Podcast #5: Working from home and its impact on wellbeing

Dominika, how do people manage to work from home? Aren’t we getting lazy?

Since the pandemic, working from home has been a highly debated topic not only in the world of human resources, but also in general. Are we becoming lazy? I’ll answer that simply. Those who want to get lazy, let them get lazy. Those who don’t want to get lazy can work efficiently and productively from home. There are certainly some specifics, advantages, disadvantages. But I’m forging the path of the happy medium, and I bring a certain relativism to this topic, as well as to our podcast today.

Do you think working from home will become more and more common? Or are we due for a return to the office? How are employers approaching this?

After the pandemic, when I was still working in human resources, there were companies that were letting employees work remotely or starting to create a hybrid work model. But there were also companies that went right back to the traditional model of working in the office. However, there were also companies that forced employees to go to the office even during a pandemic, which could have been life-threatening. How a company handles this is its own decision. However, times are moving forward and from the perspective of not just Generation Z, the music of the future is definitely the telecommuting model or at least the hybrid work model. It was not entirely comfortable for people to have to go back to the office after spending long periods of time at home. I think hybrid is the answer – that trend is really strongly at the forefront. When I was recruiting, I was also doing it for other locations in Europe, not just in Slovakia. If I told the candidates that they couldn’t work from home, the work wasn’t interesting to them at all. So also from a recruitment point of view, I know that people want to have flexibility and they want to be able to at least choose when they are in the office and when they are at home or in a co-working space.

Working from home provides us with both opportunities and unexpected complications. How do I find out what really benefits me and what exhausts me? What do you think is the biggest benefit of working from home?

We should observe ourselves and see what we are comfortable with, how it makes us feel. Some people know exactly, others have to do more digging to find out what and how affects their well-being. The benefits of working from home are multiple in my opinion. The first is time saving – we don’t have to move around, which also makes it a greener alternative. Plus, nowadays, we have so many stimuli influencing us that we are overloaded. When we are at home in a pleasant environment, there are fewer stimuli because we don’t have to travel by tram or bus, we don’t have to talk to anyone, etc.

At the same time, there is flexibility. If we have meetings that we all have to be at, the early birds can get up earlier, start work and finish earlier. Conversely, someone may prefer to sleep longer because they don’t have to travel and start work later. Psychologically, we also develop skills that we may not have learned in an office environment – self-management of time, setting boundaries, independence. These are all things we need to learn so that we don’t get lazy, so that our productivity and performance doesn’t drop. It is a challenge for us.

A lot of research says we’re more productive at home because even if we’re doing laundry or washing dishes, it’s still a shorter time than going out for lunch, coffee, a cigarette – we’re a little sleepy after lunch, so we slow down… These scales are equivalent – we want to socialize in the office, and that takes away from our time and it takes away from our efficiency.

In my opinion, the best routine or the best trick is to take care of yourself. Whatever that means to you. It can be a good meal, a tea break, a walk, a morning workout or something else. We have to find what works for us. General advice and tips are fine, but when people read them they can get frustrated because they can’t put them into context. That’s why I don’t like to give tips either, they’re more like inspirations. I can tell you what helps me, and you can try to analyze it and figure out what helps you.

How can we better cope with the feeling of isolation if we only work remotely?

If the company has the capacity or budget or other possibilities, it is very nice to go to the offline world. To meet, for example, once a week or once a month, to go somewhere out, so that we are not just behind those screens. It’s very good if the company culture or the HR department supports that. At the same time, if IT professionals work completely remote and have colleagues in India only, for example, they can also socialize with people from their own environment, not just with colleagues. We have other people around us – family, friends… For someone, it’s still nice to have that contact only in the online space, which is not bad if it’s okay for them. Everyone has to deal with their situation in a way that suits them.

Dominika, do you have any examples or personal experiences with people who have managed to set healthy boundaries and improve their well-being when working from home?

I think my personal experience is the most telling. I was able to work from home, I was productive and efficient. My life changed 180 degrees because I had time to myself, a tidy household, I started running and training for a half marathon… It just suited me, I didn’t have any boundary issues. Maybe it’s about choice, about consciously setting when to turn off the computer. I learned how to function that way, it suited me completely and I took a lot away from that period. But all the things we talked about – the social isolation, the laziness, the routines, the rituals – all of those things I had to laboriously set up and learn. But it suited me very well. I felt like I was getting five times more work done at home than I was in the office. I’m quite a social person and when I was in the office, I wanted to talk to everyone. But I didn’t feel socially isolated at home either. I always had colleagues on the phone or on online chat platforms. And the people I wanted to be with, I met after work. I could set a boundary and go for a walk with them after work, go for a run, go roller skating… I was able to incorporate sports into my life because the travel time was reduced and I could take two laps around the lake instead.

Can you share with us a specific real-life example of how someone managed to transform working from home into something that really empowered them mentally?

Not entirely out of practice, but my mom’s examples come to mind. The important thing about working from home is time – what we do with it, how we use it. She realized that this time can be devoted to many things, not just work. That she can do her work and then devote herself to the activities she likes. She started going to different clubs and doing different activities.

It is up to us how we choose to deal with time. I think we can use every situation to our advantage. As well as we can do that, we will be successful.

What would be your advice to our listeners?

If they were my clients in the therapy room, I would tell them that work is just work. Think about what else can make your life better and happier. If I had a job as a recruiter again, I would ask employees about their needs. And I’d trust them to know what’s better for them – whether to work fully from home, in hybrid mode, or in the office. I would try to actively broach the subject with them, because I think it’s very beneficial to analyze yourself. It will give you a lot of answers to what works for you. The key is to be kind to yourself, to find your way to yourself and figure out where you feel comfortable and where you don’t feel comfortable. But remember, work is just work. We have to do it where we are.

Last question – what trends do you see with employers who offer work from home? Will employers help employees in this sphere?

I think it’s going to be about management setup and company culture. There will be firms that will have an office-only model, firms that will be hybrid, and also firms that will be maybe just remote or mostly remote. It depends on the needs of the recruiters. There are jobs that we cannot recruit in the regions, and it is worth thinking about whether we can recruit qualified people in other European cities and propose them to work remotely. This is a wide-ranging issue that cuts across a number of sectors. However, it all depends on the set-up of the company – whether it trusts the employees, whether it sets an example to them.

Thank you Dominika for today’s interview. I hope that you, dear listeners, have learned something new and practical that will help you to manage working from home in a way that is conducive to your mental health. Dominika Neprasova was in the studio with us today. I am Ivana Hricova from msg life Slovakia and until next time, goodbye.