Work, life and COVID-19: a rapid review and practical recommendations for the post-pandemic workplace

Abstract

Remote working because of the COVID-19 pandemic has eroded boundaries between work and home, necessitating the need to evaluate the long-term impacts of these changes and mitigate any negative effects on workers' work-life experiences. To do so, we reviewed and examined work-life research published since the start of the pandemic. The review yielded a sample of 303 work-life scholarly articles, with three common themes: 1) work-life boundaries have become more permeable, with behavior-based and time-based work-life conflict emerging as the more salient forms of work-life conflict; 2) technical work demands have increased, as employees grapple with techno-invasion, techno-overload and techno-complexity; and 3) psychological and emotional work demands have intensified. Based on these key findings, we call for multi-level and multi-agency responses to deal with the complex, diverse nature of work-life demands. Specifically, we offer recommendations at the individual-, team/organizational- and societal/governmental-levels to enhance employees' work and non-work lives after the pandemic.