The medium-term perceived impact of work from home on life and work domains of knowledge workers during COVID-19 pandemic: A survey at the National Research Council of Italy

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to investigate perceptions and determinants of the overall impact on life and work domains among a community of knowledge workers after 18 months of forced work from home due to the pandemic. METHODS: A cross-sectional study with a retrospective assessment was conducted early in 2022 at the National Research Council of Italy. Five single-item questions explored the perceived impact on life domain while a 7-item scale the impact on the work domain. Bivariate analyses and multivariate regressions were used to evaluate the associations between impacts and some key factors defined by 29 ad hoc closed questions. RESULTS: More than 95% of the 748 respondents reported a perceived change in at least one item of the life domain. For each of these items, although a large group of subjects has reported that working from home had no impact (from 27 to 55%), in the rest of the sample the positive evaluation (from 30 to 60%) clearly prevailed over the negative one. Overall, most of the subjects (64%) rated the impact on the work experience positively. Relationship with colleagues and participation in the work context were the items where the greatest number of negative rates was concentrated (27 and 25%, respectively). On the other hand, positive perceptions prevailed over both negative perceptions and lack of impact perceptions on the subjects of organizational flexibility and quality of work. The frequency of work-room sharing, home-work commute time and changes in sedentary lifestyle, have been identified as common explanatory factors of perceived impacts on both domains. CONCLUSION: Overall, respondents reported positive rather than negative perceived impacts of forced work from home in both their lives and work. The obtained results suggest that policies to promote the physical and mental health of employees, strengthen inclusion and maintain a sense of community are necessary to improve workers' health and prevent the effects of perceived isolation on research activities.