New research looked at 20 years of data to determine the impact of WFH on mental health
Offering flexible working from home (WFH) arrangements will benefit employees with poorer mental health, according to a new study from the University of Melbourne.
The researchers, who looked at data from more than 16,000 Australians, analysed how workers' mental health is impacted by commuting time and working from home.
"Workers with poorer mental health are the most sensitive to long commutes and the most likely to benefit from substantial working from home arrangements," researchers Ferdi Botha and Jan Kabatek said in an article for The Conversation.
"This is partly because people with poor mental health already have more limited capacity to deal with stressful events."
The research, which analysed 20 years of data, showed the impact of working from home on employees while excluding 2020 and 2021, when mental health could have been shaped by factors such as the pandemic.
Benefits of working from home
According to the study's findings, working from home generally benefited women with poor mental health, who gained better mental health under the arrangement than those who exclusively worked onsite.
The study found that the largest positive effects were associated with working 50 to 75% of work hours from home, indicating that a partial office or on-site presence remains beneficial for women's wellbeing.
"The mental health benefits for women were not just a result of saving time on commuting," the researchers said in their article. "Because our analysis accounted for commuting separately, these benefits reflected other positive aspects of working from home. These include less work stress or helping them to juggle work and family life." There was "no statistically reliable effect" of working from home on men, according to the researchers.
"This may reflect the gendered distribution of tasks in Australian households, as well as the fact that men's social and friendship networks tend to be more work-based," they added.
Impact of commuting
Commuting, however, had more impact on men than it did on women.
"For men, longer commutes were tied to poorer mental health for those who already had strained mental health," the researchers said.
"For a man near the middle of the mental health distribution (close to the median), adding half an hour to his one-way commute reduced reported mental health by roughly the same amount as a two per cent drop in household income."
On the other hand, commuting time had no detectable effect on the mental health of women, according to the findings.
What it means for employers
The research underscored that the significant effects of working from home were concentrated among respondents with low levels of mental health.
"It suggests that adjustments to work regimens have the potential to significantly improve the mental health outcomes of individuals at risk of mental illness, with the knock-on benefits being reduced absenteeism and improved productivity," the study read.
The researchers said employers should consider offering flexible WFH arrangements, especially for employees who struggle with mental health.
"Consider hybrid models that include both home and office time, since these appear most beneficial," they said.
"Treat commuting time as a factor in workload and wellbeing discussions. Avoid one-size-fits-all return-to-office policies."
The findings come amid ongoing debate across Australia on letting employees work from home. The country's Senate is expected to carry out an inquiry into the proposal that will allow employees the right to request working from home for up to two days a week.
