Are we working from home or living at work?FreshSplash/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
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This winter was even harder than I expected. I knew, thanks to the ongoing pandemic, it would be tough. But once the cold and darkness descended, I was even more drained than normal. With nowhere to go other than the four walls of our house, I felt like all I ever did was work and sleep...with some fleeting time with my kid in between.
I began to notice that I couldn’t maintain my normal level of focus and motivation when I was working. A big part of my job as an interactive editor at The Globe involves creativity and experimentation with digital storytelling. It became harder to brainstorm fresh ideas when my brain felt consistently foggy and I didn’t have colleagues a desk or a floor away to talk through things with. Not even my regular Zoom yoga classes were doing enough to refocus my mind and give me fresh energy for the work day.
Why was I feeling like this? After all, I was still living the same pandemic life that began back in March, 2020 – and in some ways it had improved since my kid’s daycare reopened in the fall. Why couldn’t I just suck it up and muddle through?
Then one day I opened my e-mail to read the latest issue of Katie Hawkins-Gaar’s excellent newsletter, My Sweet Dumb Brain, and she said something that immediately stopped me in my tracks: “By this point in the pandemic, we’ve likely all heard the adage that we’re not working from home, but living at work. The tools we use for our jobs – phones and laptops, e-mail and Zoom – are the same ones we use for socializing. Our boundaries between work and life have blurred past recognition. As a result, we’re struggling to focus and get as much done as we’d like to.”
I read the words again: “We’re not working from home, but living at work.”
And those “working conditions aren’t sustainable,” she adds.
COVID-19 has exacerbated the structural cracks that were already present in working life (as it has for so many other societal norms). The problems this pandemic has spurred are well documented by now: lost wages, digital exhaustion, disconnection, anxiety, burnout, the list goes on. And the effects on working mothers have been particularly acute.
I want to be clear that I’m specifically talking about professional industries where the majority of work has typically occurred in office settings. Not every worker has had the privilege of minimizing their personal risk of acquiring COVID-19 by working from home and those people are disproportionately bearing the brunt of this pandemic in more ways than one.
But the workplace disruption this pandemic has kicked off is unprecedented for many of us. It’s a real opportunity to completely reimagine how we work, as more of us eventually find our way back to offices.
On that note: As a working mom, I believe the benefits of working from home cannot be overstated. I do not miss the morning rush of daycare drop-off followed by mad dash to the office. But, at the same time, I do miss collaborating in person on some things. There’s a way to get the best of both worlds: As one survey released recently by Microsoft found, 73 per cent of employees want a hybrid option that lets them do both. Most workers enjoy the flexibility of remote work, but want the ability to see their colleagues in person in some capacity. Offices could become places where teams gather for specific chunks of time and disperse to home offices for more focused work. This office/remote split could ebb and flow depending on projects or circumstances.
But one thing worth keeping in mind is that any amount of remote work will lead to different levels of access to resources and leadership. Finding strategies to create equity on that front needs to be part of any remote work plan.
Another obvious challenge for companies with staff working from home is how to communicate effectively. In-person and digital communication strategies shouldn’t be identical, after all. A 2018 Harvard Business Review article explores the concept of “establishing ‘rules of engagement’ for virtual interactions,” a philosophy that determines how and when to communicate and collaborate before a working relationship gets underway.
There’s opportunity to experiment with different methods of communication here too. For example, earlier this year, a colleague and I sent each other voice memos while working on the same project – I highly recommend this as an efficient and asynchronous way to communicate.
And we can’t talk about much-needed change in the workplace without acknowledging employee burnout. I’ve heard from friends who, while they love the flexibility of working from home, say they actually clock more hours now than they did before the pandemic when they were in the office. I can’t say I also didn’t slip into this. There’s that “not working from home but living at work” thing again.
“If you’re a company that’s made it through this pretty well, now is the time to make sure you don’t have a bunch of employees burning out,” economist Betsey Stevenson told The New York Times in February.
No one is saying this is an easy problem to solve, but here’s an easy place to start: Employers should start by normalizing taking daily breaks so staff can do whatever they need to do, like eat meals, exercise or run errands. Leaders have to be seen taking these breaks, too, or no matter how much you say it’s okay for workers to do it, some just won’t.
As for me, after reading that newsletter, I’ve made more of a conscious effort to not “live at work.” I’m better at my job when I take time to refresh. (And, yes, that includes taking breaks.)
What else we’re thinking about:
I love a deep dive into a single topic, especially one that’s at the intersection of pop culture and an analysis of recent history. Enter the Ringer Dish podcast’s limited series Every Single Album: Taylor Swift. After a very public dispute with her former label over the masters to her first six studio albums, Swift announced in August 2019 that she planned to re-record her back catalogue. Ahead of her first re-release (2008′s Fearless on April 9), Ringer reporter and Swift superfan Nora Princiotti teams up with industry insider and former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard to dissect every single one of the singer’s albums while placing her career within the industry, business and internet culture context she dominates. This series is the rare mix of fandom meets industry expertise and it’s been extremely enjoyable listening.
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