Is remote work hurting or helping work/life balance?

You should always be careful what you wish for.

For years, workers have increasingly bemoaned the strictures of 9-5 office life. The commuting, the desk clumps and the forced “cultural moments” with colleagues had jumped the shark, so it seemed. Now, seven months into a pandemic that’s thrust most of the workforce into long-term remote work scenarios, all that freedom and flexibility looks a bit different.

For some, WFH has been a boon. For others, however, full-time remote work has been more of a nonstop monsoon of tasks, emails and Zooms. It all begs the question: Is WFH a sustainable framework for the future of work?

Blind, an app that provides an anonymous forum for juicy, unvarnished workplace chatter, recently asked its community of users to weigh in on WFH’s impact on work/life balance. The 230 comments (and 5,558 respondents’ votes) varied wildly, but a strong majority (57%) say working from home has “worsened” their work/life balance. Blind’s data shows:

Healthy balances and boundaries

With no end in sight to the pandemic, employers should take employees’ work/life balance very seriously. If not, you could be in for a painful season of burnout, turnover and disengagement.