Full article: Remote work and work-life balance: Lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic and suggestions for HRD practitioners

A person who works 56 hours gets the same amount done, on average, as a person who works 70 hours. Humans can only stay in the “on” position for so long before they need to recharge. Remote workers, managers, and founders often struggle to draw distinctions between their work lives and their home lives.

Here’s an updated definition of business casual attire and why it’s important. Here are six tips to help leaders boost employee engagement and create great experiences for their customers. Another key to a better work-life balance while working from home is communication. Make sure your team knows what your availability is and when you’re available to talk. By setting these boundaries and communicating with your team, you’ll be able to work from wherever is most convenient for you. Having a to-do list to stick to can help you quite a bit.

Try these 12 tips to improve your work-life balance

Make sure to follow the amount of time you set for the break and not go beyond it when you’re working remotely. So make yourself healthy by eating at the right time, do some exercise in the morning or evening and if you feel drowsy during the day, a quick nap might do wonders to your body which solve your mid-afternoon slump. Let’s say for instance, if you work from your couch or dining table where you normally binge-watch your favorite Rom-Com or true-crime series, you might get distracted easily throughout the day. It is important to avoid distractions from your working environment, after that only you can focus on doing your work, which ultimately impacts your productivity.

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Even if you’ve been working remotely for years, the added pressures of having kids home and a full household can make working from home more challenging than before. Add to that the potential isolation of not physically seeing coworkers, friends, and family—along with the flurry of current events—and anxiety and stress can build up before you know it. Even workers who were used to remote work suddenly had to contend with all kinds of new circumstances. Whether it was kids home from school , partners also working from home, or the loss of everyday routines, people everywhere have had to figure out how to navigate the new realities of work.

Attaining Work-Life Balance and Productivity When You Work From Home

Setting aside time to take care of yourself will bring balance to your day and give you the energy and focus to tackle the next task with your mind refreshed. Prioritize exercise, hobbies, or a workday meditation practice—anything that brings you joy and peace will positively impact your ability to achieve better work-life balance when you work from home. Even if your employer doesn’t follow a rigid schedule, creating a regular schedule can help you maintain productivity and ease some of the stress that comes from working all the time.

• Due to COVID-19, more than half of American workers are working from home.
• If you like your job and the people you work with, being a work-life balance role model can help foster a healthy work culture.
• Office Whisperer» and «Hybrid Expert” by The New York Times, I help leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs.
• During the COVID-19 emergency situation, many people in the world were forced to work from home.
• After all, when you choose a job that allows you to work from home, you can build remote work around the rest of your life—and vice versa.
• All the disruption and uncertainty of these unprecedented times can take a very real toll on your mental health and well-being.

Plan ahead to combine work activities with leisure, social, or fitness activities. If you find yourself with several virtual meetings back-to-back, try taking them while you go for a walk. You could also take a call outside (if ambient noise allows!) or invite a friend over to cowork with you.

Work-Life Balance While Working from Home

At the beginning of 2021, the authors organized a repeated web-survey of Latvian employees intending to study the changes in the situation and the adaptation of employees to new-normal conditions. Distribution of answers of the employed respondents to the question “Please mark what changes were made to your household’s daily routine during COVID-19 to enhance work–life balance? Only those respondents who were employed during the first wave of COVID-19 could participate in the survey. The total number of respondents who answered all the questions of the web-survey is 1,006 employees. Of these, 79.7% are women and 20.3% are men; 44.0% of them have minor children in the household, 48.3% of the respondents worked remotely during the COVID-19 emergency situation.

This group of respondents chose the answer “hard to say” the least—29.8%. One of the reasons for this could be that this is the age when respondents have school-age children who needed parental supervision and additional support during the COVID-19 emergency situation, especially in the process of distance learning. It should be noted that no significant differences for the answer options from three to six by the respondent age groups were observed . During this time, education process in schools took place remotely, as did the work of state and local government institutions where it was possible. The availability of kindergarten services was significantly limited. Likewise the private sector had to organize work remotely as much as possible.

Tips for Better Work-Life Balance While Working Remotely

The research carried out by The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions Agency before the COVID-19 emergency situation show an unequal distribution of paid and unpaid work between men and women in the EU countries. This is especially true for families with pre-school children. It was concluded that long working hours have a negative impact on work–life balance, and both men and women report that long working hours reduce their opportunities to combine work and family responsibilities. The particularly negative influence of work on work–life balance tend to be focused in the life stage of employees when they bring up pre-school children. This period usually coincides with a reduction in working hours for working mothers and an increase for working fathers, while both sexes would prefer to work shorter hours during this period of life .

The positive effects on productivity and engagement are reduced when the stress they face due to these circumstances enters the equation. Furthermore, when looking at the relationship between remote work and job engagement, Gerards identified a mediation of transformational leadership. When you work from home, you may find it difficult to log off at a certain time, especially if you still have several tasks that need to be completed within the week.

• Communicate honestly with your manager or team about what you’re able to do and when.
• Compound that with not just working from home, but having to stay at home and not see others due to coronavirus concerns, and loneliness can be a real drain on your feelings of wellness.
• When your work hours have a beginning and an end, you can more easily set boundaries with your family, coworkers, and manager.
• When you’re home all the time, you tend to try to work through illnesses that certainly would have kept you home from the office.

Committing to non-work activities at the end of the workday creates an external deadline that encourages staying on-task during working hours and logging out on time. In case of emergencies, you can cancel or reschedule these plans, however, outside obligations can make it easier to say no to non-urgent work. Work from home work-life balance tips create boundaries between home life and work-life when working remotely.

That said, it’s time you incorporated breaks into your professional routine. Remote employees work longer hours because there’s no one there to remind them to take a few minutes off the desk. Set reminders to cook a quick meal or do ten minutes of meditation. What you’re actually doing is putting some distance between yourself and your work and helping your creativity recharge.

What works well for one individual won’t necessarily work for another. It can be as simple as walking out your door and around the block at the start and end of the day to create the punctuation, space, and definition you need. Try to create distance between the space where you work at home, eat and relax. If you have a spare room for an office, great, but even if you have to use the kitchen or living room table for work, try changing your position so you’re facing a different direction, or even tape off part of the table for work and non-work.

The most common reasons for imbalance between the personal life and work life are increased responsibility for work commitments; working longer hours; increased responsibility for housework as well as for employees with children. In turn, a positive work–life balance reduces employee stress, reduces the risk of burnout and creates greater wellbeing. This positively affects not only an employee him/herself but also the employer . The separation of work and private life is a challenge that most of the people active in the labor market face. In many cases, this can lead to burnout—a state of physical and mental exhaustion when a person’s ability to work is drained.

Pre-pandemic, only 6% of American workers were fully remote.In fact, at least 75% of workers never worked remotely at all. This particularly explains why the booming interest in remote work now is such a new phenomenon. Sometimes balancing family and work can feel like walking a tightrope.