Rethinking Home Office, Digitalizedwork and Work-Family Interface

Dear Colleagues,

Many employees wish to have the option of working from home, but prior to the COVID-19 pandemic there was a considerable gap between demand and supply that still exists today (Chung & Van der Lippe, 2020). Employers, supervisors, and employees were often sceptical about the practibality of this form of work. This doubt was supported by scientific evidence that indicated that its consequences were very mixed with respect to work–life balance, health, and productivity (e.g., Allen et al., 2013; Abendroth & Reimann, 2018; Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Marx et al., 2021).

It is obvious that working from home changes opportunities and risks in the work–life interface, not least because of blurred boundaries. However, whether working from home has positive or negative consequences for the work–life interface is not limited to differences between individuals but is highly dependent on how organizations implement working from home. This is related to several dilemmas to be solved when working from home, with the overarching problem of balancing flexibility needs versus regulations serving needs of predictability, transparency, reliability, and security. More specifically, the following problems must be solved in a way which is perceived as fair by those involved in the use of home-based telework: privacy at home vs. availability and performance control; the degree of social integration wanted; voluntariness vs. primacy of demands, and whether working from home is meant as unequivocal support or as an alternative to high career and income prospects for those who prioritize private needs. 

Existing evidence suffers from the problem that the analysis of positive and negative consequences has rarely been linked to different modes of implementing working from home. Whether working from home is offered or not tells us nothing about the how the dilemmas mentioned above were solved. Moreover, it remains unclear what the share of working from home of the total working time is; whether it can completely substitute work in the office, or whether it is part of hybrid arrangements requiring both to varying degrees. These questions must be answered to overcome the inconsistent and partly contradictory results from previous studies, and to give authoriative hints for what actually works. 

The pandemic has considerably diminished the preexisting reserve against working from home among managers and employers. Therefore, results from earlier periods may be outdated insofar as reluctance against working from home may be an important factor for how it works. On the other hand, results obtained during the pandemic might reflect unusual circumstances that cannot be indiscriminately transferred to a hopefully upcoming post-COVID-19 time, e.g., the lockdown restrictions as well as homeschooling. Consequently, existing studies might only be partly informative for understanding as well as designing the future of this work arrangement. This Special Issue aims to combine theoretical considerations and empirical investigations into this area. 

We are especially interested in theoretical contributions on the pros and cons of regulating working from home at the levels of legislation, corporatist rules, and single work organizations, in addition to empirical studies regarding

• the relevance of several forms of regulation on consequences of working from home;
• employees working from home but also other groups involved: employees who work in the office but cooperate with other employees working from home;
• differentiation between different implementations of working from home;
• differentiation between different groups among the workforce: gender, occupational rank, family status;
• international comparisons;
• the relevance of working from home across different outcomes including work–life balance, health, job quality, productivity, social integration, career and income;
• the specific role of the COVID-19 pandemic for the offer, use, and consequences of working from home

Prof. Dr. Martin Diewald
Dr. Mareike Reimann
Guest Editors

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• home-based telework
• working from home
• work–family interface
• organizational policies
• flexible working
• job quality
• employment relationship