at working on their manuscript, reading the literature, and analyzing their data. Taking well-being also into account, 66% of them would find it ideal to work more from home in the future than they did before the lockdown. These results draw attention to how working from home is becoming a major element of researchers’ life and that we have to learn more about its influencer factors and coping tactics in order to optimize its arrangements.

Introduction

Fleeing from the Great Plague that reached Cambridge in 1665, Newton retreated to his countryside home where he continued working for the next year and a half. During this time, he developed his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation—fundamentally changing the path of science for centuries. Newton himself described this period as the most productive time of his life [ 1 ]. Is working from home indeed the key to efficiency for scientists also in modern times? A solution for working without disturbance by colleagues and being able to manage a work-life balance? What personal and professional factors influence the relation between productivity and working from home? These are the main questions that the present paper aims to tackle. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to analyze the implications of working from home in great detail.

Working away from the traditional office is increasingly an option in today’s world. The phenomenon has been studied under numerous, partially overlapping terms, such as telecommuting, telework, virtual office, remote work, location independent working, home office. In this paper, we will use ‘working from home’ (WFH), a term that typically covers working from any location other than the dedicated area provided by the employer.

The practice of WFH and its effect on job efficiency and well-being are reasonably well explored outside of academia [ 2 , 3 ]. Internet access and the increase of personal IT infrastructure made WFH a growing trend throughout the last decades [ 4 ]. In 2015, over 12% of EU workers [ 5 ] and near one-quarter of US employees [ 6 ] worked at least partly from home. A recent survey conducted among 27,500 millennials and Gen Z-s indicated that their majority would like to work remotely more frequently [ 7 ]. The literature suggests that people working from home need flexibility for different reasons. Home-working is a typical solution for those who need to look after dependent children [ 8 ] but many employees just seek a better work-life balance [ 7 ] and the comfort of an alternative work environment [ 9 ].

Non-academic areas report work-efficiency benefits for WFH but they also show some downsides of this arrangement. A good example is the broad-scale experiment in which call center employees were randomly assigned to work from home or in the office for nine months [ 10 ]. A 13% work performance increase was found in the working from home group. These workers also reported improved work satisfaction. Still, after the experiment, 50% of them preferred to go back to the office mainly because of feeling isolated at home.

Home-working has several straightforward positive aspects, such as not having to commute, easier management of household responsibilities [ 11 ] and family demands [ 12 ], along with increased autonomy over time use [ 13 , 14 ], and fewer interruptions [ 15 , 16 ]. Personal comfort is often listed as an advantage of the home environment [e.g., 15 ], though setting up a home office comes with physical and infrastructural demands [ 17 ]. People working from home consistently report greater job motivation and satisfaction [ 4 , 11 , 18 , 19 ] which is probably due to the greater work-related control and work-life flexibility [ 20 ]. A longitudinal nationally representative sample of 30,000 households in the UK revealed that homeworking is positively related with leisure time satisfaction [ 21 ], suggesting that people working from home can allocate more time for leisure activities.

Often-mentioned negative aspects of WFH include being disconnected from co-workers, experiencing isolation due to the physical and social distance to team members [ 22 , 23 ]. Also, home-working employees reported more difficulties with switching off and they worked beyond their formal working hours [ 4 ]. Working from home is especially difficult for those with small children [ 24 ], but intrusion from other family members, neighbours, and friends were also found to be major challenges of WFH [e.g., 17 ]. Moreover, being away from the office may also create a lack of visibility and increases teleworkers’ fear that being out of sight limits opportunities for promotion, rewards, and positive performance reviews [ 25 ].

Importantly, increased freedom imposes higher demands on workers to control not just the environment, but themselves too. WFH comes with the need to develop work-life boundary control tactics [ 26 ] and to be skilled at self-discipline, self-motivation, and good time management [ 27 ]. Increased flexibility can easily lead to multitasking and work-family role blurring [ 28 ]. Table 1 provides non-comprehensive lists of mostly positive and mostly negative consequences of WFH, based on the literature reviewed here.

Compared to the private sector, our knowledge is scarce about how academics experience working from home. Researchers in higher education institutes work in very similar arrangements. Typically, they are expected to personally attend their workplace, if not for teaching or supervision, then for meetings or to confer with colleagues. In the remaining worktime, they work in their lab or, if allowed, they may choose to do some of their tasks remotely. Along with the benefits on productivity when working from home, academics have already experienced some of its drawbacks at the start of the popularity of personal computers. As Snizek observed in the ‘80s, “(f)aculty who work long hours at home using their microcomputers indicate feelings of isolation and often lament the loss of collegial feedback and reinforcement” [page 622, 29 ].

Until now, the academics whose WFH experience had been given attention were mostly those participating in online distance education [e.g., 30 , 31 ]. They experienced increased autonomy, flexibility in workday schedule, the elimination of unwanted distractions [ 32 ], along with high levels of work productivity and satisfaction [ 33 ], but they also observed inadequate communication and the lack of opportunities for skill development [ 34 ]. The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to study the WFH experience of a greater spectrum of academics, since at one point most of them had to do all their work from home.

We have only fragmented knowledge about the moderators of WFH success. We know that control over time is limited by the domestic tasks one has while working from home. The view that women’s work is more influenced by family obligations than men’s is consistently shown in the literature [e.g., 35 – 37 ]. Sullivan and Lewis [ 38 ] argued that women who work from home are able to fulfil their domestic role better and manage their family duties more to their satisfaction, but that comes at the expense of higher perceived work–family conflict [see also 39 ]. Not surprisingly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, female scientists suffered a greater disruption than men in their academic productivity and time spent on research, most likely due to demands of childcare [ 40 , 41 ].

In summary, until recently, the effect of WFH on academics’ life and productivity received limited attention. However, during the recent pandemic lockdown, scientists, on an unprecedented scale, had to find solutions to continue their research from home. The situation unavoidably brought into focus the merits and challenges of WFH on a level of personal experience. Institutions were compelled to support WFH arrangements by adequate regulations, services, and infrastructure. Some researchers and institutions might have found benefits in the new arrangements and may wish to continue WFH in some form; for others WFH brought disproportionately larger challenges. The present study aims to facilitate the systematic exploration and support of researchers’ efficiency and work-life balance when working from home.

Materials and methods

Our study procedure and analysis plan were preregistered at https://osf.io/jg5bz (all deviations from the plan are listed in S1 File ). The survey included questions on research work efficiency, work-life balance, demographics, professional and personal background information. The study protocol has been approved by the Institutional Review Board from Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary (approval number: 2020/131). The Transparency Report of the study, the complete text of the questionnaire items and the instructions are shared at our OSF repository: https://osf.io/v97fy/ .

As the objective of this study was to gain insight about researchers’ experience of WFH, we aimed to increase the size and diversity of our sample rather than ascertaining the representativeness of our sample. Therefore, we distributed our online survey link among researchers in professional newsletters, university mailing lists, on social media, and by sending group-emails to authors (additional details about sampling are in S1 File ). As a result of the nature of our sampling strategy, it is not known how many researchers have seen our participation request. Additionally, we did not collect the country of residence of the respondents. Responses analyzed in this study were collected between 2020-04-24 and 2020-07-13. Overall, 858 individuals started the survey and 154 were excluded because they did not continue the survey beyond the first question. As a result, 704 respondents were included in the analysis.

We sent the questionnaire individually to each of the respondents through the Qualtrics Mailer service. Written informed consent and access to the preregistration of the research was provided to every respondent before starting the survey. Then, respondents who agreed to participate in the study could fill out the questionnaire. To encourage participation, we offered that upon completion they can enter a lottery to win a 100 USD voucher.

This is a general description of the survey items. The full survey with the display logic and exact phrasing of the items is transported from Qualtrics and uploaded to the projects’ OSF page: https://osf.io/8ze2g/ .

Efficiency of research work

The respondents were asked to compare the efficiency of their research work during the lockdown to their work before the lockdown. They were also asked to use their present and previous experience to indicate whether working more from home in the future would change the efficiency of their research work compared to the time before the lockdown. For both questions, they could choose among three options: “less efficient”; “more efficient”, and “similarly efficient”.

Comparing working from home to working in the office

Participants were asked to compare working from home to working from the office. For this question they could indicate their preference on a 7-point dimension (1: At home; 7: In the office), along 15 efficiency or well-being related aspects of research work (e.g., working on the manuscript, maintaining work-life balance). These aspects were collected in a pilot study conducted with 55 researchers who were asked to indicate in free text responses the areas in which their work benefits/suffers when working from home. More details of the pilot study are provided in S1 File .

Actual and ideal time spent working from home

To study the actual and ideal time spent working from home, researcher were asked to indicate on a 0–100% scale (1) what percentage of their work time they spent working from home before the pandemic and (2) how much would be ideal for them working from home in the future concerning both research efficiency and work-life balance.

Feasibility of working more from home

With simple Yes/No options, we asked the respondents to indicate whether they think that working more from home would be feasible considering all their other duties (education, administration, etc.) and the given circumstances at home (infrastructure, level of disturbance).

Background information

Background questions were asked by providing preset lists concerning their academic position (e.g., full professor), area of research (e.g., social sciences), type of workplace (e.g., purely research institute), gender, age group, living situation (e.g., single-parent with non-adult child(ren)), and the age and the number of their children.

The respondents were also asked to select one of the offered options to indicate: whether or not they worked more from home during the coronavirus lockdown than before; whether it is possible for them to collect data remotely; whether they have education duties at work; if their research requires intensive team-work; whether their home office is fully equipped; whether their partner was also working from home during the pandemic; how far their office is from home; whether they had to do home-schooling during the pandemic; whether there was someone else looking after their child(ren) during their work from home in lockdown. When the question did not apply to them, they could select the ‘NA’ option as well.

Data preprocessing and analyses

All the data preprocessing and analyses were conducted in R [ 42 ], with the use of the tidyverse packages [ 43 ]. Before the analysis of the survey responses, we read all the free-text comments to ascertain that they do not contain personal information and they are in line with the respondent’s answers. We found that for 5 items the respondents’ comments contradicted their survey choices (e.g., whether they have children), therefore, we excluded the responses of the corresponding items from further analyses (see S1 File ). Following the preregistration, we only conducted descriptive statistics of the survey results.

The summary of the key demographic information of the 704 complete responses is presented in Table 2 . A full summary of all the collected background information of the respondents are available in S1 File .

The results showed that 94% (n = 662) of the surveyed researchers worked more from home during the COVID-19 lockdown compared to the time before. Of these researchers, 47% found that due to working more from home their research became, in general, less efficient, 23% found it more efficient, and 30% found no difference compared to working before the lockdown. Within this database, we also explored the effect of the lockdown on the efficiency of people living with children (n = 290). Here, we found that 58% of them experienced that due to working more from home their research became, in general, less efficient, 20% found it more efficient, and 22% found no difference compared to working before the lockdown. Of those researchers who live with children, we found that 71% of the 21 single parents and 57% of the 269 partnered parents found working less efficient when working from home compared to the time before the lockdown.

When asking about how working more from home would affect the efficiency of their research after the lockdown, of those who have not already been working from home full time (n = 684), 29% assumed that it could make their research, in general, less efficient, 29% said that it would be more efficient, and 41% assumed no difference compared to the time before the lockdown ( Fig 1 ).

Focusing on the efficiency of the subgroup of people who live with children (n = 295), we found that for 32% their research work would be less efficient, for 30% it would be no different, and for 38% it would be more efficient to work from home after the lockdown, compared to the time before the lockdown.

When comparing working from home to working in the office in general, people found that they can better achieve certain aspects of the research in one place than the other. They indicated that in the office they are better at sharing thoughts with colleagues, keeping in touch with their team, and collecting data, whereas at home they are better at working on their manuscript, reading the literature, and analyzing their data ( Fig 2 ).

The bars represent response averages of the given aspects.

We also asked the researchers how much of their work time they spent working from home in the past, and how much it would be ideal for them to work from home in the future concerning both research efficiency and well-being. Fig 3 shows the distribution of percentages of time working from home in the past and in an ideal future. Comparing these values for each researcher, we found that 66% of them want to work more from home in the future than they did before the lockdown, whereas 16% of them want to work less from home, and 18% of them want to spend the same percentage of their work time at home in the future as before. (These latter calculations were not preregistered).

Taken all their other duties (education, administration, etc.) and provided circumstances at home (infrastructure, level of disturbance), of researchers who would like to work more from home in the future (n = 461), 86% think that it would be possible to do so. Even among those who have teaching duties at work (n = 376), 84% think that more working from home would be ideal and possible.

Researchers’ work and life have radically changed in recent times. The flexibility allowed by the mobilization of technology and the continuous access to the internet disintegrated the traditional work-life boundary. Where, when, and how we work depends more and more on our own arrangements. The recent pandemic only highlighted an already existing task: researchers’ worklife has to be redefined. The key challenge in a new work-life model is to find strategies to balance the demands of work and personal life. As a first step, the present paper explored how working from home affects researchers’ efficiency and well-being.

Our results showed that while the pandemic-related lockdown decreased the work efficiency for almost half of the researchers (47%), around a quarter (23%) of them experienced that they were more efficient during this time compared to the time before. Based on personal experience, 70% of the researchers think that after the lockdown they would be similarly (41%) or more efficient (29%) than before if they could spend more of their work-time at home. The remaining 30% thought that after the lockdown their work efficiency would decrease if they worked from home, which is noticeably lower than the 47% who claimed the same for the lockdown period. From these values we speculate that some of the obstacles of their work efficiency were specific to the pandemic lockdown. Such obstacles could have been the need to learn new methods to teach online [ 44 ] or the trouble adapting to the new lifestyle [ 45 ]. Furthermore, we found that working from the office and working from home support different aspects of research. Not surprisingly, activities that involve colleagues or team members are better bound to the office, but tasks that need focused attention, such as working on the manuscript or analyzing the data are better achieved from home.

A central motivation of our study was to explore what proportion of their worktime researchers would find ideal to work from home, concerning both research efficiency and work-life balance. Two thirds of the researchers indicated that it would be better to work more from home in the future. It seemed that sharing work somewhat equally between the two venues is the most preferred arrangement. A great majority (86%) of those who would like to work more from home in the future, think that it would be possible to do so. As a conclusion, both the work and non-work life of researchers would take benefits should more WFH be allowed and neither workplace duties, nor their domestic circumstances are limits of such a change. That researchers have a preference to work more from home, might be due to the fact that they are more and more pressured by their work. Finishing manuscripts, and reading literature is easier to find time for when working from home.

A main message of the results of our present survey is that although almost half of the respondents reported reduced work efficiency during the lockdown, the majority of them would prefer the current remote work setting to some extent in the future. It is important to stress, however, that working from home is not equally advantageous for researchers. Several external and personal factors must play a role in researchers’ work efficiency and work-life balance. In this analysis, we concentrated only on family status, but further dedicated studies will be required to gain a deeper understanding of the complex interaction of professional, institutional, personal, and domestic factors in this matter. While our study could only initiate the exploration of academics’ WFH benefits and challenges, we can already discuss a few relevant aspects regarding the work-life interface.

Our data show that researchers who live with dependent children can exploit the advantages of working from home less than those who do not have childcare duties, irrespective of the pandemic lockdown. Looking after children is clearly a main source of people’s task overload and, as a result, work-family conflict [ 46 , 47 ]. As an implication, employers should pay special respect to employees’ childcare situations when defining work arrangements. It should be clear, however, that other caring responsibilities should also be respected such as looking after elderly or disabled relatives [ 48 ]. Furthermore, to avoid equating non-work life with family-life, a broader diversity of life circumstances, such as those who live alone, should be taken into consideration [ 49 ].

It seems likely that after the pandemic significantly more work will be supplied from home [ 50 ]. The more of the researchers’ work will be done from home in the future, the greater the challenge will grow to integrate their work and non-work life. The extensive research on work-life conflict, should help us examine the issue and to develop coping strategies applicable for academics’ life. The Boundary Theory [ 26 , 51 , 52 ] proved to be a useful framework to understand the work-home interface. According to this theory, individuals utilize different tactics to create and maintain an ideal level of work-home segmentation. These boundaries often serve as “mental fences” to simplify the environment into domains, such as work or home, to help us attend our roles, such as being an employee or a parent. These boundaries are more or less permeable, depending on how much the individual attending one role can be influenced by another role. Individuals differ in the degree to which they prefer and are able to segment their roles, but each boundary crossing requires a cognitive “leap” between these categories [ 53 ]. The source of conflict is the demands of the different roles and responsibilities competing for one’s physical and mental resources. Working from home can easily blur the boundary between work and non-work domains. The conflict caused by the intrusion of the home world to one’s work time, just as well the intrusion of work tasks to one’s personal life are definite sources of weakened ability to concentrate on one’s tasks [ 54 ], exhaustion [ 55 ], and negative job satisfaction [ 56 ].

What can researchers do to mitigate this challenge? Various tactics have been identified for controlling one’s borders between work and non-work. One can separate the two domains by temporal, physical, behavioral, and communicative segmentation [ 26 ]. Professionals often have preferences and self-developed tactics for boundary management. People who prefer tighter boundary management apply strong segmentation between work and home [ 57 , 58 ]. For instance, they don’t do domestic tasks in worktime (temporal segmentation), close their door when working from home (physical segmentation), don’t read work emails at weekends (behavioral segmentation), or negotiate strict boundary rules with family members (communicative segmentation). People on the other on one side of the segmentation-integration continuum, might not mind, or cannot avoid, ad-hoc boundary-crossings and integrate the two domains by letting private space and time be mixed with their work.

Researchers, just like other workers, need to develop new arrangements and skills to cope with the disintegration of the traditional work-life boundaries. To know how research and education institutes could best support this change would require a comprehensive exploration of the factors in researchers’ WFH life. There is probably no one-size-fits-all approach to promote employees’ efficiency and well-being. Life circumstances often limit how much control people can have over their work-life boundaries when working from home [ 59 ]. Our results strongly indicate that some can boost work efficiency and wellbeing when working from home, others need external solutions, such as the office, to provide boundaries between their life domains. Until we gain comprehensive insight about the topic, individuals are probably the best judges of their own situation and of what arrangements may be beneficial for them in different times [ 60 ]. The more autonomy the employers provide to researchers in distributing their work between the office and home (while not lowering their expectations), the more they let them optimize this arrangement to their circumstances.

Our study has several limitations: to investigate how factors such as research domain, seniority, or geographic location contribute to WFH efficiency and well-being would have needed a much greater sample. Moreover, the country of residence of the respondents was not collected in our survey and this factor could potentially alter the perception of WFH due to differing social and infrastructural factors. Whereas the world-wide lockdown has provided a general experience to WFH to academics, the special circumstances just as well biased their judgment of the arrangement. With this exploratory research, we could only scratch the surface of the topic, the reader can probably generate a number of testable hypotheses that would be relevant to the topic but we could not analyze in this exploration.

Newton working in lockdown became the idealized image of the home-working scientist. Unquestionably, he was a genius, but his success probably needed a fortunate work-life boundary. Should he had noisy neighbours, or taunting domestic duties, he might have achieved much less while working from home. With this paper, we aim to draw attention to how WFH is becoming a major element of researchers’ life and that we have to be prepared for this change. We hope that personal experience or the topic’s relevance to the future of science will invite researchers to continue this work.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank Szonja Horvath, Matyas Sarudi, and Zsuzsa Szekely for their help with reviewing the free text responses.

Funding Statement

TVL's contribution is part of the research program Sustainable Cooperation – Roadmaps to Resilient Societies (SCOOP). She is grateful to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) for their support in the context of its 2017 Gravitation Program (grant number 024.003.025).

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2021; 16(3): e0249127.

Decision Letter 0

PONE-D-20-30010

Dear Dr. Aczel,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung, D.S.W.

Academic Editor

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Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: PONE-D-20-30010

Title: Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges

Reviewer’s article summary: This manuscript provides results from a survey on work-life balance among academics who switched to remote work-from-home during the Covid-19 pandemic. I believe the article contributes insight on both the work-life balance among academics and how researchers have experienced their work during the pandemic, and will be of interest to the PloS One audience. Below, please see suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Abstract: Please include a brief statement about methodology, including sample size of the survey population, how the survey was conducted (convenience sample? Recruitment strategy?).

Introduction: The authors questions, “Is the relation between working from home and productivity influenced by personal and professional factors?” This question seems like a non-starter – how could working from home not be influenced by personal and professional factors? Advise revising this question to better focus your key arguments (i.e. what personal and professional factors most influence the productivity of working from home?).

“just as well increased autonomy over time use” – awkward sentence; please revise to clarify.

“physical and social distance to teal members” – do you mean team members?

Table 1 – please refer to the table in the text to guide the audience to this comparison of pros/cons in context of the introduction. It may also better position this manuscript within the literature to include more details from the studies that list these pros/cons (i.e. include the % of people who have reported each of the pros/cons within the table itself, and include a reference to the study where each % was derived).

Reference to Snizek in the 80’s – the benefit of including this quote is questionable; it would be more helpful to include more recent literature on this point since generational changes have perhaps changed this experience.

“just as well high levels of work productivity and satisfaction” – awkward sentence, please revise for clarity.

Materials and Methods: Please provide the study number for IRB approval.

The authors do include links to their study procedure, but it would be helpful for a more complete overview of the procedure within the manuscript so the audience can more easily ascertain the methodology employed. In comparison, the “Materials” section provides intricate detail that may not be necessary (in this reviewer’s opinion, it would be more efficient to simply list the types of questions asked—i.e. “Survey questions asked participants to report on changes that occurred in relation to research work efficiency, comparison of home to office work, amount of time spent…”(etc. or something of this nature)–with a link to the actual survey instrument).

There is no section or statement regarding data analysis. Please describe your analytical procedure (descriptive statistics, any regressions?) and software used for analysis.

Results – Recommend providing a demographics table in the manuscript that displays sample size and % for the information described in the “background information” section. Please include data about the countries where respondents live, if available; if not available, please include a statement regarding residence in the Methods section (i.e. was the sample all within a single country?).

Figures – please include sample size (n = ) in the figure titles.

” From these values we can assume that some of the obstacles of their work were specific to the pandemic lockdown and not directly to working from home” – please explain and clarify.

“…seems to be a generally wanted and beneficial model of work” – this statement seems to ignore the result that nearly half of respondents reported being less efficient during the pandemic. Recommend revising this statement, and including a summary that the results indicate although almost half of the respondents reported reduced work efficiency, they would prefer the current remote work setting to some extent in the future. May also be useful to note that the implications of this require further investigation – what is it about this new work situation that people prefer? What amount of time did people previously spend in commute that they now can use for other tasks or personal interests? What other factors have changed that make the current situation more preferred?

#5 – incomplete reference

There are several references that are now quite old (1987, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009…) – Recommend reviewing these carefully to ensure that there is not more recent literature that would shed better light on the subject.

Figure 1 – recommend revising the X axis to show sample size, and the bar labels to show % to increase clarity of results.

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool,  https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at  gro.solp@serugif . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Author response to Decision Letter 0

17 Feb 2021

Dear Dr. Johnson Cheung,

We are happy to submit a revised version of our manuscript to PLOS One.

We would like to thank you and the reviewer for their comments and suggestions.

Below, you can find the detailed responses to all comments in bold.

Balazs Aczel, on behalf of all co-authors

Reviewer #1

We have added these aspects to the Abstract.

We agree with the reviewer and changed that question as suggested.

Table 1 is referred to in the text, just above the table. After due consideration of this suggestion, we judged that three paragraphs about the pros/cons provide sufficient details on the given topic. We found no sound way to merge the empirical reports of the referred studies to provide overall percentages of people reporting each pros/cons.

The old Snizek reference serves as an indicator that academics have already experienced some of the drawbacks of working from home at the start of the popularity of personal computers. We have now extended our Introduction with more studies from the recent literature, especially with those conducted during the pandemic.

We have now placed the Procedure section before the Materials section. At the beginning of the Materials section, we provide a link to the original content of our Qualtrics survey. This file contains the wording of the items and the display logic of the questions. We would also prefer to keep the detailed description of the survey items in the manuscript as most of the items were developed by the authors for the study. Should the Editor prefer that, we could move the Materials section to the Supporting Information and leave just the link to the exact survey questions in the manuscript.

Now, we state in the Data preprocessing and Analyses section that we used the R statistical software for the analyses and that we report only descriptive statistical results in this study.

The table with the sample size and proportions for all the levels of all the survey items is provided in the Supplementary Materials. However, as the whole table is more than 4 pages long, we think that by including the table in the main text we would corrupt the readability of the manuscript.

Now, we state in the Sampling section that the country of residence of the respondents is not known.

The sample sizes are now included in the figure titles.

We would like to thank the reviewer for pointing out the vagueness of this section. We rephrased the sentence and added one more sentence to the section to clarify our point.

We have now updated this sentence incorporating the reviewer’s suggestion. The updated paragraph is on page 16.

We fixed the incomplete reference.

We agree that some of our references are from the ‘80s or ‘90s, yet they are still good sources of our claims (e.g., how researchers found working from home when personal computers started or that setting up a home office comes with physical and infrastructural demands). Nevertheless, we have added more recent studies to our references, especially from the relevant literature that has been published since our initial submission 5 months ago:

Johnson N, Veletsianos G, Seaman J. US Faculty and Administrators’ Experiences and Approaches in the Early Weeks of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Online Learn. 2020;24(2):6–21.

Barrero JM, Bloom N, Davis SJ. Why Working From Home Will Stick. Univ Chic Becker Friedman Inst Econ Work Pap. 2020;(2020–174).

Korbel JO, Stegle O. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on life scientists. Genome Biol. 2020;21(113).

Ghaffarizadeh SA, Ghaffarizadeh SA, Behbahani AH, Mehdizadeh M, Olechowski A. Life and work of researchers trapped in the COVID-19 pandemic vicious cycle. bioRxiv. 2021;

Thank you for the recommendation. We have now modified this figure.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

23 Feb 2021

PONE-D-20-30010R1

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 09 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at gro.solp@enosolp . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Reviewer #1:

Reviewer’s response to revisions: Overall, the authors have revised the manuscript to increase clarity and improve understanding of the contributions that this research provides regarding the future outlook for academics working from home. I have a few minor comments:

Limitations: This revised document brings to light the fact that 1) we do not know how the transition to working from home differs between countries since country was not a survey question (which could differ significantly given a number of social and technological/infrastructure factors), and 2) since the analysis only included descriptive statistics there is great potential in learning more from this dataset – and it is wonderful that the dataset will be publicly available. I do recommend adding a statement on limitations, both because it is a best practice, and because it shows that the authors have been thoughtful about the limits of their current analysis.

Results – Recommend providing a demographics table in the manuscript that displays sample size and % for the information described in the “background information” section. I appreciate the authors’ response to this request, but suggest that as a standard practice a shortened version of the key demographics could be provided in a table within the text, and the remainder of the demographics table could be in the supplemental material (having these results within the table is standard in my field since it provides the background information necessary for academics to easily understand the full scope of the results). In response to the question of length, I would suggest that the paragraph that lists the % of respondents who were male/female, etc. could be shortened and simply refer to the table instead.

Figure 1 – recommend revising the X axis to show sample size, and the bar labels to show % to increase clarity of results. The authors responded that this change was made in the revision, but I could not find the updated figure in the revised document.

Author response to Decision Letter 1

Overall, the authors have revised the manuscript to increase clarity and improve

understanding of the contributions that this research provides regarding the future outlook for

academics working from home. I have a few minor comments:

Limitations: This revised document brings to light the fact that 1) we do not know how the

transition to working from home differs between countries since country was not a survey

question (which could differ significantly given a number of social and

technological/infrastructure factors), and 2) since the analysis only included descriptive

statistics there is great potential in learning more from this dataset – and it is wonderful that

the dataset will be publicly available. I do recommend adding a statement on limitations, both

because it is a best practice, and because it shows that the authors have been thoughtful

about the limits of their current analysis.

We have now included a statement of limitations regarding the missing information

on country of residence and made it more clear in the limitations section that the

present study was only exploratory.

Results – Recommend providing a demographics table in the manuscript that displays

sample size and % for the information described in the “background information” section. I

appreciate the authors’ response to this request, but suggest that as a standard practice a

shortened version of the key demographics could be provided in a table within the text, and

the remainder of the demographics table could be in the supplemental material (having

these results within the table is standard in my field since it provides the background

information necessary for academics to easily understand the full scope of the results). In

response to the question of length, I would suggest that the paragraph that lists the % of

respondents who were male/female, etc. could be shortened and simply refer to the table

We have now included the key demographics as a table (Table 2) in the manuscript in

addition to the full summary of all the responses in the Supplementary information.

Figure 1 – recommend revising the X axis to show sample size, and the bar labels to show

% to increase clarity of results. The authors responded that this change was made in the

revision, but I could not find the updated figure in the revised document.

We made sure that all the figures are updated and uploaded with this submission

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf

Decision Letter 2

12 Mar 2021

PONE-D-20-30010R2

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Acceptance letter

16 Mar 2021

Dear Dr. Aczel:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact gro.solp@sserpeno .

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Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung

5 Steps to Reset Your Work-Life Balance

Creating greater harmony as you juggle the needs and wants of your life..

Posted June 3, 2024 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

• What Is a Career
• Find a career counselor near me
• In our contemporary lives, work and personal lives typically overlap and flow together.
• Finding balance is different for everyone. How can you choose your priorities and what truly matters?
• Shifting toward greater work-life harmony is an on-going process, yet some of the answers can be quite simple.

Whatever work we do—paid or volunteer, working in the home or outside the home—the boundaries between personal, family, and work life can often run together.

Many of us struggle to juggle our responsibilities, wants, and many facets of our lives. Working and attending meetings remotely; hybrid schedules; and personal, volunteer, and work activities frequently blend into each other, leaving little distinction between them. This dissonance compels many of us to push our personal well-being to the sidelines.

As a music lover, I have come to appreciate the phrase work-life harmony . Our lives are symphonies in progress.

Creating a full, rich integration of life’s various components can be beautiful, yet challenging and difficult to balance. The term work-life harmony recognizes the realities of contemporary life—that for many of us, our work, family, and personal lives intersect, overlap, and flow together. How can we compose a harmony that empowers us to meet needs, demands, wants, and goals across work time, family time, and personal time?

Consider your own life. How satisfying is the harmony in your personal, family, work, and volunteer life? Of course, opinions about what constitutes harmony are different for each of us, but all of us need to make discernments, priorities, and choices about what truly matters.

It can be useful to take into account what you have direct control over, what you may have some influence over, and where you have no direct control (Covey, 2020). Many of us expend a lot of time and energy trying to impact things over which we have little or no control. If you intend to create greater harmony, you might want to center your attention where you have the most control—for example, your words, mindset, attitudes, priorities, choices, and actions.

Living in greater work-life harmony is an ongoing process, not a once-and-done. Yet some of the answers to better work-life harmony can be quite simple. Here are a few practical strategies to help you compose greater harmony from the inside out.

1. Consider how you’re feeling about your current work-life balance.

• What is your biggest challenge to work-life balance?
• What are one or two areas where you have direct control that could benefit from change or improvement?

2. Your values are guideposts that can help bring greater balance and meaning into your life.

Your values are essential to who you are, who you want to be, the decisions you make, and the actions you choose. Identifying your values can make life easier and more meaningful, helping you discern your true priorities and how you want to direct your decisions and time (Clear, 2024).

There are many kinds of values. Examples include order, service, reliability, learning, spontaneity, fun, perfection, security, tradition, challenge, holiness, positivity, love, belonging, structure, ambition, excellence, money, fame, sensitivity, relationships, teamwork , equity, quiet. Ask yourself:

• What are some of your most important values?
• Where are you living into your values and where are you off-key from what you truly value?

3. Lead your life with wise choices.

It can help to engage in strategies that help you plan and prioritize thoughtfully.

• As you make choices, consider your values and what matters to you .
• Determine your top priorities for the day. Ask yourself: Which choices will bring me closer to my goals and/or strengthen my relationships? What’s the best use of my time? Which choices may have negative consequences if left undone?
• Break big goals into smaller, manageable chunks.
• Set reasonable expectations for yourself and others.
• Ask: Where can you empower others? What can you say no to?
• Enlist help from family, friends, colleagues, and professionals.
• Practice gratitude (Emmons, 2016)

4. Restore your personal well-being.

What do you need for self-care and personal wellbeing? How can you begin to include more of what you need or want in your life? Even moments can make a positive difference.

• Pay attention to your needs and wants. What is your inner voice whispering?
• Give yourself brief intermissions to experience an emotion , pleasure, or activity that feels positive for you—for example: reading, walking, singing, cooking, laughing , talking with a loved one, meditating, or dancing.
• What is one small change or positive step you can experiment with?
• Consider starting with simply a 1 percent change and then you can build from there (Clear, 2018).

5. Make time for relationships.

Another key to work-life harmony is relationships. Loneliness and social isolation affect many of us these days.

The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, M.D., has identified loneliness as an urgent public health issue, releasing an advisory stating that “social connection is a significant predictor of longevity and better physical, cognitive, and mental health, while social isolation and loneliness are significant predictors of premature death and poor health” (Murthy, 2023). Dr. Murthy’s report recommends cultivating a culture of connection—paying attention to values including kindness, committing to others, service, and social connection (home, schools, workplaces, communities).

How can you increase your opportunities to interact with others?

• Engage in shared hobbies or activities.
• Take a walk or run together.
• Plan a fun, simple family activity on the weekend.
• Call a friend or family member.
• Help someone or volunteer somewhere.

What’s one way you can tune up your work-life harmony? What do you want to reflect on? What would you like to experiment with? What is your next right step?

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. No content is a substitute for consulting with a qualified mental health or healthcare professional.

© 2024 Ilene Berns-Zare, LLC, All Rights Reserved

Clear, J. (Retrieved 4-2024). Let your values drive your choices. https://jamesclear.com/values-choices

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. New York, NY, Avery.

Covey, S. R. (2020). The 7 habits of highly effective people . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Emmons, R.A. (2016). The little book of gratitude: Create a life of happiness and wellbeing by giving thanks . New York, NY: Hachette Book Group.

Murthy, V. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The surgeon general’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

Ilene Berns-Zare, PsyD, is a life and leadership coach. She writes about navigating personal and professional life with resilience, meaning, mindfulness, and well-being.

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