Remote Work and Auditors’ Work-Life Balance: Disproportionate Impacts on Engagement Leaders

SYNOPSIS We study how the abrupt transition to remote work during COVID-19 impacted the work-life balance of audit engagement leaders (i.e., managers and above) by examining audit-employee reviews on Glassdoor.com. We find general declines in auditors’ work-life balance, with engagement leaders experiencing the greatest decline. The disproportionate effect on engagement leaders’ work-life balance is concentrated in offices less equipped for transitioning to a remote work environment (i.e., non-Big 4 offices and offices with auditing clients with fewer foreign operations) and in offices serving more financially distressed clients. However, engagement leaders’ overall satisfaction and turnover intentions remain unchanged. Our findings offer insights into how remote work impacts auditors by highlighting the specific challenges faced by audit engagement leaders and provide a lens for viewing firms’ efforts to institute return-to-work policies. We provide suggestions for how accounting firms can respond to the decline in engagement leaders’ work-life balance. Data Availability: Data are available on Glassdoor.com. JEL Classifications: J63; J81; M12; M41; M42.