The Work-Home Border Accounting System: A Function of Psychological Detachment

Abstract

COVID-19 transformed work arrangements by increasing the adoption of the work-from-home format. Work-from-home employees are susceptible to continuous job stressors and the permeability of the work-to-home border. Psychological detachment serves as the pathway to recovery from job stressors and for preventing the carryover of work thoughts into the home domain during non-work time. Therefore, this review presents theoretical and practical implications for work-to-home border management by integrating literature about psychological detachment and work-from-home. Work-home border accounting involves examining and minimizing conditions that inhibit psychological detachment, e.g., ICTs demand, overtime, telepressure, interruptions, etc., which are withdrawals from employees' energy or resource accounts, while facilitating psychological detachment through deposits which are non-work activities such as leisure, social support, exercises, etc. This article proposes the work-home border accounting system for managing the work-to-home border. The review suggests the resources employees accumulate through psychological detachment, e.g., wellbeing, life satisfaction, and work-life balance, and the deficits employees accrue if there is a shortfall of deposits required for psychological detachment, e.g., stress, low productivity, work-family conflict, etc. Hence, this article provides a coherent understanding of the processes necessary for psychological detachment during work-from-home.