Working from home and work-life balance: Relationship and links to job satisfaction and organizational commitment

Balancing between professional and personal life became a challenge with social isolation and the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic. An almost overnight shift to working from home eliminated the physical boundaries between work and private life and altered the work-life balance of many. With the withdrawal of pandemic waves, companies have started adapting to the pandemic-free world. The person-environment fit theory emphasizes the fit between person and environment by indicating that ensuring a match between those is required for desirable outcomes, furthers that disruptions to the fit end up with a change in intention and necessity for parties. This study aimed to explore the relationship between work-life balance and working from home and how it influences job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The pragmatic paradigm framework combines survey and in-depth interview data to understand the participants' working from home experiences, work-life balance, and relationships. The results demonstrate that working from home improves work-life balance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Moreover, the positive influence of work-life balance on job satisfaction and organizational commitment is shown. The study also indicated that remote work causes more damaged work-life for women than men. While the centuries-old workplace habits are reshaping with the recovery from the pandemic, more research about remote work and work-life balance is needed to sustain fit in business life.