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This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.

This study conducted a survey targeting workers in the USA recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 1,651 responses were collected and 648 responses were used for the analysis.

The perceived work-life balance improved during the pandemic compared to before, while the balance of physical boundaries between the workplace and home decreased. Workplace flexibility, environmental conditions of home offices and organizational supports are positively associated with productivity, satisfaction with working from home and work-life balance during the pandemic.

While the strict traditional view of “showing” up in the office from Monday through Friday is likely on the decline, the hybrid workplace with flexibility can be introduced as some activities are not significantly affected by the work location, either at home-based or corporate offices. The results of this study also highlight the importance of organizations to support productivity and satisfaction in the corporate office as well as home. With the industry collaboration, future research of relatively large sample sizes and study sites, investigating workers’ needs and adapted patterns of use in home-based and corporate offices, will help corporate real estate managers make decisions and provide some level of standardization of spatial efficiency and configurations of corporate offices as well as essential supports for home offices.

The pandemic-enforced working-from-home practices awaken the interdependence between corporate and home environments, how works are done and consequently, the role of the physical workplace. This study built a more in-depth understanding of how workers who were able to continue working from home during COVID-19 changed or not changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in work‐life balance (WLB) support, job satisfaction, and inclusion as a function of work location.

Web‐based survey data were provided by 578 employees working at one of four locations (main office, client location, satellite office, and home). Multiple regression analyses were used to identify differences in WLB support, job satisfaction, and inclusion across employees working at the four locations.

Results showed that main office and home‐based workers had similar high levels of WLB support and job satisfaction. Main office workers reported higher levels of WLB support than satellite and client‐based workers. Additionally, main office workers reported the highest levels of workplace inclusion.

Data were originally gathered for practical purposes by the organization. The research design does not allow for manipulation or random assignment, therefore extraneous variables may have impacted the observed relationships.

Allowing employees flexibility in choosing their work locations is related to positive outcomes. The authors suggest several practices for the effective implementation of alternative work arrangements.

This paper is among the first to examine the outcomes of telework across locations. It uses a large single organization and a quasi‐experimental design, enhancing the validity of the findings.

The concept of recovery is well accepted internationally as a guiding vision for mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges faced by in-home psychiatric support workers in implementing this vision in their work with clients with severe psychiatric disability.

The findings reported here are based on interviews with 27 support workers and ten managers of organisations providing support services. These were collected as part of evaluations of two supported housing programmes carried out between 2010 and 2011.

Challenges faced by support workers coalesced around two areas: first, balancing the need to provide care with the need to promote autonomy and second, developing an effective working relationship while working mainly within a clients’ home.

These challenges for support workers highlight tensions within the recovery vision that are not easily resolved. To ensure high quality, recovery-oriented care services are provided, support workers need access to training courses that focus on challenging areas of this work and should be provided with regular professional supervision.

Existing literature on support workers has generally focused on the nature of the role and support worker interactions with other health workers. In this paper, the authors highlight difficulties faced by support workers in implementing the vision of recovery in their work. The paper provides important information for policy makers and managers who are designing service delivery systems that aim to promote recovery.

This study aims to analyze the well-being experience of home care workers regardless of the service management model. It also aims to analyze their emotional experiences of their activity and working conditions.

This study, using a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis, allows a combined analysis for a better understanding of the well-being experience of home care workers.

Home care workers experience intrinsic job satisfaction and demonstrate this with positive emotions regardless of their work situation.

Caring for the carer should be a business value. Measures oriented toward workers’ comfort generate greater happiness and commitment, which is automatically transferred to the quality of the care provided and reduces the psychosocial risks of their professional activity.

Visualizing the social reality of an essential profession through research generates verifiable evidence that will help to improve the working conditions of home care workers in Spain.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this pioneering study in Spain introduces a greater understanding of how home care workers in Spain experience their work reality.

Following a recent government initiated change to a consumer-directed care model across the Australian community aged care sector, the purpose of this paper is to explore frontline home support workers’ perceptions of relational changes with clients in power and subordination within the triadic relationship between employer, employee and client.

Contextual interviews were held with managers (n=4), coordinators (n=10) and semi-structured face-to-face interviews with support workers (n=17) in three organizations. Interview transcripts were analyzed.

Some workers did not perceive a power change in their relationships with clients. Others perceived minimal change but were concerned about the incoming client generation (baby boomers) that were more aware of their rights. Others felt subordinated to the client, perceived a loss of control or that felt treated like an employee of the client. Consistent with the philosophy of consumer-directed care, senior staff encouraged clients to treat workers in this way.

Further research is recommended on worker and client perceptions of relationships within the context of a consumer or client focused model.

A clear and realistic understanding of the locus of power within a triadic relationship by all actors is important for positive workplace outcomes.

The increasing ageing population makes it essential that workers’ relationships with clients and with their organization are unambiguous.

This study makes a contribution to theories about change and power transfer in the implementation of consumer-directed care through the perceptions of support workers. Examination of power and subordination transfer through the perceptions of the actors of rather than through the prism of organizational policy deepens the understanding of frontline service work and relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of stress between work intensification and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) focusing on personal support workers (PSWs) in home and community care.

The analysis sample of 922 comes from the 2015 survey of PSWs employed in Ontario, Canada. The endogenous variable is self-reported MSDs, and the exogenous variable is work intensification. Stress, measured as symptoms of stress, is the mediating variable. Other factors shown in the literature as associated with stress and/or MSDs are included as control variables. Structural equation model regression analyses are presented.

The results show that stress mediates the effect of work intensification on PSW’s MSDs. Other significant factors included being injured in the past year, facing hazards at work and preferring less hours – all had positive and significant substantive effects on MSDs.

The survey is cross-sectional and not longitudinal or experimental in design, and it focuses on a single occupation in a single sector in Ontario, Canada and, as such, this can limit the generalizability of the results to other occupations and sectors.

For PSW employers including their human resource managers, supervisors, schedulers and policy-makers, the study recommends reducing work intensification to lower stress levels and MSDs.

The findings of this study contribute to the theory and knowledge by providing evidence on how work intensification can affect workers’ health and assist decision makers in taking actions to create healthy work environments.

This study, using a comprehensive job demand–resources (JD-R) model, aims to explore the pressures of workload, work–life interface and subsequent impacts on employee stress and job satisfaction, with implications for employee job performance, in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A cross-sectional sample of employees at seven universities (n = 4,497) and structural equation path analysis regression models are used for the analyses.

The results show that a partial mediation JD-R model was supported, where job demands (such as workload and actual hours worked) and job resources (including expectations, support and job security) have relationships with work interference with personal life and personal life interference with work. These have subsequent negative path relationships with stress. Further, stress is negatively related to job satisfaction, and job satisfaction is positively related to employee job performance.

Potential policy implications include mitigation approaches to addressing some of the negative impacts on workers and to enhance the positive outcomes. Timely adjustments to job demands and resources can aid in sustaining balance for workers in an uncertain and fluid environmental context.

This study makes a contribution to knowledge by capturing sentiments on working arrangements, perceived changes and associated outcomes during a key period within the COVID-19 pandemic while being one of the rare studies to focus on a comprehensive JD-R model and a unique context of highly educated workers' transition to working from home.

The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there is a growing need, particularly in countries with ageing populations, to examine how long-term care (LTC) work is valued. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the way in which employment policies (female labour market participation, retirement age, and precarious work) and social policies (care entitlements and benefits/leave for carers) affect both informal carers and formal care workers in a liberal welfare state with a rapidly ageing population.

Drawing the adult worker model the authors use the existing literature on ageing care and employment to examine the approach of a liberal welfare state to care work focusing on both supports for informal carers and job quality in the formal care sector.

The research suggests that employment policies advocating increased labour participation, delaying retirement and treating informal care as a form of welfare are at odds with LTC strategies which encourage informal care. Furthermore, the latter policy acts to devalue formal care roles in an economic sense and potentially discourages workers from entering the formal care sector.

To date research investigating the interplay between employment and LTC policies has focused on either informal or formal care workers. In combining both aspects, we view informal and formal care workers as complementary, interdependent agents in the care process. This underlines the need to develop social policy regarding care and employment which encompasses the needs of each group concurrently.

A six-month randomized controlled trial was conducted to examine the impact of a home-based nutrition and exercise intervention on functional capacity to prevent falls among rural seniors. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Men and women (n=134), aged 60 and older were assigned to one of four groups: exercise, nutrition, exercise-nutrition, and control. Participants in the exercise and exercise-nutrition groups performed a home-based exercise program (Home Support Exercise Program), and the nutrition and exercise-nutrition groups received a liquid nutritional supplement (Ensure®) for six months. Participants were assessed at baseline and six months on functional mobility, balance, flexibility and endurance.

There were significant group differences over time for functional reach and the Timed Up and Go test, with significant differences existing between exercise and nutrition-exercise, and exercise and nutrition groups respectively. Overall, the exercise group out-performed the other groups in terms of functional capacity and psychological well-being.

Improvement of functional health among rural seniors is achievable through the delivery of a home-based intervention focusing on exercise and nutrition.

The study also shows that the effective delivery of an intervention to successfully address a fundamental and persistent problem is possible using existing resources; however, it requires a commitment of focus and energy over considerable time.

The approach and findings helps seniors to age in place in a rural context. It shows feasibility of delivering a practical intervention in the rural setting through the health care infrastructure of home care.

Apart from the rural context, the study was innovative at many levels. Specifically, this intervention addressed a significant health issue (functional capacity, falls and injuries), involved frail rural seniors (often hard to reach through community-based programs), provided a feasible intervention (multiple component exercise program), used existing infrastructure (e.g. home care), and espoused community development principles (active involvement of community partners, researchers, and trainees). As well, the study had built-in mechanisms for monitoring and support through the involvement of home service workers who received training. This approach created a strong research to practice connection (another innovation) and was critical for the credibility of the investigation, as well as the sustainability of the intervention. Another innovation was the inclusion of a population health perspective as the study framework. From the population health perspective, this research addressed several determinants of health in rural and urban areas that include: physical environment (intervention within people’s home and rural context), social environment and social support networks (through existing infrastructures of home support workers), health services (availability of health promotion strategy delivered through the health care system) and personal health practices and coping skills (exercise).

Individualised budgets or self‐directed support allow people to design their own community care package and choose how they get support. Direct payments offer a cash payment in lieu of a community care service. These initiatives signal a move away from established services. At the same time, they may also involve transferring management responsibility from services to the individual service user or family carers ‐ or in some cases, could involve setting up an unmanaged service. This article is based on experience of supporting my son who has learning disabilities to move from our family home into a supported living scheme, though since I also work in learning disability services I get to see another side of the picture too. I've looked at some potential consequences of current policy, and highlighted issues that users and family carers may need to consider when they are developing a support package for themselves or a family member or friend.