Remote Work is Here to Stay

Executive Summary 

Research Shows... 

• The growth of remote work and advancements in communications technology have prevented workers from separating their home and work lives.
• Employees who choose to work from home tend to have better outcomes than those who are assigned to work from home. 
• Working at home during normal hours may increase psychological well-being and job satisfaction for some workers, but working at home outside of regular hours may increase turnover intentions and damage psychological well-being. 
• The impacts of the transition to remote work vary across demographic groups. 
• Remote employees often experience overwork and isolation. Transitioning to remote work may require changes in mental health accommodations.
• Current labor and employment laws treat homes differently than traditional workplaces, failing to protect remote workers from overwork or preserve their privacy and organizing rights. 

Action Steps for Unions

• If you are struggling to reach decentralized remote workers, consider contacting them via online work platforms when possible. 
• Request that employers distribute union organizers’ contact information so that remote workers know how to reach their representatives.
• With members’ support, advocate for “right to disconnect” contract provisions to establish work-life boundaries. 

Action Steps for Employers and HR Professionals

• Conduct employee surveys to identify and address causes of poor communication, unclear expectations, and lack of resources. 
• When possible, allocate work-from-home responsibilities to new hires who prefer remote work, rather than to current employees who prefer to work in person.
• Train managers and supervisors to communicate with HR and employees regarding possible accommodations for employees with disabilities.
• Establish a soft cap on the duration of video calls to avoid back-to-back meetings. 
• Encourage a pause on work-related messaging after hours when possible.

Action Steps for Policymakers

• Establish “right to disconnect” laws to preserve remote employees’ work-life balance. 
• Increase enforcement of the wage-and-hour protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Consider implementing a sliding scale of penalties based on employer size and duration of employment. 
• Collaborate with worker centers and community organizations to provide employers with education, outreach, and training about mental health. 
• Promote equitable access to work-from-home opportunities.

Introduction

The CDC has declared that the U.S. is in a mental health crisis, and employees’ experience at work plays no small part in it. In fact, a 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 92% of workers believe it is important for them to work for an organization that supports employees’ mental health and psychological and emotional well-being. Yet the growth of remote employment in recent years has complicated employers’ role in mitigating the effects of work on mental health. In many contexts, remote work increases job satisfaction and autonomy, improving mental health outcomes. However, depending on how much and when employees work from home, they may also experience isolation, family conflict, and decreased psychological well-being. This article summarizes research on how remote work may impact mental health and proposes evidence-based actions that policymakers, employers, and unions can take to support the mental health of remote workers. 

When Does Remote Work Impact Mental Health?

95% of workers say it is important for them to work for an organization that respects the boundary between work and non-work time. In a recent webinar hosted by the ILR Alumni Association, alumni Lisa Stern, attorney at Robert A. Rombro P.A.; Erika Ozer, Global Head of Employment Law COE at Boston Consulting Group; and Joan (Schwadron) Freedman, a clinical psychologist and executive coach, discussed how remote work affects that boundary. The ability to work from home has made it difficult for many workers, regardless of whether they work in-person or from home during their normal work hours, to separate their personal lives from their professional lives. As organizations implement new communication tools, such as WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and email, managers increasingly expect that employees can—and should—respond from anywhere and at any time. In addition, improvements in video call technology that have enabled collaboration across time zones have required workers to take calls outside of their regular hours. Because it only takes a minute to leave one Zoom meeting and join another, and managers need not set aside time for their employees to commute, Zoom meetings often drag on longer than necessary, leaving participants little time to process or prepare for their next meetings.

A study led by ILR’s Professor Duanyi Yang found that the impact of work from home (WFH) on mental health depends in part on whether the work is performed during or outside of normal work hours. The study distinguishes between two forms of WFH: “replacement” WFH, in which

employees work from home during regular work hours in place of on-site work, and “extension” WFH, in which employees work from home outside those hours. 

Compared to workers who do not work at home, those who engage in replacement WFH report higher psychological well-being and job satisfaction. Therefore, providing replacement work-from-home opportunities may help employers reduce turnover and “quiet quitting,” which occurs when workers reduce their effort and become uninterested in personal or organizational performance outcomes, leading to stress and burnout. However, workers who perform extension WFH report increased turnover intentions as their work interferes with family relationships and caregiving responsibilities. Women are particularly affected; women who perform extension WFH are 15 percentage points more likely to experience poor mental health than those who do not work from home at all. 

Does Choice Matter in Remote Work?

A study co-authored by Professor Bradford Bell, Director of ILR’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, investigated whether employees who choose to work from home experience different outcomes than those who are assigned to work from home. Along with researchers at Rutgers University and ESCP Business School, Professor Bell analyzed organizational HR records and two surveys of 2,115 employees who work for Fortune 500 firms and complete all of their hours remotely. They found that workers who choose to work from home exhibit higher job autonomy and job satisfaction, both of which contribute to greater organizational knowledge. Choosing to work from home may also decrease turnover intentions and feelings of isolation. However, when a significant proportion of the firm’s workforce is based at home, job autonomy tends to decrease slightly. 

Although choice is central to the benefits of WFH, access to such choice is highly unequal. As

Yang explains in the book chapter she co-authored, “Flexible Working Arrangements During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” pandemic-era shifts to remote and hybrid work were followed by mandated returns to on-site work that often conflicted with workers’ preferences, creating what researchers term “workplace mismatch.” Evidence shows that among workers who prefer remote or hybrid arrangements but are required to work in person, white men are more likely than others to respond by quitting, while women and workers of color are more constrained in their ability to exit. This pattern suggests that workers with fewer outside options– particularly women and racialized minorities– may remain in mismatched jobs despite experiencing greater strain. These findings imply that expanding equitable access to WFH could yield disproportionate well-being benefits for structurally disadvantaged workers.

How Does the Law Approach Remote Work and Mental Health?

There is a widespread assumption that workers are inherently less productive at home and, in turn, require closer supervision there.  In contrast, employees who work from home tend to exhibit higher work engagement than those who do not, and workers tend to characterize themselves as more efficient at home. Consequently, studies have shown that productivity generally remained constant or increased when firms transitioned to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. In her Boston University Law Review article “Home as Non-Workplace,” ILR Professor Yiran Zhang argued that the misperception of the home as unproductive has prevented policymakers and judges from viewing the home as a workplace. And because certain mechanisms for enforcing worker protections in traditional workplaces are not transferable to home settings, some have dismissed the idea of regulating home workplaces at all. 

Without clear regulations, employers often face questions about when and how they must provide accommodations for mental health. When an employer fires or demotes a worker due to a mental health condition, workers may bring claims under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of disability. In an article for the Nova Southeastern University Law Review, ILR Professor Matthew Saleh, Senior Associate Director of the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, and Professor Susanne Bruyère, Academic Director of the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, explored remote workers’ claims under the third prong of the ADA. Under this prong, employees have some protection against discrimination or adverse employment actions related to mental health, but they must meet a high burden of proof to demonstrate that employers were aware of the disability. Furthermore, the ADA only permits claims by employees who can perform the 'essential functions' of the job, and it can be difficult to challenge adverse actions if essential functions have been modified for remote work.

Attorneys and courts have also been addressing the interaction between remote work and union activity. In Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB (1992), the Supreme Court established that non-employee union representatives may access employers’ property to uphold the Section 7 organizing “rights of those employees who, by virtue of their employment, are isolated from the ordinary flow of information.” Although the Court cited logging camps and mountain resorts as examples, remote workers are similarly isolated from one another and from information, which suggests that unions may enjoy heightened access rights when organizing WFH employees.  Furthermore, in Caesars Entertainment (2019), the NLRB established that employees may distribute union materials over the employer’s email system if the employees would otherwise be deprived of reasonable means of communication.

What Now?

Court decisions regarding nontraditional workplaces suggest strategies for unions and worker representatives to organize remote workers and preserve mental health. Under Lechmere and Caesars Entertainment, non-employee organizers may have a right to distribute union materials through employer-owned virtual workspace tools, and employers may be required to disclose union-related information and organizers’ contact information to remote employees. Unions may also consider reaching employees through online work platforms and requesting that employers announce organizers’ contact information. Unions can use online platforms to assess workers’ needs and build support for “right to disconnect” contract provisions, which state that employees need not respond to calls or messages outside of work hours.

This research has additional implications for managers and HR professionals seeking to support the mental health of WFH employees and improve performance. First, employee engagement and workplace satisfaction surveys can provide timely information about factors that contribute to stress, such as poor communication, unclear expectations, and lack of resources. Because individuals who choose to work remotely from the start of their employment tend to exhibit better performance and mental health outcomes than those who are assigned to remote work later on, organizations implementing WFH should seek to hire employees as remote workers. Employers should also consider disparities in access to remote work and ensure that opportunities are accessible and fair for workers across demographic categories. 

Furthermore, the aforementioned study by Professors Saleh and Bruyère demonstrates that mental well-being and performance in remote work are shaped by temporary and chronic disabilities, as well as contextual factors in employees’ environments and teams. In both in-person and remote settings, mental health disabilities vary greatly, and there is no one-size-fits-all accommodation. Therefore, when an employee expresses feelings of isolation or sadness, making vague, impersonal statements or referring the employee to generalized wellness training is insufficient and at times counterproductive. Instead, manager and supervisor training should include information on effective communication skills so they can collaborate with HR to accommodate employees’ disabilities. 

Employers who are introducing WFH should also establish communication and performance management practices that respond to employee feedback and accommodate employees with disabilities. Human resource professionals can develop initiatives that preserve work-life balance, such as a pause on Slack messages after work hours. To reduce Zoom fatigue, employers may implement a soft cap on meeting times and discourage team leaders from scheduling back-to-back meetings. 

Policymakers can improve mental health outcomes for in-person and remote workers by limiting involuntary extension WFH. France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Australia, among other countries, have passed “right to disconnect” laws, which protect employees from punishment if they choose not to respond to phone calls or messages outside of work hours. No U.S. states or localities have a right to disconnect law, but legislation was introduced in California and New Jersey in 2024 and re-introduced in New Jersey in January 2026. Policymakers may also increase enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which grants workers in all workspaces, with the exception of managerial employees and live-in workers, the right to overtime payment. Penalties could operate according to a sliding scale based on characteristics such as the size of the business and the duration of employment. This could be modeled after NYC’s Paid Sick Leave Law, which mandates the provision of safe and sick leave proportional to hours worked. 

Finally, state labor agencies should adopt a co-enforcement model that funds worker centers, labor-justice-minded domestic employers, and other community-based organizations. For instance, a successful program in California finances community-based organizations to conduct education, outreach, and trainings for employers of home care workers. A similar model could be adopted for employers of remote workers to shift the “compliance burden from the individual worker or employer to a publicly funded collective.”

Conclusion

Surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that remote and hybrid work are here to stay. As advancements in AI enhance online communication platforms, it will become increasingly difficult for employees to separate their work and home lives. To secure the productivity and convenience gains of remote work, employers and policymakers must collaborate to mitigate negative effects on workers’ mental health. 

Photo Credit: Yasmina H