Consequences of Psychological Detachment from Home: Self-Regulation Perspective on Working from Home

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to shift to remote working. From the employees’ perspective, working from home comes with its own set of challenges. Because the boundary between work and home gets even more blurred, staying focused on the job while being at home takes a great amount of effort. Can psychological detachment from home help employees in adapting to work-from-home arrangements? Focusing on this question, we draw on the self-regulation theory to examine how and when psychological detachment from home influences daily work engagement. We conducted an experience sampling study across two work weeks with employees working from home in India during the reopening phase after the nationwide lockdown in 2020. Our findings indicate that psychological detachment from home helped employees by reducing next-morning work-related anxiety, but it also increased next-morning exhaustion. Work-related anxiety and exhaustion in turn mediated the effects of psychological detachment from home on daily work engagement. Moreover, the indirect effects of detachment from home on work engagement via exhaustion were significant only for employees with low trait self-control. Overall, our study yields theoretical and practical implications for work-from-home practices.