The Key to Work–Life Balance is (Enriched) Job Design? Three-Way Interaction Effects with Formalization and Adaptive Personality Characteristics

The COVID-19 outbreak has blurred the boundaries between work and personal life, making the concept of work–life balance (WLB) even more important. Based on a three-source (employees, family members, and supervisors) sample (n = 436) of working professionals, we investigated the importance of enriched job design for employee WLB. In addition, on the basis of the job demand-control (JD-C) model, we examined whether organizationally imposed formalization and employees’ individual adaptive personality traits (proactive personality and resilience) act as boundary conditions that strengthen this positive relationship. First, we conducted a supplementary analysis to investigate further which of the enriched job design characteristics play the most important role in our three-way interaction models predicting WLB. Then we discuss implications for theory and practice.