COVID-19 and Working from Home: Determinants and Consequences of Work-Family and Family-Work Conflicts

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of employees worldwide to perform their full-time job tasks remotely from home. As creative performance is considered a desirable work outcome expected by organizations, the present study investigated whether the work-family and family-work conflicts mediate the relationship between job conditions experienced by employees while working from home and their creative performance. The study, carried out in Sri Lanka, featured a sample of employees in white-collar or professional positions who carried on with their full-time jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic working from home. It was found that job conditions (work characteristics, work environment and technical support) significantly negatively related to both work-family conflict and family-work conflict. In addition, the results supported the mediation hypothesis.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• family-work conflict
• work-family conflict
• telework
• work performance