Women Working From Home: Higher Performance and Satisfaction or More Stress?

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies and organisations have introduced or expanded remote work options, thus creating new opportunities for employees to organise their day-to-day work independently. However, several studies suggest that women tend to suffer more from the double burden, as working from home often leads to a revival of traditional gender roles. Special strategies and instruments are needed to optimise the work-life balance when working from home. The aim of this study was to identify gender-specific stress and success factors for remote work design in order to derive practical recommendations for companies, women and politics to optimise work performance, work-life balance and satisfaction in remote work. To reach this objective, an online survey in Germany (n = 247) examined the perceived work design competencies, individual agreements with managers, corporate culture, perceived collegial support and the relationship with colleagues. The respective influence of these variables on the perceived satisfaction, stress as well as work performance when working from home was examined. Using a multiple regression analysis, it was shown that the three factors workplace design competencies, individual agreements with managers and the relationship with colleagues have a significant influence on all of the examined dependent variables. This means that a strong manifestation of factors has an effect on higher satisfaction, better performance and lower level of perceived stress. Work design competence has the most significant influence on study participants here. Significant gender differences were also identified: on average, women report a higher level of satisfaction and a lower level of perceived stress. Based on the identified factors, the paper discusses specific recommendations for companies, women and politicians to help employees working from home cope better with the associated burdens.