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Let me go to the office! Side effects of

working from
An investigation into the side home

effects of working from home on

work-life balance
Rocco Palumbo Received 8 June 2020
Revised 20 August 2020
Department of Management and Law, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy Accepted 22 September 2020

Abstract
Purpose – The disruptions brought by COVID-19 pandemic compelled a large part of public sector employees
to remotely work from home. Home-based teleworking ensured the continuity of the provision of public
services, reducing disruptions brought by the pandemic. However, little is known about the implications of
telecommuting from home on the ability of remote employees to manage the work-life interplay. The article
adopts a retrospective approach, investigating data provided by the sixth European Working Conditions
Survey (EWCS) to shed lights into this timely topic.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical, quantitative research design was crafted. On the one hand,
the direct effects of telecommuting from home on work-life balance were investigated. On the other hand, work
engagement and perceived work-related fatigue were included in the empirical analysis as mediating variables
which intervene in the relationship between telecommuting from home and work-life balance.
Findings – Home-based telecommuting negatively affected the work-life balance of public servants.
Employees who remotely worked from home suffered from increased work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts.
Telecommuting from home triggered greater work-related fatigue, which worsened the perceived work-life
balance. Work engagement positively mediated the negative effects of working from home on work-life
balance.
Practical implications – Telecommuting from home has side effects on the ability of remote workers to
handle the interplay between work-related commitments and daily life activities. This comes from the
overlapping between private life and work, which leads to greater contamination of personal concerns and
work duties. Work engagement lessens the perceptions of work-life unbalance. The increased work-related
fatigue triggered by remote working may produce a physical and emotional exhaustion of home-based
teleworkers.
Originality/value – The article investigates the side effects of remotely working from home on work-life
balance, stressing the mediating role of work engagement and work-related fatigue.
Keywords Home working, Work-life balance, Work engagement, Telecommuting, Fatigue
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic produced momentous disruptions in the
functioning of public sector organizations (Schuster et al., 2020). Telecommuting from home
has been widely adopted as a measure to ensure the continuity of public services’ provision,
meeting the social distancing prescriptions issued by international and national health bodies
to prevent the spread of the epidemic (Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garc
es, 2020). However, the
use of a conventional tool – i.e. remote working – to address unprecedented challenges paves
the way for several issues, which are still poorly acknowledged by scholars and practitioners
(Yang, 2020).
Literature is not consistent in discussing the implications of working from home on work-
life balance. It is argued that telecommuting from home, as a flexible work arrangement,
increases the employees’ control over the spatio-temporal context of work, enhancing the
quality of organizational activities (Breaugh and Farabee, 2012). People who remotely work International Journal of Public
Sector Management
from home are likely to have a greater productivity and to suffer from less work-life clashes, due © Emerald Publishing Limited
0951-3558
to the greater plasticity of work commitments and the opportunity to work in a familiar and DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-06-2020-0150
IJPSM comfortable setting (Hill et al., 2003). Moreover, being generally conceived as an employee-
oriented human resource practice (Hornung and Glaser, 2009), home-based telecommuting is
thought to reduce the perception of friction between private life and work, triggering better
work-life balance (Beauregard and Henry, 2009). In turn, greater work-life balance involves
both direct and indirect positive implications for organizations, including enhanced social
exchange processes, reduced turn-over, and increased productivity (Beauregard and
Henry, 2009).
An alternative understanding conceives home-based telecommuting as an organization-
centered human resource practice, which is primarily aimed at reducing managerial costs
(Raiborn and Butler, 2009). Rather than allowing employees to get a better control over the
work-life interface, home based telecommuting involves an intensification of work (Kelliher and
Anderson, 2010) and an increased technocratic control of managers over remote workers
(Bathini and Kandathil, 2020). This engenders work-to-life conflicts in the form of
encroachment of work-related worries in everyday life activities (Sarbu, 2018). In addition,
remote working may determine an extensification of work, as well as and an overlapping
between private life and work commitments (Hyman and Baldry, 2011). This creates greater
contamination between private life and work, which is likely to entail – rather than prevent –
life-to-work conflicts (Fonner and Stache, 2012).
Even though teleworking from home has been argued to be less common in the public
sector (Mohalik et al., 2019), the COVID-19 pandemic made it a prevailing work arrangements
for public sector organizations across the world (ILO, 2020). Whilst several authors have
stressed that a greater acceptability of teleworking practices is arising among public entities
(Langa and Conradie, 2003), recently de Vries et al. (2019) claimed that the benefits of
teleworking in the public sector are undermined by professional isolation and impoverished
organizational commitment. Working from home determines a disconnection between remote
workers and conventional office-based workers, which produces negative sensations with
individual work assignments (Collins et al., 2016). This is especially true when home-based
teleworking is adopted as an answer to unforeseen and contingent challenges, such as natural
disasters or unprecedented events (Donnelly and Proctor-Thomson, 2015). In sum,
telecommuting from home is likely to produce some side effects on remote employees’
working conditions, which are able to negatively affect their work-life balance (Troup and
Rose, 2012).
Little is known about the direct and indirect effects of home-based telecommuting on the
work-life balance of public servants. This gap in the scientific knowledge prevents from
designing and implementing tailored management interventions which allow to deal with the
multifaceted implications of working from home on the ability of remote employees to handle the
work-life interplay. The article intends to contribute to fill in this gap in literature, proposing an
empirical examination into the consequences of home-based telecommuting on public servants’
work-life balance. The following research questions inspired the development of this study:
RQ1. Does telecommuting from home affect the public servants’ ability to manage the
work-life interface?
RQ2. What are the implications of home-based teleworking on work-to-life and life-to-
work conflicts?
A retrospective empirical analysis on secondary data collected in 2015 was designed to
provide a tentative answer to these research questions. The article is organized as follows.
Section 2 proposes the conceptual background against which this empirical research was
established. Moreover it pinpoints the research hypotheses that steered the statistical
analysis. Section 3 depicts the study design and provides some information about the sample
of public servants who were involved in this research. Section 4 reports the study findings
and provides some answers to the research questions depicted above. Section 5 critically Side effects of
discusses the study findings and advances the main conceptual and practical implications of working from
this research, which are outlined in Section 6.
home
2. Conceptual background
2.1 The implications of home-based telecommuting on work-life balance
Literature has largely discussed the effects of home-based telecommuting and remote working
on work-life balance, arguing that working from home is likely to enhance the flexibility of
working arrangements, paving the way for increased work-life balance (Sullivan, 2012).
Nevertheless, it has been emphasized that the advantages of telecommuting from home are
uncertain (Bloom et al., 2015), since they strictly depend on the individual socio-economic
conditions (Aguilera et al., 2016). Indeed, working from home may bring some disadvantages,
which concern both impaired organizational visibility due to a decontextualization of working
activities (Maruyama and Tietze, 2012) and an overlapping between work-related commitments
and everyday personal affairs (Allen et al., 2012).
The contamination between work and life engenders negative effects on the ability of remote
workers to manage the work-life interface. On the one hand, home-based teleworking “. . .may
induce a ‘time elasticity illusion’ in other household members, who may believe that time spent at home
can be used for household production without detracting from time spent in paid work” (Cameron
and Fox, 2011, p. 134). The juxtaposition of private life and work-related duties is thought to
generate stress and time allocation challenges (Wheatley, 2012), which undermine the gains of
working from home in terms of work-life balance and nourish life-to-work conflicts (Madsen, 2006).
On the other hand, remotely working from home implies both an imposed and a voluntary
intensification of work. More specifically, work intensification derives from the willingness of
remote workers to exchange increased job flexibility with greater work effort (Kelliher and
Anderson, 2010). If conjoined with an impaired ability to switch off from work, intensification of
efforts pushes work-to-life conflicts, since it sustains an invasion of job-related worries in everyday
life (Felstead and Henseke, 2017). In a sum, telecommuting from home has some side effects on the
ability of remote workers to effectively manage the work-life interplay, which put the perceived
work-life balance under stress. In line with these considerations, it is assumed that:
H1. Telecommuting from home negatively affects the work-life balance of remote
workers, increasing life-to-work and work-to-life conflicts.

2.2 Work engagement in the context of home-based telecommuting

Telecommuting from home represents a new way of working which empowers employees to
harmonize work and family-related commitments in an attempt to achieve increased work-life
balance (Morgan, 2004). Hence, remotely working from home is expected to have positive effects on
work engagement (Peters et al., 2014). Generally speaking, work engagement can be defined as
“. . .a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and
absorption” (Bakker and Demerouti, 2008, p. 209). Whilst scholars doubt about the positive
implications of home-based teleworking on work engagement (Liao et al., 2019), it has been
maintained that telecommuting from home is able to reduce perceptions of exhaustion at the end of
the day (ten Brummelhuis et al., 2012). Besides, it supports the work-related absorption, dedication
and vigor of remote teleworkers, due to greater autonomy in arranging individual working
conditions (De Spiegelaere et al., 2016). Drawing on these arguments, it is hypothesized that:
H2. Telecommuting from home positively influences the work engagement of remote
workers, boosting work-related absorption, dedication and vigor.
Increased work engagement is expected to reduce the perception of work-to-life and life-to-
work conflicts that are triggered by the contamination of everyday life activities and
IJPSM work-related commitments (van der Lippe and Lipp
enyi, 2020). Entailing lower levels of
psychological and physical strains (Timms et al., 2015), home-based telecommuting reduces
the perceived stress that derives from conflicting work and family demands (Palumbo et al.,
2020), thus increasing the work-life balance of remote workers (Chan et al., 2017). Work-
related absorption, dedication and vigor boost job satisfaction (Karatepe and Demir, 2014)
and enhance positive self-evaluations of employees (Lu et al., 2016), which lead to increased
sensations with the individual ability to manage the interplay between work and life (Mache
et al., 2016). Therefore, it is assumed that:
H3a. Work engagement positively affects the work-life balance of employees, involving
better sensations with the individual ability to manage the work-life interplay.
H3b. Work engagement positively mediates the relationship between telecommuting
from home and work-life balance, triggering an increased ability to manage the
work-life interface.

2.3 Work-related fatigue and teleworking from home

Literature has claimed that working from home may reduce work-related fatigue, due to the
elimination of daily commutes (Anderson et al., 2001). However, since it contextualizes job duties
in the everyday life environment, home-based telecommuting may induce an involuntary
overlapping of household activities and work commitments (Hilbrecht et al., 2008), which is able
to exacerbate the remote workers’ perception of fatigue (Kim et al., 2015). Home-based
telecommuting engenders an intensification and extensification of work (Moore, 2006), which
concur in increasing the work-related efforts of remote workers, thus determining greater fatigue
(Heiden et al., 2018). This jeopardizes the advantages brought by working at home in terms of
greater flexibility of work arrangements (Vesala and Tuomivaara, 2015). Sticking to these
arguments, it is presumed that:
H4. Telecommuting from home has side effects on remote workers’ fatigue due to
intensification and extensification of work efforts.
The greater the work engagement of remote employees, the better their attitudes to work
(Zheng et al., 2015) and, consequently, the lower their perception of work-related fatigue
(Kim et al., 2018). In other words, work-related absorption, dedication and vigor strengthen
the employees’ ability to recover from fatigue and they boost the individual ability to
improve the job-person fit through job crafting (Lu et al., 2014). Recovery from work-
related fatigue is made possible by the greater opportunity to combine working and
nonworking activities interchangeably (Sonnentag, 2003). From this point of view, it is
hypothesized that:
H5. Work engagement reduces the remote employees’ perception of work-related fatigue
and supports their recovery ability.
Perceived fatigue threatens the employees’ ability to effectively manage the interplay
between work and life, endangering the perceived work-life balance (Gander et al., 2010).
Working from home is likely to determine increased willingness to work during unusual
times, such as in the evening or on holidays (Kristensen and Pedersen, 2017). In turn, this may
have side effects on remote workers’ work-life balance (Greubel et al., 2016). As previously
anticipated, work engagement entails a greater tolerance of fatigue and high job-demands,
contributing to reduce the negative effects of fatigue on perceived work-life balance (Garc
ıa-
Sierra et al., 2016). Synthesizing and systematizing these considerations, it is assumed that:
H6a. Work-related fatigue has negative effects on the employees’ ability to manage the
work-life balance;
 H6b. Work-related fatigue mediates the implications of home-based telecommuting on Side effects of
work-life balance, so that the side effects of the former on the latter are worst; working from
H6c. Work engagement and work-related fatigue serially mediate the effects of working home
from home on work-life balance, so that the negative implications of the former on
the latter are hampered.
Figure 1 shows a graphical overview of the conceptual background on which this study was
established. Moreover, it graphically represents the research hypotheses that guided the
statistical analysis which is portrayed here.

3. Methods
3.1 Research design
A sequential mediation analysis was designed to test the research hypotheses reported
above. The statistical model based on the bootstrapping approach proposed by Hayes (2018)
was used in this study. Figure 2 shows a graphical representation of the statistical approach.
This research design allowed us to shed light into the direct implications of home-based
telecommuting on remote workers’ work-life balance. Besides, it permitted us to illuminate
the indirect implications of working at home on work-life balance as mediated by work
engagement and work-related fatigue. The MACRO process (vers. 3.4) embedded in the IBM
Statistical Package for Social Science® (SPSS, vers. 24) was employed for statistical
elaborations (Hayes et al., 2017).
Secondary data were collected from the sixth wave of the Eurofound’s European Working
Conditions Survey (EWCS). The EWCS is a pan-European survey which provides an
overview of working conditions across Europe. Alongside the 27 member countries of the
European Union, Albania, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), the United Kingdom, and Turkey were involved in the
analysis. A multi-stage and stratified random sampling approach was used to recruit the
interviewees. Face to face interviews were conducted at the respondents’ home. Data were
collected between February and December 2015.
In line with the specific purposes of this article, attention was exclusively focused on
people who reported to be employed in the public sector at the time of the interview. The
sample consisted of 9,877 respondents. Microdata were tabulated in an excel file and they
were carefully checked for consistency with the aims of this study. Since the Eurofound was
not directly involved in this research, the findings should be exclusively ascribed to the
author.

Figure 1.
A graphical overview
of conceptual
framework and
research hypotheses
IJPSM

Figure 2.
The statistical diagram

3.2 Variables and measures

Table 1 summarizes the main variables which were contemplated in this study. Teleworking
from home (WH) was the independent variable of the sequential mediation analysis. It was a
dichotomous variable, with “1” indicating that the respondents worked at least once a week
from home and “0” indicating that they did not telecommute from home or worked remotely
from home only few times a year. Self-assessed work-life balance (WLB) was run as the
dependent variable of the statistical model. This construct derived from the aggregation of

Type of No. of Cronbach’s

Variable (ID) Definition variable items Scale/code α
Independent variable
Working from Involvement of employees Dichotomous 1 0 5 Missing or rare NA
home (WH) in flexible working occurrence of home-
arrangements allowing based
them to telecommute from telecommuting
home 1 5 Frequent use of
home-based
telecommuting
Dependent variable
Work-life Employees’ self-reported Continuous 5 1 5 Lowest level of 0.763
balance ability to deal with work- work-life balance
(WLB) to-life and life-to-work 5 5 Highest level of
conflicts work-life balance
Mediating variables
Work Employees’ self-reported Continuous 3 1 5 Lowest level of 0.725
engagement level of absorption, work engagement
(WE) dedication, and vigour in 5 5 Highest level of
performing work-related work engagement
activities
Work-related Employees’ self-assessed Continuous 3 1 5 Lowest level of 0.811
Table 1. fatigue (WF) work-related fatigue and employees’ fatigue
The independent, exhaustion 5 5 Highest level of
dependent and employees’ fatigue
mediating variables Source(s): Authors’ elaboration
five items, three of which concerned the self-reported ability of employees to deal with work- Side effects of
to-life conflicts, whilst the other two contemplated the effectiveness of respondents to handle working from
life-to-work conflicts. WLB was a continuous variable ranging from “1” (worst level of self-
assessed work-life balance) to “5” (best level of self-assessed work-life balance). It showed an
home
acceptable internal consistency, as assessed by the Cronbach’s Alpha (α 5 0.763).
Work engagement (WE) was the first mediating variable included in the serial mediation
model. An ultra-short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale was used (Schaufeli
et al., 2019). In particular, WE derived from three items which assessed the degree of
absorption, dedication and vigor reported by respondents towards their work. It was a
continuous variable, ranging from “1” (lowest level of work engagement) to “5” (highest level
of work engagement). WE had an acceptable internal consistency (α 5 0.725). The second
mediating variable concerned the self-assessed work-related fatigue (WF) of respondents.
Interviewees were asked to self-report their sense of exhaustion and fatigue after and before
their working activities. Three items were used to compute this construct. WF was a
continuous variable, ranging from “1” (lowest level of self-assessed fatigue) to “5” (highest
level of self-reported fatigue). WF had a good internal reliability (α 5 0.811).

3.3 Consistency of the statistical model

Some robustness checks were realized to test the statistical consistency of the methodological
approach employed in this study. Firstly, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) involving all
the items included in statistical elaborations with the sole exception of home-based
telecommuting was run. It allowed us to collect some evidence supporting the three-factor
framework on which the empirical analysis was established. Table 2 synthesizes the results
of the EFA: three components explaining 62.2% of the total variance were extracted after four
iterations.
Next, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was implemented to confirm the three-factors
structure depicted above. The estimated model supported the theoretical structure composed
of WLB, WE, and WF (χ 2 5 2021.382, p < 0.001; CFI 5 0.924, RMSEA 5 0.077, NFI 5 0.923,
TLI 5 0.878). The inclusion of a common latent factor yielded lower fit indexes of the
statistical model, thus holding the reliability of the three-factor structure. Lastly, a
multicollinearity test was implemented. The constructs included in the serial mediation
analysis were weakly, but statistically correlated each other (WLB <–> WE 5 0.193,
statistically significant at the 0.001 level, two tailed; WLB <–> WF 5 0.385, statistically
significant at the 0.001 level, two tailed; WF <–> WE 5 0.236, statistically significant at the
0.001 level, two tailed). The variance inflation factors (VIF) of these constructs were higher
than 1, ranging between 1.07 and 1.19. This suggested that multicollinearity was not an issue
for this study. The Harman’s one factor test was also run, in order to check for risks of
common method variance triggered by self-assessed measures. A single factor accounted for
32.6% of the total variance, which is significantly lower than the 50% threshold suggested to
detect common method variance.

3.4 The study sample

As previously anticipated, the sample consisted of 9,877 people employed in the public sector
across Europe. Table 3 reports the main socio-demographic attributes of respondents.
Women (60.8%) prevailed over men (39.2%). Average age was 44.9 years (σ 5 11.4 years).
About a third of interviewees were aged between 45 and 54 years at the time of interview
(31%). A quarter of them were aged between 35 and 44 years (25%). Slightly more than 1 in 10
respondents reported to be born in a foreign country (11.6%). About half of interviewees
disclosed secondary education (46%). Less than a fifth had either a master degree (16.1%) or a
doctoral education (2.1%).
 the EFA
IJPSM

Table 2.
The main results of
Total variance explained
Initial eigenvalues Extraction sums of squared loadings Rotation sums of squared loadings
Components Total % of variance Cumulative % Total % of variance Cumulative % Total % of variance Cumulative %

1 3.587 32.610 32.610 3.587 32.610 32.610 2.624 23.857 23.857

2 1.725 15.686 48.296 1.725 15.686 48.296 2.243 20.388 44.245
3 1.524 13.858 62.155 1.524 13.858 62.155 1.970 17.910 62.155
4 0.837 7.609 69.764
5 0.645 5.861 75.625
6 0.586 5.328 80.953
7 0.478 4.341 85.294
8 0.433 3.934 89.228
9 0.414 3.762 92.991
10 0.401 3.646 96.637

Rotated component matrix

Components
1 2 3

WLB_1 0.595 0.243 0.118

WLB_2 0.628 0.279 0.087
WLB_3 0.773 0.136 0.090
WLB_4 0.766 0.048 0.140
WLB_5 0.763 0.012 0.099
WF_1 0.126 0.829 0.090
WF_2 0.100 0.859 0.040
WF_3 0.250 0.784 0.153
WE_1 0.131 0.202 0.791
WE_2 0.053 0.070 0.825
WE_3 0.040 0.001 0.756
Note(s): Extraction method: Principal component analysis; Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization; Rotation converged in 4 iterations
 On average, the organizational age of respondents was 13.3 years (σ 5 10.7 years). Whilst Side effects of
a large part of interviewees stated that they served the same organization for more than 21 working from
years (23.9%), more than 1 in 10 people declared that their organizational age was 1 year or
below (11.5%). Few respondents reported to work for small-sized organizations involving
home
less than 10 employees (7.6%). The majority of them served organizations with a number of
employees ranging between 10 and 249 people (46.9%). A large part of them worked for multi-
site organizations (48%). Most interviewees had an unlimited employment contract (82.2%).
Less than a sixth stated to have a part-time employment (15.3%). Table 4 reports the
distribution of the sample per country, eliciting the number of public servants who
telecommuted from home. On average, more than 1 in 10 public sector employees reported to
remotely work from home at least once a week.

4. Findings
4.1 Descriptive analysis
The majority of public servants reported that they did not telecommute from home (73.7%).
More than 1 in 10 employees worked from home few times a year as an exceptional working
agreement (13.3%). Conversely, 1,225 public servants stated to be frequent home-based
teleworkers (12.4%). On average, interviewees worked 36.4 h a week (σ 5 9.9 h). They claimed
to work at night (μ 5 1.29; σ 5 3.29) and to work more than 10 h a day (μ 5 1.84; σ 5 4.15) at
least once a month. Respondents worked on Saturdays (μ 5 0.68; σ 5 1.14) and on Sundays
(μ 5 0.85; σ 5 1.25) less than once a month. They claimed to have less than 11 h of rest
between two working days (μ 5 0.20; σ 5 0.40) only in exceptional cases.
In general, those who telecommuted from home reported greater work-related efforts as
compared with those who did not telecommute. In particular, home-based teleworkers
worked more hours per week (μ 5 36.83; σ 5 12.29 vs μ 5 36.36; σ 5 9.58), were more willing
to work at night (μ 5 1.56; σ 5 4.08 vs μ 5 1.25; σ 5 3.17), were twice as likely to work on
Sundays (μ 5 1.17; σ 5 1.52 vs μ 5 0.61; σ 5 1.06) and to work for more than 10 h a day
(μ 5 3.35; σ 5 5.71 vs μ 5 1.63; σ 5 3.84), extended their working activities on Saturdays
(μ 5 1.11; σ 5 1.44 vs μ 5 0.81; σ 5 1.22), and were more likely to have less than 11 h of
recovery between two working days (μ 5 0.32; σ 5 0.47 vs μ 5 0.18; σ 5 0.38).
In general, interviewees were found to have a good work-life balance (μ 5 3.92; σ 5 0.73).
However, people who telecommuted from home had lower WLB scores as compared with
those who did not telecommute (μ 5 3.63; σ 5 0.74 vs μ 5 3.97; σ 5 0.71). Work engagement
was high among the respondents (μ 5 3.98; σ 5 0.69). In this case, employees who teleworked
from home had better WE than those who stuck to conventional working arrangements
(μ 5 4.11; σ 5 0.59 vs μ 5 3.97; σ 5 0.70). Lastly, yet importantly, the sample disclosed
acceptable levels of work-related fatigue (μ 5 2.12; σ 5 1.01). It is worth noting that home-
based telecommuters reported higher levels of fatigue than those who did not telecommute
(μ 5 2.29; σ 5 1.05 vs μ 5 2.09; σ 5 1.01).

4.2 The serial mediation analysis

The output of the serial mediation analysis is synthesized in Table 5. Working from home was
found to positively and significantly affect the work engagement of respondents, as forecasted
by hypothesis 2. Being female, having a high education level, and perceiving a good health
status had a positive effect on the level of employees’ work-related absorption, dedication and
vigor. Age positively affected work engagement. People who had an unlimited employment
contract and those who served large public sector organizations showed greater level of WE.
People who telecommuted from home reported increased risks of work-related fatigue, in
line with the contents of hypothesis 4. Conversely, as forecasted by hypothesis 5, work
IJPSM Total
Variable No. %

Gender
Men 3,866 39.2
Women 6,008 60.8
Do not know/Do not answer 3 0.0
Age at the time of interview
24 years and below 343 3.5
Between 25 and 34 years 1,702 17.2
Between 35 and 44 years 2,472 25
Between 45 and 54 years 3,061 31
Between 55 and 64 years 2,068 20.9
65 years and above 204 2.1
Do not know/Do not answer 27 0.3
Country of birth
Same country of residence 8,681 87.9
Foreign country 1,143 11.6
Do not know/Do not answer 53 0.5
Education (ISCED)
Early childhood education 17 0.2
Primary education 167 1.7
Lower secondary education 816 8.3
Upper secondary education 3,038 30.8
Post-secondary non-tertiary education 677 6.9
Short-cycle tertiary education 1,309 13.3
Bachelor or equivalent 2,038 20.6
Master or equivalent 1,586 16.1
Doctorate or equivalent 205 2.1
Do not know/Do not answer 24 0.2
Organizational age
1 year and below 1,136 11.5
Between 2 and 4 years 1,425 14.4
Between 5 and 10 years 2,384 24.1
Between 11 and 15 years 1,361 13.8
Between 16 and 20 years 1,096 11.1
21 years and above 2,365 23.9
Do not know/Do not answer 110 1.1
Organizational size
Small-sized organization (less than 10 employees) 749 7.6
Medium-sized organization (between 10 and 249 employees) 4,643 46.9
Large-sized organization (250 employees and above) 4,250 43
Do not know/Do not answer 244 2.5
Type of organization
Table 3. One-site organization 5,076 51.4
The sample socio- Multi-site organization 4,741 48
demographic Do not know/Do not answer 60 0.6
characteristics
(n 5 9,877) (continued )
 Total
Side effects of
Variable No. % working from
home
Type of contract
Limited employment contract 1,688 17.1
Unlimited employment contract 8,177 82.2
Do not know/Do not answer 12 0.1
Part-time/Full-time employment
Full-time employment 8,018 81.2
Part-time employment 1,015 15.3
Do not know/Do not answer 53 0.5 Table 3.

Traditional Do not
Public servants workers and know/Do
participating in occasional Frequent not % of frequent
Country the survey telecommuters telecommuters answer telecommuters

Austria 173 131 42 0 24.28%

Belgium 660 527 133 0 20.15%
Bulgaria 252 237 12 3 4.76%
Croatia 252 232 19 1 7.54%
Cyprus 124 118 5 1 4.03%
Czech 195 186 9 0 4.62%
Republic
Denmark 374 287 86 1 22.99%
Estonia 278 248 30 0 10.79%
Finland 310 263 47 0 15.16%
France 399 307 87 5 21.80%
Germany 221 199 22 0 9.95%
Greece 96 87 9 0 9.38%
Hungary 251 224 22 5 8.76%
Ireland 265 236 29 0 10.94%
Italy 237 227 9 1 3.80%
Latvia 286 256 28 2 9.79%
Lithuania 268 247 19 2 7.09%
Luxembourg 299 253 44 2 14.72%
Malta 311 267 44 0 14.15%
Netherlands 181 151 30 0 16.57%
Poland 209 183 22 4 10.53%
Portugal 170 148 20 2 11.76%
Romania 203 188 13 2 6.40%
Slovakia 257 244 13 0 5.06%
Slovenia 506 434 70 2 13.83%
Spain 558 495 52 11 9.32%
Sweden 374 321 51 2 13.64%
UK 429 364 63 2 14.69%
Montenegro 281 265 15 1 5.34%
FYROM 250 221 27 2 10.80%
Serbia 237 220 14 3 5.91%
Turkey 260 240 19 1 7.31% Table 4.
Norway 375 312 63 0 16.80% Distribution of the
Switzerland 174 148 26 0 14.94% sample per country and
Albania 162 131 31 0 19.14% % of frequent home-
Total 9,877 8,597 1,225 55 12.40% based telecommuters
IJPSM Outcome variable: WE
Model summary
R R2 MSE F df1 df2 p
0.2714 0.0736 0.4289 72.6454 10 9,138 0.0000
Model
Coeff SE t p LLCI ULCI

Constant 3.0044 0.0459 65.4254 0.0000 2.9144 3.0944

WH 0.1114*** 0.0213 5.2168 0.0000 0.0695 0.1532
Gender (1 5 female) 0.0760*** 0.0144 5.2760 0.0000 0.0478 0.1042
Age (1 5 44 years and under) 0.0976*** 0.0155 6.2847 0.0000 0.1280 0.0671
Country of birth (1 5 foreign) 0.0156 0.0216 0.7230 0.4697 0.0579 0.0267
Education 0.0179*** 0.0041 4.4223 0.0000 0.0100 0.0259
Health status 0.2261*** 0.0095 23.8699 0.0000 0.2076 0.2447
Contract_Type2_Unlimited contract 0.0197 0.0196 1.004 0.3154 0.0581 0.0188
Contract_Type1_Part time 0.0628** 0.0194 3.2312 0.0012 0.0247 0.1010
Organizational dimension (1 5 large) 0.0581*** 0.0139 4.1637 0.0000 0.0854 0.0307
Years of work (1 5 13 years and under) 0.0064 0.0158 0.4072 0.6838 0.0374 0.0246

Outcome variable: WF
Model summary
R R2 MSE F df1 df2 p
0.3874 0.1501 0.8643 146.6452 11 9,137 0.000
Model
Coeff SE t p LLCI ULCI

Constant 4.3089 0.0790 54.5448 0.0000 4.1541 4.4638

WH 0.2399*** 0.0303 7.9065 0.0000 0.1805 0.2994
WE 0.2473*** 0.0149 16.6530 0.0000 0.2764 0.2182
Gender (1 5 female) 0.2004*** 0.0205 9.7875 0.0000 0.1603 0.2405
Age (1 5 44 years and under) 0.0148 0.0221 0.6719 0.5016 0.0581 0.0285
Country of birth (1 5 foreign) 0.0929* 0.0306 3.0345 0.0024 0.0329 0.1529
Education 0.0114* 0.0058 1.9769 0.0481 0.0001 0.0227
Health status 0.3751*** 0.0139 27.0609 0.0000 0.4023 0.3480
Contract_Type2_Unlimited contract 0.0193 0.0278 0.6927 0.4885 0.0739 0.0353
Contract_Type1_Part time 0.0935** 0.0276 3.3858 0.0007 0.0394 0.1477
Organizational dimension (1 5 large) 0.1739*** 0.0198 8.7714 0.0000 0.1350 0.2127
Years of work (1 5 13 years and under) 0.0152 0.0224 0.6754 0.4995 0.0288 0.0592

Outcome variable: WLB

Model summary
R R2 MSE F df1 df2 p
0.4568 0.2087 0.4119 200.8105 12 9,136 0.000
Model
Coeff SE t p LLCI ULCI

Constant 4.0300 0.0628 64.1813 0.0000 3.9069 4.1531

WH 0.2348*** 0.0210 11.1688 0.0000 0.2760 0.1936
WE 0.1227*** 0.0104 11.7876 0.0000 0.1023 0.1431
WF 0.2290*** 0.0072 31.7010 0.0000 0.2431 0.2148
Gender (1 5 female) 0.0862*** 0.0142 6.0669 0.0000 0.1141 0.0584
Age (1 5 44 years and under) 0.1472*** 0.0152 9.6550 0.0000 0.1771 0.1173
Country of birth (1 5 foreign) 0.0009 0.0211 0.0412 0.9672 0.0406 0.0423
Education 0.0445*** 0.0040 11.1878 0.0000 0.0523 0.0367
Health status 0.0724*** 0.0099 7.2807 0.0000 0.0529 0.0919
Table 5. Contract_Type2_Unlimited contract 0.0205 0.0192 1.0680 0.2856 0.0582 0.0171
The output of the serial
mediation analysis (continued )
Outcome variable: WLB
Side effects of
Model summary working from
R R2 MSE F df1 df2 p home
0.4568 0.2087 0.4119 200.8105 12 9,136 0.000
Model
Coeff SE t p LLCI ULCI

Contract_Type1_Part time 0.1844*** 0.0191 9.6630 0.0000 0.1470 0.2218

Organizational dimension (1 5 large) 0.0606*** 0.0137 4.4118 0.0000 0.0876 0.0337
Years of work (1 5 13 years and under) 0.0188 0.0155 1.2109 0.2260 0.0116 0.0491

Direct and indirect effects OF WH ON WLB

Direct effect of WH on WLB
Effect SE t p LLCI ULCI
0.2348 0.0210 11.168 0.0000 0.2760 0.1936
Indirect effect of WH on WLB
Effect Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULCI

Total 0.0350 0.0083 0.0514 0.0187

WH– > WE– > WLB 0.0137 0.0027 0.0087 0.0190
WH– > WF– > WLB 0.0549 0.0075 0.0695 0.0402
WH– > WE– > WF– > WLB 0.0063 0.0012 0.0040 0.0087
Note(s): ***: significant at the 0.001 level; **: significant at the 0.01 level; *: significant at the 0.05 level Table 5.

engagement was negatively and statistically related to the perception of work fatigue. Whilst
being female, having higher levels of education, and being born in a foreign country triggered
greater perceptions of work-related fatigue, health status was negatively and statistically
significantly related to WF. People with a part-time employment contract were more likely to
perceive work-related fatigue. Those who worked for larger organizations disclosed lower
levels of WF.
Working from home was found to be negatively and significantly related to work-life
balance. As reported in hypothesis 1, home-based telecommuters were more likely to
experience both work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts. In a similar way, work-related fatigue
triggered lower work-life balance, thus supporting hypothesis 6a. Work engagement was
positively related to WLB. Upholding hypothesis 3a, people who disclosed greater levels of
work absorption, dedication and vigor were less likely to report work-to-life and life-to-work
conflicts. Gender was negatively and significantly related to work-life balance, with women
showing greater problems in handling the work-life interface. Education was negatively
associated with WLB. Alternatively, both age and health status were positively related to the
respondents’ ability to manage the interplay between work and life. People who had a part-
time employment reported better work-life balance than their counterparts.
In sum, telecommuting from home was found to have a negative and statistically
significant direct effect on work-life balance. Some intriguing insights were provided by
indirect effects mediated by WE and WF. On the one hand, the introduction of WE as a
mediating variable had a positive effect on the relationship between telecommuting from
home and work-life balance, involving lower conflicts between work commitments and
everyday life: this supported hypothesis 3b. On the other hand, as assumed in hypothesis 6b,
the introduction of WF as a mediating variable propelled the negative effects of working from
home on the ability of employees to manage the work-life interplay. As forecasted by
hypothesis 6c, the indirect serially mediated effect was positive, with work engagement
altering the implications of working from home on both work-related fatigue and work-life
balance. Nevertheless, the total indirect effect was negative, confirming the side effects of
IJPSM telecommuting from home on work-life balance. Figure 3 graphically shows the main study
findings, depicting the relationships between the constructs contemplated in this research.

5. Discussion
Table 6 summarizes the main outcomes of research hypotheses’ testing. Telecommuting from
home had side effects on the work-life balance of remote workers, supporting hypothesis 1.
Even though working from home has been largely understood as an opportunity to achieve
greater work-life balance through increased plasticity of working arrangements (Felstead
et al., 2002), the overlapping between work commitments and private affairs triggered by
working at home involves drawbacks on the employees’ ability to manage the boundaries
between work and life (Crosbie and Moore, 2004). This is especially true for those categories of
people who are more exposed to family-related duties, such as parents and people caring for
elderly relatives (Wheatley, 2012). In these circumstances, working from home paves the way

Figure 3.
A graphical overview
of the research findings

#
Hypothesis Contents Result

H1 Telecommuting from home negatively affects the work-life balance of remote Supported
workers, increasing life-to-work and work-to-life conflicts
H2 Telecommuting from home positively influences the work engagement of remote Supported
workers, boosting work-related absorption, dedication, and vigour
H3a Work engagement positively affects the work-life balance of employees, Supported
involving better sensations with the individual ability to manage the work-life
interplay
H3b Work engagement positively mediates the relationship between telecommuting Supported
from home and work-life balance, triggering an increased ability to manage the
work-life interface
H4 Telecommuting from home has side effects on remote workers’ fatigue due to Supported
intensification and extensification of work efforts
H5 Work engagement reduces the remote employees’ perception of work-related Supported
fatigue and supports their recovery ability
H6a Work-related fatigue has negative effects on the employees’ ability to manage Supported
the work-life balance
H6b Work-related fatigue mediates the implications of home-based telecommuting on Supported
work-life balance, so that the side effects of the former on the latter are worst
H6c Work engagement and work-related fatigue serially mediate the effects of Supported
Table 6. working from home on work-life balance, so that the negative implications of the
The hypotheses testing former on the latter are hampered
for both work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts, that undermine the ability of home-based Side effects of
telecommuters to handle the interplay between work and everyday life (Visser and Williams, working from
2006). This emphasizes the intrinsic contradictions of working from home, which may imperil
– rather than improve – the work-life balance of remote employees (Johnson et al., 2007).
home
In spite of these considerations, as forecasted by hypothesis 2, teleworking from home had
positive implications in terms of remote workers’ work engagement. People who worked at
home showed greater levels of work-related absorption, dedication and vigor (Palumbo et al.,
2020). The increased work engagement of teleworkers is boosted by the perception of
organizational support that is generally associated with the flexibilization of working
arrangements (Jin and McDonald, 2017). Besides, work engagement results from a better
alignment between individual needs and organizational requirements, increasing the
individual dedication to work (Zafari et al., 2019).
As assumed by hypothesis 3a and hypothesis 3b, work engagement reduces the feeling of
interferences and inconsistencies between work-related commitments and everyday life
(Bakker and Leiter, 2010). From this point of view, it is thought to diminish the perceived
severity of work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts and to strengthen organizational commitment
(Al Mehrzi and Kumar Singh, 2016). In other words, work engagement positively mediates the
negative implications of home-based telecommuting on work-life balance, sustaining the
employees’ self-reported ability to manage the work-life interplay (Attridge, 2009).
It is worth noting that teleworking from home involved both an extensification and an
intensification of work, supporting hypothesis 4. That is to say, home-based telecommuting
usually brings with itself an overworking culture (Walsh, 2005), which nurtures greater work
efforts and, consequently, increased work-related fatigue (Tremblay, 2002). In turn, work-
related fatigue implies an impaired ability to manage the individual workload due to frequent
and demanding time-pressures, which undermine the individual work-life balance (Nilsson
et al., 2017). In line with these arguments, as reported in hypothesis 6a and hypothesis 6b,
work fatigue has a negative mediating effect on the relationship between telecommuting from
home and work-life balance, generating greater conflicts between work and everyday life
activities (Kossek et al., 2010).
Work engagement involves a more positive image of work among people who decide to
telecommute from home, which is produced by the greater absorption and dedication to job-
related commitments (M€ uller and Niessen, 2019). Enhancing the individual feelings of self-
efficacy at work, work engagement is expected to reduce the perception of work-related
fatigue and to curtail the side-effects of remotely working from home on emotional and
physical exhaustion (van den Heuvel, 2013; Fujimoto et al., 2016). Confirming hypothesis 5
and hypothesis 6c, work engagement and work-related fatigue were found to serially mediate
the implications of telecommuting from home on work-life balance, reducing the perceptions
of work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts that are produced by an overlapping of work-related
commitments and everyday life activities (Palumbo et al., 2020).
Several limitations affected the reliability of the study findings reported above. First, the
use of secondary data did not allow us to tailor the process of data collection to the specific
purposes of this research. However, the sixth EWCS was a consistent and reliable source of
information, which permitted us to get a comprehensive overview of the implications of
home-based telecommuting on work-life balance in a large sample of European public sector
employees. Second, the cross-sectional approach adopted in this article was useful to obtain a
snapshot of the direct and indirect effects of telecommuting from home on work-life balance.
Nevertheless, it did not illuminate the longitudinal interactions between these two
phenomena. Lastly, yet importantly, since the main variables contemplated in this study
were self-reported by respondents, it is possible that subjective biases influenced the
dependability of the research findings. In spite of this consideration, the outputs of the
statistical checks ensure the consistency of this article.
IJPSM Further developments are required to unravel the direct and indirect implications of
working from home on work-life balance. On the one hand, longitudinal empirical research is
needed to enhance our understanding of the side effects of home-based teleworking on work-
life balance. In fact, longitudinal analyses are likely to shed lights into the factors that trigger
work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts, thus advancing what we currently know about the
drawbacks of telecommuting from home on work-life balance. On the other hand, additional
in-depth qualitative research focusing on individual experiences with home-based
teleworking is necessary to obtain clearer and more compelling evidence on the micro-level
determinants of contamination between work-related commitments and everyday life
activities. Such qualitative research is expected to provide some food for thought to address
the negative effects of home-based teleworking on the ability of remote workers to effectively
manage the boundaries between work and life.

6. Conclusions
The research implications are threefold. From a conceptual perspective, the study findings
emphasize that telecommuting from home may have drawbacks on the employees’ ability to
handle the interplay between work and life. Confounding the boundaries between job duties
and private activities, home-based teleworking nurtures role ambiguity, which paves the way
for work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts. The overlapping between work and life engenders an
intensification and an extensification of work and nonwork efforts, which spiral the perceived
fatigue of remote employees. It is worth noting that people with a strong work engagement may
be unaware of the encroachment of work into everyday life. However, whilst they perceive
lower levels of work-life conflicts, they can suffer from overwork, which endangers their ability
to address the work-life interface properly, thus jeopardizing the individual well-being.
Embracing a practical standpoint, it is argued that the arrangement of flexible working
arrangements that allow employees to work from home should include a careful consideration
of the interplay between work and life. Tailored precautions should be undertaken in order to
avoid that a greater autonomy of employees over the spatio-temporal context of work would
entail an invasion of work-related worries into everyday life activities. This is especially true for
those categories of people who disclose a greater sense of work-related absorption, dedication
and vigor. Actually, employees with a strong work engagement are likely to overlook the work-
life unbalance that is triggered by home-based telecommuting, being exposed to work-overload
and exhaustion.
Adopting a managerial slant, the research findings suggest that remote working from
home may exacerbate the feelings of work-related fatigue perceived by employees. Actually,
it involves greater willingness to work during unusual times, which may be the implicit
consequence of the remote employees’ inability to manage the work-life interface. To deal
with this situation, specific human resource management practices tailored to the needs of
remote workers should be designed, recognizing the special challenges that affect the
activities and the performances of people who remotely work from home.

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Corresponding author
Rocco Palumbo can be contacted at: rocco.palumbo@uniroma2.it

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