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

PLoS ONE ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. e0261969
Author(s):  
Amanda M. Y. Chu ◽  
Thomas W. C. Chan ◽  
Mike K. P. So

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.

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-98
Author(s):  
Susanti Anomsari ◽  
◽  
Agung Wahyu Handaru ◽  
Gatot Nazir Ahmad ◽  
◽  
...  

The Covid-19 pandemic affected all dimensions of human life. To prevent the spread of the disease, many companies have allowed their employees to work from home in the quarantine period. However, working from home requires a high level of self-discipline from the employee. Changing the balance between work and personal life can impact employee productivity, which requires independent research. This study aims to determine the influence of work from home and work discipline on employee performance through the work-life balance as mediating variable. The sample in this study is 311 employees of the Central Financial and Development Supervision Agency in Jakarta. Data for analysis were collected by questionnaire with Likert scale. Based on the formula Slovin, for the purposes of this study, 311 respondents were selected to take the survey. The spread of the questionnaire runs approximately 1(one) week. The return questionnaires are done indirectly through a Google form. The authors used the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and AMOS version 22 program to process the data. To develop the research toolkit, the authors applied tested and validated indicators in previous studies. The analysis results show that work from home, work discipline, and work-life balance significantly affect employee performance. Despite this, the companies increase the attention to their employees in carrying out work from home, work discipline, and work-life balance because working from home is a challenge for many employees. In particular, some employees lack discipline in carrying out their work at home. The pandemic has forced workers to be more flexible to maintain a work-life balance and achieve higher performance at work from home.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 156-162
Author(s):  
Dr. D. Shoba ◽  
Dr. G. Suganthi

Work-Life balance has its importance from ancient days and the concept is very old, from the day the world has been created. There was a drastic change that has occurred in the market of teachers and their personal profiles. There are tremendous changes in various families which have bartered from the ‘breadwinner’ role of traditional men to single parent families and dual earning couples. This study furnishes an insight into work life balance and job satisfaction of teachers working in School of Villupuram District. The sample comprises of 75 school teachers from Government and private schools in Villupuram District. The Study results that there is increasing mediating evidence in Work-life balance as well as Job satisfaction of teachers are not affected by the type of school in which they are working. Job satisfaction or Pleasure of life will be affected as a whole by Work life balance of an individual which is the main which can be calculated by construct of subjective well being.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Yuile ◽  
Artemis Chang ◽  
Amanda Gudmundsson ◽  
Sukanlaya Sawang

AbstractAn employee's inability to balance work and non-work related responsibilities has resulted in an increase in stress related illnesses. Historically, research into the relationship between work and non-work has primarily focused on work/family conflict, predominately investigating the impact of this conflict on parents, usually mothers. To date research has not sufficiently examined the management practices that enable all ‘individuals’ to achieve a ‘balance’ between work and life. This study explores the relationship between contemporary life friendly, HR management policies and work/life balance for individuals as well as the effect of managerial support to the policies. Self-report questionnaire data from 1241 men and women is analysed and discussed to enable organizations to consider the use of life friendly policies and thus create a convergence between the well-being of employees and the effectiveness of the organization.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agapito Bazillai

Work overload has been identified as an indicator of migraine by neurologists, which has a negative effect on their well-being and performance at work. The competitive nature of the job market in developing countries like Nigeria only adds to the deteriorating work-life balance as employees strive for competitive advantage at the expense of their well-being and family life. Today’s worker, at the end of a working day is fully exhausted, due to challenged responsibilities and the cu lture of long working hours. For example, the insistence of 8am to 5pm working hours have been identified as a major cause of increased medical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, psychological and attitude problems, aches and pains among other ailments. The main objective of this study was to determine effect of work overload and work hour on employee’s performance in selected manufacturing industries in Ogun State. Descriptive survey research design was used with sample size of four hundred employees of selected manufacturing companies in Ogun State.Both work overload and work hour has been found to play a huge role in the quality of employees’ family life, such as marital satisfaction, relationship with children and spouses, which in return affects their job commitment. The findings showed that work overload to employees’ performance (F [1,473] = 22.752, P<0.05, R 2 =0.0457 and work hour to employees’ performance (F [1,472] = 51.238, P<0.05, R 2 =0.0473). The study concluded that, work-life- balance idea is connected with real aids for an organization. Therefore, the study recommended that social and psychological life of every employee should be put to check in order for employees to be effective and efficient on their jobs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 388-398
Author(s):  
Nur Fadzilah Muhamad Zamani ◽  
Madaha Hanafi @ Mohd Ghani ◽  
Siti Fatimah Mohamad Radzi ◽  
Noor Hanim Rahmat ◽  
Nur Syafiqah Abdul Kadar ◽  
...  

Many sectors are implementing work from home policy as it is one of the effective ways to avoid physical contact among workers and to control the spread of COVID-19. Amidst the stressful pandemic, working from home poses a different kind of stress among both the employers and employees. Numerous studies have found positive and negative consequences of working from home. With or without the pandemic, working from home has become a new way to work. Some industries cannot function well with their employees working from home. Many are finding ways to make work from home a success. This study explores work from home motivation among 53 employees of different industries. The instrument used is a survey. The survey has 4 sections. Section A has 4 items on demographic profile. Section B has 10 items about availability via flexibility. Section C has 10 items on safety through work-life balance and section D has 10 items on meaningfulness through work performance. Findings reveal interesting motivational influence for employees who work from home.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Xose Picatoste ◽  
Mirela Ionela Aceleanu ◽  
Andreea Claudia Șerban

The lifestyle of world citizens has suffered an unprecedented impact as a result of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19. Economies and worldwide societies expect huge damages comparable to that caused by war. To the effects of this crisis on employment and wages must be added those produced in the workplace, with a foreseeable increase in job strain, not only as of the result of the health security reasons in the workplace but also to the effects on work-life balance, training and promotion possibilities, etc. This research analyses the impact of the economic situation on health, the influence of health on labour strain and on job quality. Using OECD data and a structural equation model, we have investigated the relationship between economy, health, quality of the job, work-life balance and well-being. The importance of security and safeness in the workplace is one of the items for evaluating job strain, particularly when they become even more crucial in pandemic times. This issue implicates not only the real risk of individual and social health but also a stressful situation for workers. The main contribution of our paper relies on establishing and prove causal relations among social and economic variables related to health, well-being and job quality, including safeness at the workplace. Considering that this relationship will probably become reinforced after a pandemic, like COVID-19, the actual relevance of the analysed topic and the achieved results becomes crucial.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Yuile ◽  
Artemis Chang ◽  
Amanda Gudmundsson ◽  
Sukanlaya Sawang

AbstractAn employee's inability to balance work and non-work related responsibilities has resulted in an increase in stress related illnesses. Historically, research into the relationship between work and non-work has primarily focused on work/family conflict, predominately investigating the impact of this conflict on parents, usually mothers. To date research has not sufficiently examined the management practices that enable all ‘individuals’ to achieve a ‘balance’ between work and life. This study explores the relationship between contemporary life friendly, HR management policies and work/life balance for individuals as well as the effect of managerial support to the policies. Self-report questionnaire data from 1241 men and women is analysed and discussed to enable organizations to consider the use of life friendly policies and thus create a convergence between the well-being of employees and the effectiveness of the organization.


Author(s):  
ANA ALICE VILAS BOAS ◽  
ESTELLE M. MORIN

Mental health, an important object of research in psychology as well as social psychology, can be determined by the relationship between psychological well-being and psychological distress. In this context, we search to understand: “How do compare mental health of professors working in public universities in an emerging country like Brazil with the one of professors working in a developed country like Canada?” and “What are the main differences in the indicators of mental health in work domain?”. This paper assesses psychological well-being and psychological distress for professors working in these two countries and test for their differences. The sample consists of 354 Brazilian professors and 317 Canadian professors. Data were collected through an on-line questionnaire assessing the following mental health indicators: anxiety, depression, loss of control, general positive affect and emotional ties. We compared the components of psychological distress and psychological well-being to analyse their relations. Additionally, we compared these components with work-life balance indicator. Reliability analyses demonstrated that all tested components are consistent to evaluate mental health. There are small mean differences between Brazilian and Canadian professors in all five components of mental health, but these differences are not statistically significant. Mean differences for work-life balance, gender, age, and bias of conformity are statistically different, although the size effects are small. Linear regression analysis, step by step, controlled for life events, showed that general positive affect, anxiety and emotional ties predict 31.5% of the scores of work-life balance. Additionally, we observed that Brazilian professors find more balance between professional and private life than do their Canadian colleagues. Promoting mental health is a challenge for public management sector, thus, public managers and governmental organizations can beneficiate from the studies of social psychology to improve work performance and the quality of the services offered to the society as well as to assist employees to improve their personal and professional life.


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