Why working from home is tougher than an office job

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With no commute, unlimited tea breaks and no need to look smart, it sounds like a dream job.

But working from home can be more exhausting than going to the office, according to a study.

Home workers struggle to escape the strains of family life and find that the amount of time they spend at home makes domestic disputes worse, U.S. researchers discovered.

And while technology has made it easier than ever to work remotely, those who get stressed in an office simply get more stressed if they work from home.

Professor Tim Golden from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York studied more than 300 workers at a big computer company, including those who were based in the office and those who spent some or all of their time working from home.

The workers were asked to rate their levels of family conflict and their work-life balance.

As many as four in five reported feeling stressed about not being able to achieve the perfect work-life balance - and working from home only made this worse.

The report said: "The more work and family demands conflicted, the more people suffered from exhaustion.

"Those with already high levels of work-family conflicts suffered higher exhaustion when they spent extensive time working from home."

While teleworking is meant to reduce the problems associated with spending long hours away from family, sometimes being able to get out of the house lets the worker recharge their batteries, the researchers concluded.

- Daily Mail