ABSTRACT
The current global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an exceptional crisis with wide-ranging health and economic impacts. To facilitate the containment of the COVID-19 diffusion, national policies on social distancing were immediately adopted in most European countries in March 2020. Among the first measures implemented, working from home has been one of the most important. Throughout the world, the COVID-19 related mandatory policy of working remotely has transformed private spaces in workplaces (“home offices”). Despite scholars, policy makers, and managers highlighted the positive benefits associated with working from home, including improved family and work balance, decreases in fatigue and better productivity, this forced change created by the pandemic revealed a different picture. In fact, both employees and organisations were not prepared to this sudden change and not all occupational groups easily adapted to working from home. As economies begin to reopen, workers, managers, and organisations raised questions about the potential return to formal work environments and the implications for employees to reduce remote working. Pre-pandemic meta-analyses showed that high levels of negative work–home spillover can lead to lower job and life satisfaction, greater stress, higher rates of depression, and greater burnout. In the pandemic scenario, many studies highlighted that working from home may negatively have impacted workers’ mental and physical health due to extended hours, lack of clear boundaries between work and home, and lack of support from organisations. The potential effects of negative work/home spillover when working from home on burnout are serious, both for the workers and for organisations. This chapter provides a theoretical framework for this relationship between burnout and work/home spillover.
