The Work–Life Interface in a Situation of Forced Employee Flexibility

Abstract

The COVID–19 experience has clearly shown that flexibility in the context of work is not uniform. Modifying one work parameter affects another. Companies considering staying remote should analyze the broader context of this change. In the article, the focus is on the cross–contamination of spheres of life in a situation of forced flexibility, in which employees had had to reorganize their ways of working almost overnight. By adopting a phenomenological approach, on the basis of qualitative research conducted using the Individual In–depth Interview (IDI) method during the lockdown period (March–April 2020), an attempt was made to develop a semantic and operational description of the coexistence of professional and private life subject to these specific conditions, assuming that they act as an accelerator for phenomena and processes related to the flexibility of organizational behavior. Based on the criterion of separateness of spheres of life and an individual’s activity in their management, four types of Work–Life Interfaces were distinguished as a consequence of the analysis of empirical material.