Remote work has been on my mind a lot lately. Like many, when the pandemic “lockdown” first began, I felt out of whack. I loved sleeping in and having a private bathroom, but I missed the division between work and home and the spontaneous chatty interactions that would arise with colleagues in the hallways, kitchen, or even in the restroom (I never liked sharing, but the serendipitous run-ins were sometimes nice).
Now I find myself with an hour’s commute back and forth from an office space three days a week, and I long to once again work from home full-time, just coming in for meetings and visits with customers or colleagues from other offices.
However, it turns out that, despite my discomfort, going into an office a few days a week may be good for my “well-being.”
“Although fully remote workers report higher engagement, they are less likely to be thriving in their lives overall (36 percent) than hybrid workers (42 percent) and on-site remote-capable workers (42 percent). Still, fully remote workers are more likely to be thriving than their fully on-site non-remote-capable counterparts (30 percent),” writes Ryan Pendell on the Gallup Workplace site, sharing statistics from Gallup’s State of the Workplace report.
Pendell goes on to write that though their engagement in their work increases, remote employees find wholly remote work more mentally and emotionally taxing than those on-site.
Why Can Remote Employees’ Overall Well-Being Suffer?
Reasons for this include the impact of physical distance, which Pendell reports can create mental distance, along with the stress of autonomy and the challenge of dealing with the technology required to connect to collaborate with colleagues.
There’s something to be said for having a colleague to chat with across the workstation aisle or over the cubicle wall in the old days, when cubicles were still common (funny to think that cubicles are now a luxury in that most of us only have workstations with no walls now).
The Challenge of Finding a Solution
Hybrid work arrangements were supposed to provide a solution, offering the best of both worlds: the chance to enjoy the convenience of working from home two to three days per week and the benefits of in-person time with colleagues. One problem is that during the pandemic, or even before, some colleagues were never in-person. They may have had remote status before the pandemic, or they may have been hired during the pandemic as remote employees. That means you’re liable to have work groups in which some, or nearly all, are remote and just a few, or even just one unfortunate soul, is on-site. In this arrangement, in-person work can be nearly as isolating as remote work.
The hybrid model, with enforced in-person time works well if all, or nearly all, members of a work group or department are in-person for the two to three in-office designated days and if the forced in-office time does not come with onerous commutes. From my own observation and experience, a taxing commute can greatly diminish the benefits of in-person time, cutting too much into personal well-being time.
My Unorthodox Vision
My take on the solution is unorthodox: For those employees whose work is wholly, or almost wholly, independent (i.e., sitting alone at a desk doing work on their own, regardless of the location), allow full-time remote status. For those employees who truly find themselves interacting throughout the day with colleagues who are local enough to also be present with them in the office, set up two to three days of in-office time, as long as none of those employees object.
Then, once a month, the whole group—those who are wholly remote and those who are in-office sometimes—gets together in-person to socialize. That way, the remote employees have much-needed time talking to colleagues about wins and frustrations and getting to know each other and bond.
It can be costly to fly in remote employees from other parts of the country every month, so if some are too far for every month, have these get-togethers occur once per quarter. If everyone in the work group is within a two-hour commute to the office location, then ask all to make the trek once a month for this social event. It’s a logistical inconvenience, but one that comes with the reward of having fun with your colleagues and getting a chance to mentally unload the things that would be discussed in an ongoing way across the workstation aisle or over the cubicle wall.
Most of all, there’s the benefit of having fun in person!
Working in the relative quiet of my own home, getting extra sleep, and having the luxury of privacy was a huge bonus for me. What I missed wasn’t doing work in-person with my colleagues; it was having fun with them. I’m guessing many of your employees may feel the same way.
How do you think about the benefits and disadvantages of remote work, and how do you truly give employees the best of both worlds?