Imagine a primary school teacher named John. Because his career has started a few years ago, he changes school and class level each year. As a consequence, he usually has to prepare his courses during summer vacations. In addition, everyday, after his work schedules, he must correct exercices his students wrote, adapt the courses he has prepared during holiday to the real level of his students and do administrative obligations. Before, he did all of this in his classroom after the students were gone and he came back home without nothing to do. But now he can’t because his class is used by after-school activities. So he comes back home with work. John’s children were happy to see their father come back earlier but he can’t really take care of them because he still has work to do. And when he chooses to prioritize his family life, he must work lately so he is tired and less effective at work. We could actually say John doesn’t manage well his work-home balance.
Studying this concept has become more important than ever because we are now in a connected world. Indeed, new communication technologies, especially the Internet and smartphones, raise the possibility to work at home and after work schedules. Teleworking is also a new way of working which is regularly facilitated and promoted by companies and government. Consequently, because private life and work life are no longer separated, we must consider the concept of work-home balance as an important topic to study.
While some researchs (Carlson, Kacmar and Williams, 2000) only consider conflicts between private & professional lives, Closon (2012) chooses to talk about a work-home interface. This interface allows both negative and positive exchanges from work life to private life and from private life to work life. In our example, John, the teacher, has negative effects on his family life and on his effectiveness at work because he can’t handle both obligations. Nevertheless, he also could find positive effects like an easiness to educate his children thanks to the knowledge his studies and his work gave him, or convenience to understand his students because of what he learnt about children as a father before becoming a teacher.
Psychology researchs have explained that the work-home interface has an impact on job satisfaction (Chen, Brown, Bowers and Chang, 2015 ; Lourel, Gana and Wawrzyniak, 2005 ; Wolfram and Gratton, 2014). This impact is observed especially in case of negative effects and is increased when the subjects have a family life. In other words, people with a bad work-home interface are more dissatisfied by their work than other ones. Aside from this effect, the work-home interface also influences the work commitment (Carlson, Kacmar and Williams, 2000). Indeed, people who experience negative effects are less devoted to their companies and resign more easily. In addition to these effects on professional sphere, the interface has an impact on people’s health. As a mater of fact, researchs explain that a negative work-home interface raises perceived stress (Lourel and Guéguin, 2007) and can generate psychosomatic disorders and difficulties in falling, it can also facilitate burnout (Geurts, Rutte, and Peeters, 1999).
Link to part 2 : http://blogspedago.univ-nantes.fr/psychologyinenglish/2017/11/13/the-work-home-interface-part-2/
My name is Stephane and I’m 27 years old.
I’m from the north of France but i live in Nantes since I started studying Psychology in 2008. Three years ago, I became a primary school teacher but I later chose to finish my Psychology studies. Indeed, I want to become a Human Resource consultant after graduation