Editorial
Research Report
The State of the Digital Workplace
Working from home brings a wide range of benefits, from improved employee engagement, lower stress and greater work-life balance. It's no surprise that so many employees value it, often above anything else. As the COVID-19 pandemic reminded us, however, it's not always so easy when everyone in the household is operating from home.
When both partners work from home, it can be a frustrating experience for both parties, according to research from the University of New South Wales. Although, as is often the case, the researchers found the toll is heavier on the woman.
The Problem With Always-On Devices
A lot of the tension arises from the intrusion of work into family time as a result of the constant interruptions of our digital devices. The researchers refer to the concept as "ICT permeability."
This is a well-documented issue when we work from home, but the researchers show that it's even more problematic when both partners work from home.
The research, which tracked 117 dual-earner couples over 10 working days, revealed a paradox at the heart of remote work: the same technology that strains family relationships also boosts job performance.
Rather than relying on one-off surveys, the researchers used "experience sampling," asking participants to respond to questionnaires three times a day for a fortnight. This approach captures the granular reality of work-from-home life — the Zoom call that runs into dinner time, the email answered whilst helping children with homework, the late-night Slack message that cannot wait until morning.
The Upside and the Downside of Round-the-Clock Availability
What they found challenges the conventional wisdom that checking work emails during family time is uniformly harmful. Yes, such "permeability" leads to "ICT fatigue" — exhaustion born of constant connectivity. ICT fatigue, in turn, causes people to avoid technology altogether and creates friction with their partners. Conservation of Resources theory, which underpins the study, suggests that humans have finite cognitive and emotional reserves. When these are depleted by round-the-clock availability, something must give.
Yet the same behavior that drains family resources appears to replenish work ones. Employees who used technology for work purposes during family time reported greater progress towards their professional goals. This progress correlated with higher work engagement and job satisfaction. The explanation, the researchers suggest, lies in autonomy and control. The flexibility to address work matters when it suits, even if that happens to be during nominal family time, allows people to optimize their productivity.
For dual-earner couples, who now represent the majority of American households with children, these trade-offs are particularly acute. Both partners face competing demands from two careers and domestic responsibilities. Yet the expectations diverged on where each partner should devote their focus: men typically faced more pressure to fulfill work needs while women are expected to fulfill family demands.
"Women are often responsible for invisible labour — unnoticed and undervalued work at home that includes household chores, childcare and emotional support for family members,” wrote the researchers.
The coordination required, such as who manages the morning video call whilst the other supervises breakfast, whose deadline takes precedence when childcare falls through, makes them a crucible for understanding modern work-life dynamics.
What This Means for Remote Work Policies
The findings have implications for how companies approach remote work policies. More than a quarter of professional jobs in America will be remote by the end of 2026, and the trend shows no signs of reversing. Yet many firms treat after-hours technology use as either wholly acceptable or entirely forbidden. The reality, according to the research, is more nuanced.
Organizations might do better to help employees manage permeability rather than eliminate it. That could mean clearer guidelines about when immediate responses are necessary, or training managers to respect boundaries whilst acknowledging that different people draw those boundaries differently. Some employees may prefer to work intensively during traditional hours and disconnect completely afterwards; others might spread their work across the day, interleaving professional and personal tasks.
There remains, of course, much to understand. The research didn't explore how these dynamics vary across different types of work, nor did it examine whether the trade-offs differ for parents versus childless couples.
What is clear is that the genie of remote work will not return to its bottle. The challenge is not to restore some mythical separation between work and home. That ship sailed with the arrival of the smartphone. Rather, it is to help people navigate permeability in ways that preserve both productivity and peace of mind. As the researchers note, we cannot avoid technology use during family time any more than we can avoid family demands during work hours. The question is how to manage the constant presence of both without being consumed by either.
For now, millions of dual-earner couples are conducting their own experiments, one Zoom call and dinner interruption at a time. The screens that connect them to colleagues also distance them from partners. The tools that boost their careers also strain their relationships. Finding balance in this doubled world may be the defining challenge of modern professional life.
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