Millions of white-collar workers became remote employees overnight when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Executives across a cross-section of enterprises began extolling how their businesses continued to operate while employees worked from home during lockdowns. Many leaders, especially in the tech sector were publicly contemplating how this trend would continue in a post-pandemic era.
Technology services giant TCS that employs 450,000 people globally made a bold announcement that planned to enable 75% of its employees to permanently work from home by 2025. (link). Jennifer Christie, the Vice President of HR for the social media giant, Twitter blogged (link): “We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere.”
While some think Work From Home is a short term reaction to the pandemic, Executives and CEOs are already reflecting on the long term implications (CEO’s Dilemma: allow work from home in post-pandemic era?)
Work From Home Forever Option: What Are The Risks?
Millions of people who usually commute to an office found themselves working from home for the foreseeable future. Experts studying workplace design and organization dynamics have highlighted several challenges and risks for entire white-collar workforce working remotely
- Team Culture and Cohesion – The greatest challenge for remote teams is the need to maintain a sense of team cohesion and camaraderie.
- Productivity Loss – Physically distant teams make it hard to continue to collaborate. If you work for a large organization, then you might start to be left out of decision making.
- Blurring life between work and personal time – After extended periods of working from home and taking calls and meetings from colleagues around the world, one might start to confuse work and personal life. It’s a fine line, and working from home can start to cross it. When do you call it a day? Do you put more hours in because you’re at home? Do you take a lunch break?
- Loneliness and Longer-Term Mental Health Impacts – For some people, especially single folks, working from home can be quite isolating.
How will you look ? ‘Susan’ A shocking model predicts what a long-term remote worker could end up looking like
Job discovery platform DirectlyApply recently unveiled a visual model for what future remote workers might look like in 25 years if they don’t reform bad habits now, in a figure they’ve named Susan.
Source: directlyapply.com
In order to create the future of the remote worker, the directlyapply worked together with a team of clinical psychologists and fitness experts to determine the effects remote working has on both our physical and mental health. The end product, Susan, is a construct of advice from health experts portraying the effects isolated working can have on your body if we don’t take the necessary steps to avoid them.
Don’t want to end up like Susan? Tips for avoiding long-term side-effects of working from home
For people who are working from home as a result of the pandemic, experts like Kimberly A. Eddleston of Northwestern have some practical tips:
- Establish a dedicated workspace – Individuals must realize the importance of maintaining a dedicated workspace. If a home office isn’t available, it’s crucial that people have a place to be comfortable and work uninterrupted.
- Maintain a routine – If you continue to work from home long-term, you should maintain a routine – this includes your usual morning routine, “getting to work,” and eventually logging off.
- Work-life balance – Those of us working for multinationals across time zone should take special note of this. “It can be hard to ‘shut off’” when you are at work, but you need to make a conscious effort to switch off.
- Create a sense of community – People are used to going into the office to enjoy a sense of kinship with colleagues. Building in some time during the week to talk to co-workers by phone or videoconferencing about non-work topics can help ease the shock of losing that in-person contact.
- Exercise – It’s important to take time to exercise and get some fresh air after a long day of remote working.
- Nurture social connections – Remote working require us to consciously build in opportunities to connect informally with colleagues. One of the main challenges we face with remote working is the lack of face to face human contact.
- Utilize your free time wisely – One of the great benefits of remote working is the fact that you don’t have to commute. You could spend that time socializing with friends and family, taking a walk in nature, or doing a fitness activity you enjoy.
Links and resources
- 3 Tips to Avoid WFH Burnout (Harvard Business Review) – Focus on your most important work | Maintain temporal boundaries as much as possible | Maintain physical and social boundaries
- Working from home? here are some tips, and a look at the long-term effects of permanent telecommuting. (Northeastern University) New research by Kimberly A. Eddleston suggests that people who routinely work from home are no less likely to be promoted than those who don’t, but that they’re less likely to get raises at the same rate.
- The History of Loneliness (The New Yorker) – examines this issue in part by posing the question, “In the age of quarantine, does one disease produce another?”
- Meet Susan (directlyapply.com)- a visual representation of the remote worker in 25 years.
- Get Organized: 20 Tips for Working From Home (PC Magazine)- Working remotely can be hugely rewarding, but only if you keep your productivity up, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and nurture your business relationships. Productivity expert Jill Duffy shows you how be more productive when you are working from home.
- 23 Essential Tips for Working Remotely (Inc. Magazine) Follow these tips to keep your whole team’s productivity and morale high.
What a ridiculous article. All of “Susan’s” symptoms could just as easily be attributed to working on-site in an office setting all day.
Almost all of these things are applicable in an office setting
It seems like a lot of people had fun at home creating funny characters. However, it may be worth getting on with some work because I don’t think anyone is likely to look like that 😂
Ever since I work from home, I finally have time for exercising and cooking proper healthy meals. I’m also richer because I save in transportation, coffee and food.
This article is completely unrelated to working from home. Not sure how can this pass any edit. Please consider removing it.
The intent is to highlight the risks to prepare newbie WFH folks to find outlet for proper exercise, food and socializing.
I read other reply comments and I totally agree with them. Please read this long comment post and feel free to LOL. (or cry). Employers will do to the employee whatever they can get away with by law. This is never more true than in the over-the-road (OTR) trucking business. From my personal experience as a truck driver, about two thirds of the nation’s truck drivers are like this now. They can be required to work at all different hours of the day or night and with a combo of driving and being on duty but not driving, they can legally work up to 70 hours in a workweek. That is 11 legal total hours driving, or 14-hours of on duty time. Many drivers suffer from morbid obesity, sleep problems(not related to sleep apnea). Bad diets: Fast food and quick access to overpriced low nutrient, high in bad carbs, salt and fat. (oh and BTW, the only item fit to eat on a garden salad is probably the boiled eggs.) The healthiest drivers may be living off 64-ounce barrels of black coffee(but to not smoke or use any tobacco products). A few of the truck stops now have fitness rooms, but they are not available in all running areas, nor do truck stops encourage usage. Truck stops do however encourage drivers to eat(always discounts on junk food snacks), shower, smoke, and before the pandemic, sit in the truck driver lounge and watch TV. Drivers stay out on the road anywhere between four and six weeks on average. We may have to spend home time off to plan doctor and dental visits.(But who has the energy for that?) No wonder why so many drivers have bad teeth. Isn’t their a link between heart problems and dental health? Many drivers, in order to keep their DOT medical cards, result to accepting prescriptions(with harmful long-term side effects), for medical conditions that were previously preventable, such as hypertension from high blood pressure, and in most cases even diabetes. I almost never see truck drivers getting out of the truck to walk just for exercise. And why should they? So they can risk getting run over by other drivers speeding to the fuel isle, or being sexually harassed(or treated like a hooker on the prowl by the police if you’re a woman?) The grassy areas surrounding parking lots, which could be used for walking, may be filled with dog poop, or urine bottles(seriously), or trash from some litterbug too lazy to use the dumpster. Drivers run in all types of road and weather conditions: snow blizzards after dark, tornadoes and hurricanes, dangerously high altitudes with 80 mph plus winds. Insane, right? But absolutely true. Most of us will shut down, but others will drive and pray. (I believe in God but this is ridiculous). The difference between truck driver employees and owner-operators, is that most employers have a forced dispatch policy. That means a driver employee cannot turn down a load. Even if they don’t have the legal hours available. Dispatch will often put it on a driver anyway and expect them to re plan the run on their own, (while nagging them the entire time for a estimated new time to deliver, with or without customer approval). When you become a OTR truck driver, you sign over your life. It’s like slavery or prison but you get a paycheck. But the pay can vary between $25,000 and $125,000 annually. The gap is that broad and it depends on what you haul, work experience, and of course, who you work for. I’m not talking about local daily employees, because they may have a daily set schedule, usually also have two days off every week. OTR drivers can work at all different hours of the day or night. Can run seven days straight before they get a day off. Social isolation is a trademark in trucking. Facebook and YouTube are still not enough. The traditional CB radio chat was full of morons. And many companies don’t allow pets or will charge an outrageous deposit($500-$1500)to have one. I believe that is done with the intent to discourage animal companionship, which is meant to help improve human health (unless you’re allergic). A qualifying adult can ride along for free or for a much lower price than any pet. But many people won’t tolerate being stuck in a truck out with the driver for more than a few weeks. Unless they are dependent on you in some way. According to the stats, the average truck driver in 2020 is 55 years old. Not enough young people under 30 want the job, and I can’t blame them with all I have just said about the lifestyle. There is just no way I can see the health issues stated in this article happening to a person working from home, whom has the total freedom to plan out their days, without the restrictions of the office environment. And OTR truck drivers can end up with these issues in a few short YEARS…not decades, with little or no hope of recovery without leaving the job. The system of trucking is broken. There is no one group or person to to blame, but I still do not think that it can be fixed.
My hats off to the OTR truck drivers who continue to sacrifice virtually everything to earn a living, so that the rest of us can live a more normal healthier life.
Thanks for sharing your insightful comments !