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

PLoS One. 2022 Jan 13;17(1):e0261969. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261969. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • COVID-19 / psychology*
  • Efficiency / physiology
  • Female
  • Health Status
  • Home Environment
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Pandemics / prevention & control*
  • SARS-CoV-2 / pathogenicity
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Work-Life Balance / methods
  • Young Adult

Grants and 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.