In employees’ favour or not?—The impact of virtual office platform on the work-life balances

Social mobility and physical restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have posed a severe challenge to operate under conventional nine to five work practices in a physical office setting. As a coping strategy for the survival of business, economy, and livelihoods, certain organisations were compelled to transform to virtual office platforms. This was a sudden transformation of work practices and consequently, impacting with mixed outcomes on lifestyles of workers. Given that very limited studies have shed light into the context, this study contributes immensely to fill research gap. The main objective of this study is to identify the impact of the virtual office platform on work-life balance in the Sri Lankan context. The methodology adopted for this study is quantitative. An online questionnaire to collect data was primarily distributed to employees in the virtual platform. Analysis of this study is based on three regression models and results ascertain that both working and non-working environments have highly significant impact on the work-life balance, although non-working environment has a bigger influence on work balance (Gender and no of children). Findings are useful and unique, enabling both employers and employees to adopt a focused approach to maximize the potential of virtual platforms to enhance employee well-being so that mutual benefits can be materialized.