Work–life balance in the digital era: configuring demands and resources at work

Work–life balance (WLB) now rivals salary and career advancement as a top employee priority, yet organizations continue to struggle with designing work that enables both performance and balance. This challenge has intensified with distributed work arrangements, where employees face distinct demands across on-site, hybrid, and remote contexts. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, we examine how combinations of job design and ICT characteristics jointly shape WLB. Using a two-step fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) across two national samples (France, N = 605; Montenegro, N = 1,535), we identify multiple configurational pathways that foster high WLB. Study 1 inductively derives work and technology design configurations, while Study 2 tests their robustness in a different cultural context. Enriched work design supports WLB across forms of work (FoW), though the optimal mix of job and ICT characteristics differs. Notably, IT presenteeism appears necessary for hybrid workers. Job and technological complexity act as interchangeable demands, interdependence and feedback show asymmetric effects, and techno-overload consistently undermines balance. We advance theory by extending JD-R to digitally mediated contexts, integrating ICT demands into work design, and demonstrating the value of configurational reasoning. Practical implications highlight tailored strategies for on-site, hybrid, and remote work.