29-05-2025
How A Balanced Home Life Can Lead To Success At Work
Sharing household chores can help employees manage workplace stress.
Back in 2013, when then Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg published her book Lean In, one of the pieces of advice she offered to women setting out on their careers was to choose partners who would be supportive. 'When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home,' she wrote.
It seems this principle holds true regardless of gender. According to recently published research, employees with emotionally intelligent spouses say they have better relationships with their supervisors, are better able to manage their own and others' emotions and have greater psychological resilience at work.
The paper published by Anna Carmella Ocampo, a professor at Esade, a global academic institution with campuses in Barcelona and Madrid, was based on work conducted in collaboration with Macquarie University, the University of Alberta, the University of New South Wales, Monash Business School and KPMG. It draws on data from China and the U.S.. The findings challenge the conventional belief that personal life distracts from professional success. 'Spouses act not only as cheerleaders, boosting employees' enthusiasm at work, but also as healers, alleviating their stress and frustration,' said Professor Ocampo in a press release.
Researchers carried out in-depth interviews with employees, organized a large-scale survey involving matched spouse-employee-supervisor groups in China and set up a scenario-based experiment in the U.S.. Across all three, the researchers found that the capacity to manage one's own and others' emotions — what is known as emotional regulation ability (ERA) — played a critical role in supporting employees' ability to handle stress, build positive relationships at work and persevere in emotionally demanding situations. In particular, the study published in the Journal of Business Research earlier this year found that employees with spouses who scored highly in ERA reported 'greater psychological capital and more effective emotion management.' These resources were associated with more constructive interactions with supervisors and an increased ability to navigate work challenges. Conversely, when spouses were overwhelmed with household responsibilities, the benefits of their emotional intelligence were less apparent, according to the report. The research also suggests that spousal support enhances employees' own capacity to help others in the workplace. This can make them more valuable team members and help to strengthen the social fabric of their organisations, it adds.
In other words, the idea that organizations are best served by employees who maintain their focus on the job and do not share their workplace experiences — good or bad — with their families is open to question. In fact, a committed and supportive partner might be a valuable asset the organization did not know it had.
As Professor Ocampo put it: 'Rather than viewing family life as a potential obstacle to workplace performance, employers should embrace policies that acknowledge the benefits of non-work resources. Family-friendly working conditions and equitable sharing of domestic responsibilities are essential to creating the supportive environments that allow employees to thrive.'
Or as Sandberg might say, it is not just the employee who needs to lean in, but also their partner. But it would help a lot if employers acknowledged properly the importance of their employees' personal lives.
