Better balance comes with telework

How many hours a week do you put in working before you start to notice that it’s interfering with your personal life?

According to a study by Brigham Young University, if you’re a teleworker with flexible hours, that point is 19 hours after your office-bound counterparts have called it a week.

Office workers said they noticed a conflict after 38 hours per week compared to teleworkers’ 57 hours per week.

There is one hitch though.

Lead study author E. Jeffrey Hill, a professor in BYU’s School of Family Life, notes “telecommuting is really only beneficial for reducing work-life conflict when it is accompanied by flextime.”

The study looked at data from 24,436 IBM employees in 75 countries and also found telecommuting’s benefits were apparent among both genders. “Men are as likely as women to use flexible work arrangements,” Hill said.

The study, titled “Finding an Extra Day or Two,” will appear in the June issue of the Journal of Family Psychology.

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