Work-life balance during COVID-19 among university faculty and professional staff

The COVID-19 virus that hit Europe in in January 2020 led to lockdowns in many European countries during March 2020 including Denmark. All employees in the public sector in Denmark, except those taking care of critical functions, were obliged to work from home for longer periods during 2020 to 2022. For many employees this meant risking that the social boundaries between work and non-work could begin to dissolve. Indeed much research have shown that a negative work-life balance is an occupational safety risk factor, while other research points at a positive outcome of working from home. This paper seek to explore the connection between work-life balance and family status. Moreover, the paper scrutinizes the relationship of work-life balance and employees’ different work roles. In addition, the paper examines working at home and employees’ working relationships. The study is based on a cross sectional survey distributed among staff at a Danish university in March 2021 ranging one year back where employees worked from home most of the time. The survey is part of the university safety management system and was send to all faculty, part-time teachers and professional staff. The response rate is 64,1% (N=722). 85% of the employees worked from home most of the time while 14% both worked at home and at the university. The study found that employees struggled with work-life balance half of the time. Singles living alone with children under 18 have a significant worse work-life balance than other family types. Professional staff and part-time teachers experienced a significant worse work-life balance than faculty staff. The professional staff experienced a significant better collegiate working relationship than faculty and part-time teachers. The literature shows that there is a higher occupational risk in experiencing an enduring non-appropriate work-life balance. In this sense our study, show a negative development especially for singles living with children. On the other hand we also found a positive development in terms of sustained working relationships. Despite that professional staff experienced more work-life balance problems than faculty working from home is a new situation for much professional staff that has to be adapted over time that also offers a greater flexibility for the organizations,teams and the individual.