Are Investors Satisfied With Their Work-Life Balance During Covid-19?

Frantically helping a child log into their zoom class and shouting up to another child to hurry up and get ready, while trying to pour a cup of coffee and get into your makeshift office for your own meeting. 

This situation is all to familiar for many families all across the country.  Even for those families who have a parent that stays at home, the challenge of juggling eLearning is very real.  For those individuals who are working from home, many have voiced that it is hard to find a work/life balance in this environment.  Obligations to children for learning conflict with obligations to work.  In the evenings many are catching up on work missed earlier in the day, conflicting with family time or time to unwind.

Striking a positive work/life balance is something that has been a struggle for many years.  It is something that impacts everyone, regardless of wealth, occupation, or age.  The pandemic and many individuals making the transition to working from home has been challenging, although more than half of investors would prefer to work from home, according to recent research from Spectrem Group.  This percentage has been declining however.  In June of 2020 63 percent of investors preferred to work from home as opposed to the office.  When asked in August of 2020, only 56 percent prefer to work at home.  They should be careful what they wish for because developing a good balance between work and personal life demands during these times is a challenge that many are finding difficult. 

An article on Bloomberg cited that individuals that are working from home are actually logging 3 more hours of work per day than before they worked from home, based on companies that tracks connection and disconnection from data services.  Another pressure that is tipping the work-life balance scale is the pressure and concern regarding showing worth.  Many companies have had to layoff employees and employees want to show that they are being active and busy, despite being home.

Three-quarters of investors (77 percent) are satisfied with their work-life balance, according to research conducted in the summer of 2020 by Spectrem Group.  Twenty-two percent of investors wish they could devote more time to family instead of work.  Millennials are far less satisfied with their work-life balance, with only 62 percent satisfied and over a third (35 percent) wishing they could devote more of their time to family instead of work. 

The work-life balance juggling act while working from home is likely to continue for many people through the end of 2020.  Investors need to find ways to reconnect and rebalance home and professional obligations. 

In the words of the famous Dolly Parton, “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life”.

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