I believe work-life boundaries can be made starting with management or roles like a project manager. If higher up positions do not ask or expect work to be "done until completed" and instead finished during the time frames of the work day it can be easier for employees to evaluate their own boundaries. Balancing what is legally dictated by your work hours to pay and what your manager expects from you is daunting if they are not aligned. Like most people I have talked to, I would prefer a mix of both. At home work is comfortable and in certain instances can be highly productive. However, I find it easier to explain things in person compared to over IM. Of course one could schedule a video call, but this can take up an exorbitant amount of time compared to being able to simply walk over to your co-workers desk and ask them a question.

In my brief experience working since the pandemic has started, I've found that it is really on you (the employee) to set the work-life balance boundaries. As you said, the line between home-life and work-life has become ever blurred and people tend to work more since they don't have a commute. I think being able to step away and stop responding at a certain time is important to prevent burnout. Personally, I like a mixture of WFH and in-office. Not having a commute is really nice, it gives you time back into your day that would've been wasted sitting in traffic or on a bus/train. To that same point, a commute can also create a clear separation between the office and home. It can act a way to decompress and leave your work when you leave work. Personally, the ability to do both is something that I think I would definitely enjoy opposed to the traditional in-office work environment. 

I wish I had experienced working prior to the pandemic as a gauge to see how project managers adjusted to the new online-environment. I'm excited to hear other experiences on this.

Thanks,

Matt

I believe working from home can go both ways. I’ve seen cases where the employee was working outside the normal workday hours, and I’ve also seen others that completely slack and do the bare minimum since they’re at home with no supervision. As Matt said, it is up to the person himself/herself to set boundaries between their work and general life. It will be very helpful if the person would set the work hours and have physical boundaries that could help separate the two like having a designated home office area.  I admit it is nice not to drive to work everyday, but I personally prefer going to the office and working there so that I can focus more. I like having a set routine in my daily life, and I think physically going to the office allows me to be more productive and have better connections with my coworkers.

I've experienced working from home with minimal commuting, working in an office with a normal commute routine, and then fieldwork where most of my day is commuting and the accompanying paperwork or rather "office work" is done at home. 

With working from home initially it was great. I got to play music, watch basketball games, and have a snack break in between, all while working without the confines of the ever-existing office judgment and drama and on top of that all in my PJs. However, to my luck, I got hired right at the start of the pandemic and had my first corporate job ever during quarantine. So you can only imagine how minimal training I had and how lost I was during this time which made me start counting the days until we were back in the office. 

When work was in the office it was great because I had all my resources available, got to finally interact with coworkers, have the typical office activities like sports brackets, secret Santa, etc. But when it came to working, once that ball was finally rolling and I knew how to do the work, I hated the feeling of someone breathing down my neck or questioning what I was working on, or how I was doing certain things, or the office drama of everyone worrying about the other as opposed to themselves. It made me count the hours day in and day out in my cubicle. 

Now, with field engineering work you are your own boss. Meaning you have a service leader who you direct to but ultimately you're given a line of work to be completed by a certain deadline and everything else is on you. You schedule when to work with customers, what hours, how to do it, etc. You are anything but micromanaged, however a downside to this could be abusing that freedom. What's most annoying, however, is you will without a doubt spend more than half your day in a car commuting from site to site to complete your work. 

So ultimately I'd say through my experiences I prefer a balance of all of this and would prefer a hybrid job. Where I'm in the office when I need to be or if I want to be and I'm at home other times and there are no restrictions to this as long as I am completing my work proficiently and efficiently. 

While the amount of work employees have to do depends on their team leader, maintaining a work-life balance is ultimately the responsibility of the employee. Working in person forced a sense of accountability for the employee because their colleagues and supervisors could walk over to them and ask for an update on the their project role. Due to this employees would spend their time in the office getting their work done, and once they left for home they would relax and partake in their hobbies. This difference in working at the office and then leaving to relax at home gave a clear distinction between work time and free time. However, with the shift to virtual meetings the distinction between work and home became blurred. Working from home gives the employee more autonomy with their schedule, but it also provides more distractions. Without the close proximity to colleagues the only person holding the employee accountable is themselves. The employee has to be responsible enough to get their work done by the specified deadline without any oversight from the team lead. 

Personally I feel that the best method is to work in person. I believe that the environment while working in person with colleagues in more conducive to increased productivity. There are less distractions and you can collaborate with colleagues without having to worry about them being busy since they're also at the office working. 

Overlapping of the work and life environment happen, but I believe that they should try to remain separate or at least with little overlap. When working from home, the boundaries are up to each individual and strategies on keeping them separate vary. As an example, people often have separate phones or computers and when a certain time of the day or week occurs, they are turned off. It’s a little harder to have a separate location in a home devoted to work, but some individuals are fortunate to have this option.

I have not had a job, so I cannot speak about how working from home impacted me. I, however, did enjoy school remotely. I find that I teach myself the material a lot of the time and are rather independent when it comes to studying. Instead of wasting hours commuting, I could spend that time being productive or taking a break from the schoolwork.

Like you had mentioned, the hardest thing about working from home is  not being able to walk up to a coworker's office to ask them a question. Instead, you would need to email them back and forth until you could find a solution. Usually, if its a simple question, I prefer to message them via Microsoft Teams; if it is really something more serious, a Teams call would help to solve the issue. Having the ability to share your screen on Teams is also nice when you're trying to show where the issue is.

Working from home is nice since there is no commute and you can login in just minutes before a normal workday, but I much prefer going into the lab to get things done. There have been occasions where I have needed to lead teams and it is much easier to do this when you are physically present in the lab. When members of your team need to ask you questions, it is easier for them to come up to you and ask rather than over a message. Also, being present in lab allows you to see the work that is being done on the project so you know if more time needs to be devoted to a certain aspect or if everything is going as planned. 

For me personally I much prefer working in person rather than remote. This is for several reasons. The first is connected to the work life boundaries you mentioned. Having to do work in my usual casual setting can be very difficult as I learned from having to start doing school online. It boils down to being to comfortable at home and having temptations all around you to distract you from your work. In contrast to that when at work in person there are less distractions and just the act of getting up and driving to work puts me in that work mindset where I am much more focused than I am otherwise. The second reason why working in person is easier communication as you mentioned in the original post. I myself am very guilty of not reading emails or texts often enough. Finally it is harder to create workplace relationships while remote. This may not be related to productivity but it is nice to be able to chat with coworkers and get out of the house to go to work just to break the monotony of staying home and keep sane.

Working from home definitely has some advantages and some drawbacks. The benefits of this workflow will vary on a case-to-case basis. It obviously depends on what kind of position it is and what industry. For certain positions, working from home is simply not an option. Many manufacturing jobs will require people to be onsite. Personally, I have worked on an international team that regularly used conference calls even befor the pandemic. That kind of workflow was already set up to be virtual, and so switching to work-from-home was no issue.

To establish a work-life balance, I have seen people block out their entire calendar except for the 8 hours a day they are required to work. Even blocking out time for lunch establishes clear work/life boundries.

As someone who just recently transitioned to working from home after working in the manufacturing environment for most of the pandemic, I've learned how to adapt to the era that we are currently in. Most meetings are online now through Teams and IMs/emails go out constantly for communication throughout the work week. I think while we weren't so heavily reliant on Teams/Skype for communication before, it's definitely changed now. And even now where office life is beginning to return with the pandemic slowing a bit - you never know if people are at the office or home so it's better to just send an IM rather than look for them in the office. As for work-life balance, I think it's a good idea to separate your work area and your "home area". For me - I tend to keep myself in my room while I work and only go to my kitchen or living room areas whenever I'm on break. This way work and personal life are not blended together and I will not be inclined to respond to emails/IMs while I am spending time with my family or relaxing outside of work hours.

It might be difficult for the team members to communicate with each other when we work from home since many different factors could delay the communication. However, I think there are many different ways to deal with this problem. In my opinion, the key to improve the efficiency of work from home is the clear division of the responsibility of each member. Team members should complete their work on time to avoid the delay for the following steps.  In a project team, I think team members should have the same schedule for the work. Also, the team manager should closely monitor the situation for each team member to avoid the delay. In my opinion, work from home could create a more relaxed work environment which could stimulate the creativity for the members. Work from home could be a better work mode if we can solve the communication problems.

As a project manager, I would implement multiple boundaries to ensure that a proper work life balance is maintained while keeping the project moving forward by creating realistic deadlines and recommending that employees do not work past a certain time. By enforcing an end time for the work day, it can motivate team members to work more diligently during the work day to meet their responsibilities. 

I agree that communication was drastically changed when transitioning to online meetings. It's extremely difficult to visualize others' ideas and plans when they are not physically in front of you explaining their plan. Preparing presentations with visuals and explaining the details does help to get ideas and important points across. 

I originally thought I would prefer working from home, however, I quickly realized that working in person is ideal. It's nice to have a routine and come into work and be able to get all the main tasks done knowing that there are other people in the office as well ready to help if need be. 

This is absolutely a necessary conversation for the project manager to have with the team. I was managing a building project in addition to being a branch manager and interim manager of two other branches all at the same time. This work began while the company was 100% telework, and was doable. However, when we moved to a hybrid schedule of reporting on-site and teleworking, the dynamics changed. I found myself having to work much longer hours to manage the projects, the people, and the buildings.

I do believe that the expectations for how the workflow is implemented should be set by the team, ultimately, it's up to the individual to adhere to those expectations.

Working from home versus the office can be a difficult transition for some. Many times it is hard for people to go back to the office, and may times people facing remote jobs find there to be many more distractions. I can also see the benefits that come from both sides as well. The difference in communication when working from home can potentially cause issues. There should be clear standards of how and who to report.