Working from home: Will you marry... me and my hybrid workstation?

Two university researchers examined the different tactics working Kiwi couples used to make hybrid work situations suit them. Photo / Getty Images

Most businesses nationwide offer flexible working hours to employees, Stats NZ said today.

But a new study assessed the impacts of hybrid work on the home life of couples.

“We looked into the different tactics working couples use to make their hybrid work situations suit them,” University of Auckland researcher Dr Joanne Mutter from the University of Auckland said.

She and Associate Professor Kaye Thorn of Massey have investigated the experiences of professional couples who worked from home and in the office.

“When it comes to managing working at home with your significant other, Mutter says it’s valuable to determine whether your partner is an ‘integrator’ or a ‘separator’.”

Mutter said hybrid workers tended to fall into two categories - either the person who was happy to integrate everything, answering emails at night and then going to the supermarket during the day, “or you will be a person who likes to keep life and work very separate.”

Mutter said one woman who was very much a so-called segregator said of her partner: “He goes back to work at nights, so I may as well too.”

But that could be unhealthy from a wellbeing or life satisfaction perspective, so couples should talk about how to better manage the situation.

The researchers found some couples were taking extreme actions, such as moving house, because they realised the importance of having separate spaces.

“They wanted working from home together to be sustainable, so moving house was considered appropriate for some.”

Other couples repurposed spare bedrooms and garages or renovated for hybrid working.

For people who did not have a dedicated office, new “rites of passage” were important, Mutter said.

“Activities such as leaving the home office in the garage, walking around the block and entering the house served as that circuit breaker that was once the commute.”

Turning off from work was another issue the couples found themselves managing, according to the study.

Mutter said some people would write themselves a list of tasks for the next day. Others, when making dinner, would have an end-of-workday catch-up.

“People need to harness these kinds of strategies, or else they won’t turn off. You might think: ‘Ooh, I’ve got all this flexibility, so it’s good for my work-life balance, therefore it must be good for my wellbeing’.”

But if work-life flexibility meant someone was constantly thinking about work, then it was actually having the opposite effect.

Mutter and Thorn undertook in-depth interviews with 16 couples and found in some cases, if one person had more flexibility in their role, they tended to pick up more family and household responsibilities and so ended up with less flexibility.

Stats NZ said 90 per cent of big businesses with 100 or more employees offered flexible working hours to their employees last year.

Flexible working hours were more likely to be available in professional, scientific and technical services, information media and telecommunications.

“Larger businesses were more likely to offer health and wellbeing support, and to offer beyond what is required by law for parental leave, redundancy and illness or injury provisions,” Stats NZ business performance manager Ricky Ho said.

“More than two out of five businesses offered their employees the option of working from home and 14 percent of their staff took up this option on a working day.”

Stats NZ said in the information media and telecommunications industry, 30 percent of staff worked from home on a typical day last year.

The agency said industries less likely to offer the option of working from home included accommodation and food services and agriculture, forestry and fishing.