This requires rethinking of how closely we need to monitor and control work or whether employees are capable of self-control. And they also include work issues - every job is not well suited for remote work, and every supervisor is not equipped to effectively lead remote workers. These include logistical issues like logging work hours, providing appropriate equipment for the home office, helping parents deal with day care and schooling, and helping adult children care for elderly relatives, among other issues. The time has come for us to review and seek out best practices for remote work. Still, whatever the reason, it is clear that many are burned out and physically and mentally tired. On the other hand, I don’t have a hard time believing that we worked more hours as we had nothing else to do and, during lockdown, attending meetings was the only way we could interact with other people. I assume work hours from home were self-reported and may not be accurate. It's hard to know whether these early reports we are receiving are reliable and valid. How can we create better work-life balance while working remotely? Many of those workers now report burn out. have been working very long hours compared to other developed nations.Īccording to the New York Times, by April 2020, homebound working Americans were working three more hours on the job each day, replacing commutes with Zoom meetings and Slack messages. It would be interesting to see if worker productivity could be the same or even greater in a 32-hour, 4-day workweek, or even in a 4-day, 40-hour work week. In the New Deal, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act set the standard of a 40-hour work week and it has not been changed/reduced since then. We’ve known for a while that naps and rest breaks taken during the workday are associated with greater productivity. How do employers benefit by supporting work-life balance for their employees? In short, people want the ability to have a productive life along with a productive work life. Too much of anything, even something good, can be bad! Other developed nations provide significantly more vacation time than does the U.S., as well as more benefits for working parents. What are people looking for in work-life balance? When you add in COVID’s impact on general life activities, most people had little opportunity for rest and rejuvenation. While work could be spread throughout the day making some activities more convenient and useful for those who prefer a flexible schedule, work also became a potentially 24/7 activity, leaving little time for personal needs. With schools closing and day care less available, taking care of children had to be balanced with getting jobs done.Įmployees without children are also affected by working from home. COVID accelerated this trend and the conflict between work and life demands - both for two parent families and for single parent families - was front and center. workers were providing more hours to the labor market than any other developed nation on earth. Families began to depend on two incomes, and U.S. As more and more women entered the workforce, the traditional view that women’s work was to take care of the home and family started to shift. Of the older employees we surveyed, 21% indicated that during the past year work responsibilities led them to miss attending family activities.I started my first research project on work-life balance in 1980, so yes, it has been talked about for a long time. As a part of our survey, we examined to what extent our respondents felt that their work prevented them from spending time with their families during the last year. The COVID-19 pandemic led to greater pressure on employees, which may have created work-family conflict. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is challenging even under regular circumstances. Today, we turn to the issue of family work-life balance. In the previous press releases, we looked at the impact of the pandemic on the job satisfaction as well as feelings of burnout among older South Dakota employees. The margin of error of this survey was +/- 4 %, on par with other state-wide polls. A total of 324 fully-employed South Dakotans over the age of 55 responded to the invitation and completed the survey. Participants from The South Dakota COVID-19 Impact Survey were invited to share their thoughts on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their work-life balance. The South Dakota COVID-19 Impact Survey May 2021 was conducted from May 14 to 23, 2021 by The SDSU Poll, a research group housed in the School of American and Global Studies at South Dakota State University.
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