At its start, COVID has fully stopped work for millions of employees, causing an enormous jobless rate of 14.7% in the US alone. The pandemic has affected nearly all aspects of the labor market – from the demand and supply of the workforce to the type of work arrangement, salaries, and other factors.
Today, years after the beginning of the pandemic, we can see the unemployment rate drop to 3.9%, and we can generally say that the workforce has finally recovered. Yet, given all the changes that we’ve been through and the aftermath of the pandemic that’s still felt, we have to stress the value of reasonable work-life balance (WLB) and performance management (PM) in the post-COVID labor market.
What is performance management and work-life balance state today? Read on to learn what employees and employers think about the states of WLB and PM, their intersections, and the challenges they bring to the labor market today.
Evolution of Work-Life Balance Post-COVID
In 2018, only 20% of people employed in 25 highest-rated companies reported not being satisfied with their work-life balance. In 2020, this number grew significantly to 47% of workers who were highly dissatisfied with their work-life balance.
During the first year of COVID-19, many people were forced to start working remotely or hybridly. At first glance, this should’ve added flexibility and satisfaction (as over 80% of employees said flexible working hours would have improved their WLB). However, the lockdown and inability to live their typical social lives have definitely added more stress, causing decreasing work-life balance.
So how did post COVID work life balance change? Let’s break it down using our unique survey data.
Pre-COVID vs. Post-COVID Work-Life Balance
In order to examine the work life balance in COVID times and today, we have conducted an independent survey of 5,000 employed US adults. The goal of the survey was to gauge employees’ satisfaction with their current WLB and compare it to the COVID-19 time data.
Here’s what our Employee Satisfaction Survey on Work-Life Balance survey found:
How satisfied are you with your current work-life balance?
Very satisfied – 25.3%
Somewhat satisfied – 44.1%
Unsatisfied – 23.1%
Completely unsatisfied – 7.5%
How has your work-life balance changed since the shift to remote/hybrid work?
My WLB improved – 43.1%
My WLB didn’t change – 20.8%
My WLB worsened – 36.1%
What challenges do you face in maintaining a healthy work-life balance?
Unrealistic demands – 35.4%
Lack of work-life boundaries – 18.7%
Job insecurity – 17.43%
Lack of resources – 11.2%
Lack of training and support – 9.87%
Time management challenges – 7.4%
The COVID-induced shift to remote and hybrid work didn’t give an instant boost to employees’ WLB. Although it gave them more flexibility and cut down on extra time-wasting processes (such as transportation), the pressure of getting used to a new work environment was greater than the benefits received. Moreover, since the lockdown affected everyone, the biggest challenges were facing married and parent employees who had to reinvent the balance, having to share their workspace with spouses and children and undertake a variety of additional chores, such as homeschooling their kids. This initially led to a drop in WLB rates.
In 2024, 69.4% of employees reported being generally happy with their WLB. Years post-pandemic, most remote and hybrid workers are fully used to working from home. They’ve learned to spread their working hours throughout the day, balancing them with household chores. Yet, some challenges remain as people now expect their employers to provide better support, training, and resources to make remote work more efficient.
Impact of Remote and Hybrid Work Models
Remote and hybrid work models have two sides. On the one hand, they offer greater work flexibility. According to studies, working from home saves Americans 60 million hours daily. Employees spend this time taking care of their families and kids, handling home chores, exercising, going out, or simply getting extra hours of sleep. Needless to say, such a significant time economy greatly contributes to a healthy work-life balance.
On the other hand, such work models have been shown to impact some groups of people more adversely than others. Namely, women who work remotely tend to spend more time providing care and homeschooling their children than male employees. In some cases, this results in less tangible work-life boundaries, additional pressure, and more prominent burnout.
Technology, on the other side of the matter, has become more widely used in remote and hybrid work environments as both employees and employers rely on it more to create a smooth workflow. It has shown great potential to facilitate better WLB. When used effectively, technology allows you to streamline work-related communication, prioritize tasks wisely, and automate different processes to achieve greater productivity in less time.
Performance Management in a Changing Labor Market
All in all, studies emphasize that a healthy work-life balance leads not only to the general well-being of employees but also to better job performance. Nevertheless, the way employers set goals, distribute tasks, and measure performance has a huge impact on WLB and, respectively, on workers’ productivity.
When expectations are too high, this can often lead to a lack of motivation and eventually to burnout and decreased productivity. Hence, when talking about employees’ WLB, we cannot omit performance management.
Traditional Performance Management Approaches
The traditional performance management model is a structured, linear process that rarely takes into account any dynamic changes in the team or other individual factors that affect productivity. In most companies, it has looked the same for years:
– Employers establish big business goals at the beginning of the year;
– Top managers break down these goals to set objectives for their teams and communicate the KPIs that every employee is expected to achieve.
– Throughout the year, management monitors the individual and team performance against the defined metrics;
– Eventually, companies hold the so-called “annual performance appraisals,” during which they summarize whether each individual employee has met the set performance standards and decide on every worker’s compensation for the following year;
– For employees who underperform, managers typically develop a performance improvement plan.
Though this approach has worked for years, it has a number of problems in the current context. The primary challenges include:
– Too high expectations;
– Poor goal setting;
– Infrequent and insufficient feedback;
– Inaccuracies and biases in the evaluation process;
– Greater focus on performance closer to the end of the year.
Adapting Performance Management Post-COVID
Due to the obvious problems with traditional performance management practices, there have long been companies emphasizing the importance of redefining the PM process. Progressive employers believe that PM should be an ongoing and collaborative dialogue, unbiased assessment, and fluctuating expectations defined based on a variety of factors.
This is especially true in the modern setting where the popularity of remote and hybrid work is rising. In this setting, unclear goals, high expectations, and a lack of consistent feedback can lead to adverse effects.
Apart from assessing the impact of COVID on work life balance, we conducted a survey aimed at understanding employee perceptions of PM practices in the post-COVID era.
Here are the core findings of our Survey on Performance Management Practices:
How fair do you believe the current performance management system is?
Highly fair – 10.2%
Somewhat fair – 15%
Unfair – 48.9%
Highly unfair – 25.9%
Do you feel that the PM system adequately accounts for remote/hybrid work challenges?
Yes – 9.5%
No – 90.5%
How often do you receive feedback on your performance?
Once in a year – 36.7%
Once in 6 months – 42%
More frequently – 21.3%
Both remote and hybrid work require deeper, more effective communication between management and teams. Progressive PM with more frequent feedback can provide greater clarity on employers’ expectations and help increase employee engagement and thus, performance.
Traditional PM models, on the contrary, don’t have the trust of employees with the majority of people finding them unfair and not adjusted to remote/hybrid work environments. Hence, in the current context, we are in need of new metrics and approaches to evaluating employee performance.
The Intersection of WLB and PM: Emerging Challenges
Performance management and work-life balance are closely intersected. Progressive PM models that consider individual factors, provide relevant and frequent feedback, and set attainable goals have the potential to enhance employees’ engagement, motivation, and eventually, productivity. This can have a positive effect on workers’ WLB by keeping them more satisfied with their jobs without being forced to work extra hours to achieve unrealistic expectations.
Poor PM practices, on the contrary, can contribute to poor goal setting, poor task distribution and prioritization, and ineffective workflow. As a result, employees who work in such unproductive environments tend to have poorer WLB.
Conflicts Between Flexibility and Performance Measurement
Remote and hybrid work models imply greater autonomy for employees. It enables people to create their own work schedules and decide where they want to work. Such autonomy and flexibility offer greater job satisfaction and can lead to improved productivity. Yet, traditional PM implies set hours of work and well-defined processes that simplify performance monitoring for management. Increased employee autonomy can hinder this habitual accountability and create a certain tension.
Traditional PM processes focus mostly on the process – they measure not just what each employee has accomplished but also how much time they’ve spent on it. Remote and hybrid work, on the contrary, put focus on outcomes. It gives employees the flexibility to complete tasks whenever, wherever, and however they see it right, which also creates a conflict.
These and other conflicts can make it hard to maintain employee productivity without affecting their work-life balance. The primary challenges that arise include:
– Blurred work-life boundaries;
– Lack of time management;
– Lack of communication and feedback;
– Unrealistic expectations that may lead to overwork and burnout;
– Constant pressure to be “always on” and produce “visible work,” etc.
The solution? Balancing employee autonomy with performance expectations can be hard. But it’s possible through personalized goals, effective feedback, and clear communication. Yet, one more important point is fairness.
Equity and Fairness in Performance Evaluation
When it comes to performance management evaluation, there is a huge gap between in-office and remote/hybrid employees. Given more flexibility and freedom, the latter tend to face more bias compared to their in-office co-workers. This eventually leads to a sense of unfairness and poor job satisfaction, which affects WLB.
To identify potential biases in performance evaluations, we conducted a Remote vs. In-Office Performance Perceptions survey. Here are our key findings:
Do you believe there is a difference in how remote vs. in-office work is evaluated?
Yes – 93%
No – 7%
Have you experienced any bias in performance evaluations due to your work location?
Yes, often – 51%
Yes, occasionally – 42%
No – 7%
What improvements do you suggest to ensure fair performance evaluations?
Implement outcomes-based performance metrics – 16.7%
Ensure clear, measurable, and attainable goals – 14.9%
Facilitate frequent, thorough feedback – 13.3%
Provide adequate training to managers to address bias – 13.2%
Facilitate regular check-ins and performance reviews – 12%
Leverage technology for greater work visibility and simplified collaboration – 10.5%
Implement transparent and Consistent performance metrics – 9.8%
Foster a culture of equity, transparency, and trust – 9.6%
Due to the conflicts between performance demands and the freedom given to remote and hybrid employees, these people tend to experience frequent bias in performance assessment. Unlike in-office employees, they are expected to be more available, more proactive, and keep their work processes more visible.
Addressing this bias requires a holistic approach that targets the way employers set goals, define assessment criteria, facilitate workflow and communication, and shape the corporate culture in general.
Employee Well-being and Performance Pressure
Unrealistic expectations, unclear goals, and a lack of feedback frequently result in excessive performance pressure experienced by employees. Feeling pressured to be highly available and over-productive, workers tend to experience unbearable levels of stress. This pressure directly affects the psychological well-being of employees. In the long run, it also affects their ability to tackle workload, and results in even greater issues with both productivity and mental health.
To assess how traditional PM techniques and the performance pressure they create affect employee well-being, we asked US adults to answer a few questions concerning their work-related stress. Here’s a brief overview of our Well-Being and Work Pressure Survey:
How would you rate your current level of work-related stress?
High – 82%
Moderate – 11%
Low – 7%
Do you feel that performance expectations negatively impact your mental health?
Yes – 76%
No – 24%
What support do you need from your organization to better manage work pressure?
Mental health workshops, training, and other benefits – 27%
Measurable and attainable objectives – 19.1%
Clear and consistent feedback – 18%
Transparency and equity in performance assessment – 18%
Employee mentorship/assistance programs – 17.9%
As you can see, the survey revealed the same problems in employee well-being as were found to be the most prominent work life balance challenges during COVID and beyond, such as a lack of support. This emphasizes the growing need for open communication and support culture in organizations, as well as the need for new performance management tactics, which can help balance performance requirements and employees’ capabilities for greater outcomes.
Strategies to Address Emerging Challenges
The overall satisfaction and work-life balance has increased since COVID times. With the rise of remote and hybrid work models, more and more employees are receiving greater flexibility and autonomy in their work, which positively affects their job satisfaction.
Despite the positive impacts of remote and hybrid work, our surveys clearly indicate a myriad of challenges that are still there and might be holding remote workers back from doing their best at work, while also maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
In this part of our article, we’ll review some promising tactics to refine a conventional performance management strategy with workers’ WLB in mind.
Redesigning Performance Metrics
First and foremost, to achieve greater WLB while maintaining productivity, we need to rethink existing PM approaches and metrics. We need to strive for a transparent, bias-free performance assessment that’s equal for in-office, remote, and hybrid employees.
Here are a few potential strategies for developing holistic PM systems that account for employee’s work-life balance:
– Implementing workday performance management. This system can give employees and managers an opportunity to detect performance gaps faster and facilitate more effective feedback and goal-setting.
– Focusing on outcomes rather than the process. The workflow, hours, and processes might vary significantly for in-office and remote employees. Hence, it might be much more efficient and fair to measure the results of the work rather than the process.
– Setting up SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. Employers should offer greater personalization in individual goals, adjusting their expectations to every employee’s realities.
– Incorporating well-being indicators into performance evaluations. These criteria can include attendance, punctuality, engagement in the workflow, participation in wellness training, and other factors that can hint at employee’s well-being.
Enhancing Communication and Feedback Mechanisms
As seen in the results of our surveys, poor communication and feedback are among the most common challenges affecting employees’ work-life balance, job satisfaction, and productivity. In a hybrid work environment, it’s pivotal to facilitate efficient communication to create a friendly environment, minimize performance pressure, and ensure equality.
In workspaces where employees work both from home and onsite, communication also matters for ensuring smooth operations. Without direct and effective communication, companies might face poor information flow, knowledge gaps, misunderstandings between employees, and other productivity-related problems.
Here are a few performance management best practices for enhancing communication and feedback:
– Fostering an environment of openness and trust where everyone can be heard.
– Leveraging reliable software and tools to simplify collaboration and communication between onsite and remote employees.
– Planning regular (ideally, weekly) meetings and making them hybrid to let both in-office and remote workers participate.
– Developing clear and effective communication rules.
– Implementing frequent, one-on-one meetings and feedback sessions.
– Encouraging employees to share their challenges, concerns, and suggestions.
– Detecting every employee’s communication style.
With these tactics and an unbiased approach, managers should be able to ensure a high work-life balance in their hybrid teams, while also stimulating high performance.
Leveraging Technology for Balanced PM
Facilitating an effective and balanced workflow in a hybrid environment might be a tricky task. And technology plays a massive role in this process.
When some of your employees are working from home, you can’t do without a set of reliable tech solutions to ensure effective communication and collaboration. Today, you also can’t do without performance management tools, especially if you are striving for a balance between productivity and employees’ WLB.
To evaluate the effectiveness of technological tools in managing performance in remote/hybrid settings, we have conducted another survey asking companies and management which tools they use and how effective they find them. Here’s a sneak peek into our Technology and Performance Management Survey:
What technology tools does your organization use for performance management?
Goal setting tools – 22.6%
Employee feedback tools – 18.2%
Performance appraisal tools – 16%
Employee appreciation tools – 15.8%
Pulse survey – 14.5%
Personal development tools – 12.9%
How effective are these tools in providing fair and transparent evaluations?
Very effective – 49%
Somewhat effective – 38%
Not effective – 13%
What additional features would you like to see in PM tools to support WLB?
Personalization insights for every employee – 37%
360-degree feedback – 28%
More automation features – 20%
More comprehensive performance analytics – 10%
Reporting – 5%
Every company we surveyed (regardless of the size and niche) reported using at least one kind of PM tool to streamline their operations and make performance management smooth and unbiased. The majority of them find these tools quite effective for providing fair and transparent evaluations. We believe it’s a good tendency for developing and informing WLB-friendly PM practices.
Long-Term Implications for the Labor Market
How has COVID-19 affected work-life balance? The first and most important answer is that it has changed the value employees see in WLB. Many people who get stuck at home and forced to work remotely face a substantial amount of stress at first. However, years ahead, many of them report preferring remote or hybrid work to traditional onsite employment due to the greater freedom and autonomy they received working from home.
Given the changing employee preferences, employers have to rethink their approach to corporate culture and performance management, in particular. We believe that companies will have to continue doing this to offer even more adequate WLB to their workers in the future.
We expect a number of trends to emerge from this:
– Flexible and personalized work arrangements will enable people to organize their schedules with their personal lives in mind.
– Greater reliance on technology for collaboration, communication, and performance analytics.
– Changing productivity metrics with well-being among the top ones.
– A shift toward outcomes-based performance management.
Role of Organizational Culture in Shaping WLB and PM
Speaking about the future trends in WLB and PM, we cannot avoid mentioning the changes in organizational culture and leadership. As you already know, WLB requires freedom, flexibility, and personalization, whereas the PM (at least as we know it now) demands accountability. This creates a significant conflict between corporate performance management and ensuring employee work-life balance.
Given this, we believe that the traditional company culture and leadership are about to change in the future as well. When hybrid workplaces become a new norm, the workforce will likely get even more decentralized than it is now, giving companies access to global talent. This will likely lead to a massive trend for an inclusive and friendly organizational culture with no bias.
In order to ensure the high WLB of their employees, managers and employers will have to adopt an empathy-driven leadership style. It will imply prioritizing employees’ individual needs, showing compassion, and keeping the primary focus on well-being.
Conclusion
For decades, work-life balance has been an ephemeral concept that neither employers nor employees took seriously. However, after the outbreak of COVID-19, when millions of people had to start working from home, many workers explored the true value of a healthy work-life balance.
Today, the average WLB of employees in the US is higher compared to 2-3 years ago during the pandemic. Yet, many people still see significant challenges holding their companies back from ensuring the well-being and satisfaction of their workers.
We believe that this trend for a healthy work-life balance and ethical performance management approaches will be here to stay, shaping a better and healthier future for the labor market.