Public Sector Employee Performance Under WFH: Work-Family Conflict and Work-Life Balance Mediation

Abstrak

This study investigates the direct effects of working from home and work-family conflict on employee performance and assesses whether work-life balance has those effects among civil servants at Regional Office VIII of BKN Banjarbaru. A quantitative explanatory survey was conducted with 58 participants. The constructs were measured on a five-point Likert scale and estimated using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4. Working from home positively predicted both work-life balance and employee performance, whereas work-family conflict had significantly negative relationships with the two outcomes. Work-life balance positively affects employee performance and significantly mediates the paths from both antecedent variables. Flexible working can strengthen performance when employees can coordinate occupational and personal roles; competing work and family demands have the opposite effect because they undermine this balance. The model extends public-sector human resource management research by identifying work-life balance as a psychological and behavioral process connecting work arrangements, role conflict, and employee performance. The evidence was drawn from a single institution and a modest sample. Broader institutional coverage and additional explanatory variables should be considered in future research.