Abstract
Working from home (WFH), teleworking, or telecommuting has become a new work norm since the Covid-19 pandemic. Many organisations are showing an interest in testing a hybrid work style when the pandemic is over; a mix of WFH with office-based work has the potential to improve work-life balance (WLB). Organisations across the globe quickly adopted WFH to maintain their business continuity during the pandemic. However, it co-concurred with particular occupational health and safety (OHS) concerns. Our research review shows that the frequency of WFH is significantly related to its impact on WLB. Women, specifically, are more likely to find it challenging to maintain balance between office work and domestic responsibilities. Additionally, WFH leads to personal costs for many, for example, maintaining a suitable workstation setup at home. The continuous demand for up-skilling/re-skilling due to fast improving technology and job satisfaction is another example of the risk to workers’ wellbeing.
 This research paper reviews the most important risk determinants of WLB due to WFH. We discuss that workplaces should align their strategies in the longer term to support employees’ wellbeing risk management. Employers, employees – women particularly – should use this rapid change as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Highlights
Working from home (WFH) or teleworking has become a new work norm since and during the Covid-19 pandemic
An ideal work culture demands perfect performance from employees, which may interfere with family responsibilities (Van der Lippe et al, 2018) The result of a meta-analysis showed that organisational support, such as flexible work arrangements, has a significant role in decreasing work-life conflict (Beigi et al, 2018). For example, the collectivist cultural context expects individuals to have certain responsibilities towards certain social groups, and at certain times which may have implications on personal work-life balance (Delecta, 2011)
Several articles illustrated that WFH leads to personal costs for many workers who do not necessarily have an office set-up or a separate office room, proper technology items, such as computer or laptop, and are not connected to a strong and stable internet network
Summary
Working from home (WFH) or teleworking has become a new work norm since and during the Covid-19 pandemic. WFH was found to be a unique way to sustain business continuity and prevent the spreading of Covid-19. In this article we assume that WFH, teleworking and telecommuting are identical because of the impact of the work on workers’ wellbeing and WLB. We studied a great number of papers that had qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods approach on WLB or work-life conflict. Quantitative or mixed-method studies gain meaningful understanding of variables and examine their impact by measuring them (Hayes, 2018). This way we tried to achieve comprehensive findings. An ideal work culture demands perfect performance from employees, which may interfere with family responsibilities (Van der Lippe et al, 2018) The result of a meta-analysis showed that organisational support, such as flexible work arrangements, has a significant role in decreasing work-life conflict (Beigi et al, 2018). For example, the collectivist cultural context expects individuals to have certain responsibilities towards certain social groups, and at certain times which may have implications on personal work-life balance (Delecta, 2011)
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