Walking the tightrope between work and home: the role of job/home resources in the relation between job/home demands and employee health and well-being

Ind Health. 2023 Feb 1;61(1):24-39. doi: 10.2486/indhealth.2021-0276. Epub 2022 Mar 15.

Abstract

The present study investigated the role of job/home resources in the relation between job/home demands and exhaustion, job satisfaction, work-home interference, and home-work interference during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the prevalence of job/home demands and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examined whether working at different locations (i.e., working from home or at the office) affects how both job/home demands and resources are associated with employees' health and well-being. An online cross-sectional survey study using self-report questionnaires was carried out among the networks of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) association (N=153). The findings of this study illustrated that (1) cognitive job demands/resources and emotional home demands/resources were crucial in predicting employee health and well-being; (2) a conceptual match was detected between corresponding demands and resources; (3) subgroup analysis showed that employees were not heavily affected by the different working locations during the pandemic. In conclusion, this study confirms the positive role of job/home resources. We suggest that cultivating specific job/home resources and establishing an appropriate match between specific job/home resources and corresponding job/home demands is necessary to ensure employees' health and well-being in times of a pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; DISC model; Exhaustion; Home-work interference; Job satisfaction; Job/home demands; Job/home resources; Work-home interference.

MeSH terms

  • Burnout, Professional* / psychology
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Humans
  • Job Satisfaction
  • Occupational Health*
  • Pandemics
  • Surveys and Questionnaires