Well-being and mental health issues have been high on the agenda for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic. One particular aspect where problems have been seen to arise is among people obliged to work from home where the normal day-to-day interactions of the workplace were suddenly withdrawn from their lives. A team from Brunei has looked at well-being theory in this context and discusses their findings in the International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion.
Muhamad Azuwan Juna, Muhammad Anshari, Norainie Ahmad, and Mahani Hamdan of the Universiti Brunei Darussalam explain how well-being theory considers five variables involved in a person flourishing or otherwise: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Taken as a whole these variables are often abbreviated as the trademarked term PERMA. The term comes from the writings of psychologist and self-help author Martin Seligman (b. 1942).
The researchers point out that the research evaluation of PERMA and finding the optimal state is lacking, particularly during the COVID-19 period when countless people were either furloughed or obliged to work from home. The changes applied to the public and private sectors, the team adds. Some research has suggested that for many people working from home there are many perceived benefits, including increased productivity, job satisfaction, reduced stress, improved work-life balance, and better mental health. For others, the reverse was seen and for yet others, the picture was unclear. There were, of course, conflicts and problems for many people forced to work from home in terms of work environment, the intercalation of work into family life, communication problems, work intensity, and other personal and working issues. One important finding in the current work was perceived equity between the genders, an issue where there is commonly enormous disparities in the conventional workplace.
The team concludes that the work-from-home ethos, beyond the pandemic, can be beneficial for both employer and employee, but employers need to ensure that the new-normal if it is sustained must be beneficial to both sides or be revised markedly to ensure that it is. Productivity and positive work outcomes must be upheld but not at the price of compromising the well-being and mental health of the employee.
Juna, M.A., Anshari, M., Ahmad, N. and Hamdan, M. (2022) ‘Working from home, COVID-19 and multi-dimensional model of well-being theory’, Int. J. Work Organisation and Emotion, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp.230–259.