King's College London

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has found that home-worker’s perceptions of their workload and their ability to switch off after the working day are among a list of factors associated with health and wellbeing related behaviours.

The research, published in Behavioural Sciences, highlights how there can be clear positives to home working when there are organisational policies in place that support practices conducive to a worker’s health and wellbeing.

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown led to a sharp rise in home working among employees that would normally be office based. While extensive research has been conducted on promoting health and wellbeing among office workers, public health initiatives have largely overlooked the potential impact of home-working on health.

Researchers in this study wanted to establish the acute psychological effects of home-working on health and wellbeing related behaviours to better understand how these responses interact with one another.

491 participants were survey on a range of psychological responses to home working practices and health related behaviours, including measuring how capable home-workers were able to transform workspaces, the amount of time they remained sedentary during the working day, and the quality of their sleep. Analyses revealed the psychological responses to home-working practices to group into four distinct clusters:

1. Home-working independence
2. Home-working transition
3. Daily work pressure
4. Work-day forecast

Dr Samuel Keightley, the study’s first author from King’s IoPPN said, "This study illustrates that home-working exhibits similar but unique patterns, highlighting distinct responses to home-working practices that influence the health and wellbeing of home-based workers. These findings underscore the need to better understand and adjust home-working practices to support healthy behaviours and overall wellbeing.”  

Researchers established a complex picture of associated behaviours. A worker’s perception of their workload manageability, an inability to feel like they can switch off in the evening, and a lack of autonomy all had cascading effects on health behaviours such as sitting and physical activity, and aspects of work-related wellbeing such as stress and burnout. In contrast, participants who said that they were able to plan their working day had increased job satisfaction and wellbeing as well as a reduction in work-related and overall sedentary behaviour.

Dr Myanna Duncan, an Associate Professor in Occupational Psychology at King’s IoPPN and the study’s senior author said, “This study does not conclude that home working is inherently good or bad. Home working has the potential to negatively impact certain health behaviors, which in the longer term could result in increased levels of stress and burnout. Equally, those participants who felt they had greater autonomy over their working day were associated with greater satisfaction and better health behaviours.

“If home working is to continue, it is vital that public health initiatives reflect the nuanced stressors that they can present to ensure that the benefits are maximised.”

 

Psychological responses to home-working practices: A network analysis of relationships with health behaviour and wellbeing (DOI 10.3390/bs14111039) (Samuel Keightley, Ayla Pollmann, Benjamin Gardner, & Myanna Duncan) was published in Behavioral Sciences. 

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