Work/Life Balance

Wall Street Journal article lists apps to help with work-life balance

Article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed covers how professors teach from home.

Very few studies have examined issues of work-life balance among faculty of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Utilizing data from Harvard University's Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education project, this study examined predictors of work-life balance for 2953 faculty members from 69 institutions. The final sample consisted of 1059 (36%) Asian American faculty, 512 (17%) African American faculty, 359 (12%) Latina/o faculty, and 1023 (35%) White/Caucasian faculty. There were 1184 (40%) women faculty and 1769 (60%) men faculty. The predictors of worklife balance included faculty characteristics, departmental/institutional characteristics and support, and faculty satisfaction with work. While African American women faculty reported less work-life balance than African American men, the reverse was true for Latina/o faculty. In addition, White faculty who were single with no children were significantly less likely to report having work-life balance than their married counterparts with children. Faculty rank was a significant positive predictor of work-life balance for all faculty. Notably, the findings highlight the importance of department and institutional support for making personal/family obligations and an academic career compatible. Institutional support for making personal/family obligations and an academic career compatible was consistently the strongest positive predictor of perceived work-life balance for all faculty. In addition, satisfaction with time spent on research had positive associations with work-life balance for all faculty, highlighting how faculty from all racial/ethnic backgrounds value being able to spend enough time on their own research.

This article from The Atlantic describes how workers strive for work-life balance.

Social mobility and physical restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have posed a severe challenge to operate under conventional nine to five work practices in a physical office setting. As a coping strategy for the survival of business, economy, and livelihoods, certain organisations were compelled to transform to virtual office platforms. This was a sudden transformation of work practices and consequently, impacting with mixed outcomes on lifestyles of workers. Given that very limited studies have shed light into the context, this study contributes immensely to fill research gap. The main objective of this study is to identify the impact of the virtual office platform on work-life balance in the Sri Lankan context. The methodology adopted for this study is quantitative. An online questionnaire to collect data was primarily distributed to employees in the virtual platform. Analysis of this study is based on three regression models and results ascertain that both working and non-working environments have highly significant impact on the work-life balance, although non-working environment has a bigger influence on work balance (Gender and no of children). Findings are useful and unique, enabling both employers and employees to adopt a focused approach to maximize the potential of virtual platforms to enhance employee well-being so that mutual benefits can be materialized

This Harvard Business Review article delves into maintaining work/life balance for those now working from home.

Huffpost article discusses the difference between mindfulness and work-life balance.

While academic jobs generally provide a good degree of flexibility, academics also tend to work extra hours which can then lead to a poorer work-life balance. In this study, we compare academic versus nonacademic staff and anticipate that academics will generally report a poorer quality of working life, a broad conceptualization of the overall work experience of employees. Second, we investigate whether the negative relationships between being an academic and quality of working life variables are made worse by working extra hours, and moderated by the perception of having a balanced work-life interface. Our sample consisted of 1,474 academic and 1,953 nonacademic staff working for 9 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom. Data were analyzed via structural equation modeling. Results showed that academics tend to report a poorer quality of working life than nonacademics within HEIs, and this is exacerbated by their higher reported number of extra hours worked per week. The work-life balance of employees was found to moderate the negative relationships between academics (vs. nonacademics) in variables such as perceived working conditions and employee commitment. We additionally found curvilinear relationships where employees who worked up to 10 extra hours were more satisfied with their job and career and had more control at work than those who either did not work extra hours or worked for a higher number of extra hours. These results extend previous research and provide new insights on work-life balance among academics and nonacademics, which in turn may be relevant for the well-being practices of HEIs and wider HE policymaking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Bloomberg news article addresses how many who are working from home during COVID-19 struggle with feeling overworked.

Harvard Business Review article discusses implications of pandemic on work/life balance.

If you're struggling to achieve work-life balance, you're not alone. Understand how to better manage your time, detach from work and care for yourself.

Article from everyday health offers tips for self-care while working from home.

Article from Mindful.org offers strategies to find balanced in a virtual workspace.