COVID-19 has made people learn and survive through various ups and downs during lock down. This year has been challenging for the whole world where some people lost their jobs, went through financial crisis, lost their loved ones, dealt with loneliness, isolation and what not. The pandemic unfolded every worst thing that could have happened to an individual. During the lock down almost all employers declared work from home where employees are working from their homes rather than going to the work place. To frame it from an employer’s perspective “Employees have been given the privilege to work in the comfort of their homes”. PAUSE and RETHINK. There is no doubt about the benefits of policy for both the employers and employees but there are certain gaps that need to be evaluated, re-evaluated, and bridged. All of a sudden a home has turned into office. Not everyone owns a big house where they can work separately in a room. People with small kids have struggled a lot where they have to run their offices and kids have to attend their online classes. Imagine the struggle of those working women who need to assist their kids for online classes, manage the household chores without any house help and work with full efficiency and meet the expectation of their employers. Even those homes where kids are very small and not attending the schools and women are not working, it has been difficult to adjust with the change of work schedule of their partners. There are times when the wives keep waiting for their husbands to join for a meal, kids keep waiting for their dads to cuddle them, pamper them, play with them, but all of this has gone on a back seat because in work from home, there is only work and no home. Many of us would relate to this issue of struggling to deal with the office overload and create work life balance. Since the policy is new, it would obviously take some time to gel into our routine and the way we are used to work. For employers also, it would take some time to identify its pros and cons practically.

This article is a small attempt to throw light on some of the crucial aspects of ‘work from home’ where employers and employees both can learn to deal with the issues associated with it. To begin with, let’s start by discussing about what we need to do to make a balance between our work and home:

• Try to stick to your routine as usual: Like usual office routine, get up early, take bath, dress-up nicely (not necessarily formal), take breakfast on time and be ready to sit on your working desk at a designated time.
• Find a suitable area at home: What do us mean by suitable? By suitable we mean, identifying an area in your home where there is enough illumination and ventilation. To make it more functional keep a desk that is spacious enough to keep your papers, laptops and other necessary things. Use a chair with arms to make your long sitting hours comfortable. Keep other necessary things like chargers, phone etc. handy.
• Avoid keeping snacks nearby: Hunger pangs are obvious during work but when you are working from home, try to keep any edibles away from your approach for two reasons. First, you might indulge in binge eating; second, you will lose the opportunity to move around and walk few steps from your desk to the kitchen. Like we head towards the canteen in office when we are hungry, same can be done at home. Prepare some handy snacks that can be stored for a longer period and you could grab them whenever you want.
• Decide a break time: There is no limit to the work and deadlines. There will be a deadline every day for some or the other thing. Decide one break which is enough to take your lunch peacefully and walk around the home. Speak to your colleagues, if everyone follows a similar routine there would be minimal chances of phone call exchanges or discuss anything else. Until or unless it’s urgent, try to keep your phone away during lunch time.
• Establish boundaries: As said earlier, there is no limit to the work and especially in work from home most people are working beyond working hours. It’s not only because there is overload, it’s possibly because people are not used to work from home. Everyone is finding hard to balance between household chores, office work, online classes of kids etc. In this scenario, it is much needed to establish a routine and set clear boundaries between work and home. There should be a start time and an end time to the office job. Once the end time starts coming closure, speed up your work and try to wind up within the time. Before winding up, line up rest of the jobs based on urgent and important basis. Always keep a room for exceptions that may demand some extra working time, but wisely demarcate between routine jobs and exceptions.
• Decide priorities: Start every working day with a “To Do” list and decide priorities. Use your analytical vision to see what all things can be done at a time and divide them amongst your team accordingly. There could be a long list of assignments but chose only specific tasks which need to be completed on the same day and are most urgent. By meaning priority, we also mean shifting our priorities at different times. Once you are through your working hours, your home shall atomically come at a priority. Working from home should never over power your family time.
• Be active: Once you sit for your office work, it’s very difficult to get up; however, it is recommended to take small breaks every one or two hours to keep yourself active and alert. Also, many people have started to face health issues due to continuously sitting in a posture for long hours. Taking smaller breaks will ensure you keep moving and it will help your muscles to stretch. During these breaks one can quickly go to the loo, pick a snack from the kitchen or quickly make tea/coffee. If you are on a work call, try to utilize that time in walking around the room.
• Prevent Burnout: A continuous hectic schedule can impact our work efficiency and may lead to burnout. It is quite obvious in these times where everyone is spending most time inside house. To prevent this take out some time to devote to your hobbies, or rather develop some hobbies which could lighten up your mood. Spending some time in kitchen, reading a book, plantation, aerobics, etc. can definitely give you a break from routine and refresh your mind.

Employers and super ordinates can also help their employees and subordinates to achieve and maintain work life balance. This can be done by providing support to them and trusting that everyone is working efficiently even in the conditions they are not used to. There can be some practical things that could be followed:

• Respect individual situations of employees: Every employee may not have a big space and separate room for work. Be considerate if their small kids sometimes interfere during the meetings. We know that we are working from home but kids don’t.
• Limit the schedules of meetings: There should be a fixed time by which all meetings should end and no meetings should be lined up beyond that time. If a meeting is lined up half an hour before the end time, it is obviously going to linger on as some would be having issues with internet connections, some would have other issues and it will not reach any conclusion by the time it is supposed to. It is always better to schedule all the meetings in first half of the day so that rest of the day could be devoted to implement what has been discussed.
• Coordinate with other departments: Every department has a different work schedule based on their job profiles. It is always better to coordinate with each other in advance so that everyone is available for a particular discussion and things are managed within the time. Also, there could be a fixed schedule for everyday meeting so that all are available at the said time and no lineup is required on daily basis.
• Take a break from formal conversations: Sometimes it is important to indulge in personal conversations with your subordinates/employees. Ask about their families, their health, kids, and their studies. It increases cohesiveness and make the employees feel that you are concerned about them and their families.
• Never Mistrust: It is obviously difficult and not a good thing to spy on your employees whether they are sitting on the computer all day long or not. Doubting your employees will lead to ruptures in professional relationship which will further lead to low confidence and degrade efficiency. If we know that no matter how good we perform, we are going to be mistrusted, it will definitely lower down the motivation to work. Therefore, it is important to trust your employees and show faith in them. Pay attention on tasks being accomplished on time rather than finding someone online or off line during working hours.
• Respect work offs: The whole week passes in the office jobs and there is usually less time to devote to other household chores. The only day that can be devoted to other works is the week offs which is usually one day or in some cases two days. In this limited time one has to go shopping to buy essentials, clean the house, go for an outing with family, help kids in their studies, and so on. It is necessary to consider that apart from work, everyone deserves some ME time and family time. Work is never ending and it is obviously going to demand attention every day; no matter if it’s a Sunday. It is important to have a mutual agreement on making the work calls as limited as possible on work off days.
• Plan virtual gatherings with your team: It is always recommended to spend some quality time with the working team to keep them motivated and enhance their efficiency at work. During the pandemic where even after unlocks people have restrictions on meeting each other, it is important to have virtual gatherings amongst the team mates. It will lighten up the usual hectic working schedule and also give employees an opportunity to share their thoughts which they don’t get usually. These small gatherings can drastically improve communication and quality of relationship amongst super ordinates and subordinates. Try to take out small amount of time from the working days (probably post working hours) so that the family time doesn’t get impacted on work off days.
• Keep a check on mental health of your team mates: Everything has changed a lot in last few months. There has been an increase in mental health issues, especially for those who stay away from their families. It is necessary to keep regular contact with such employees and provide them a platform where they can discuss their issues. Many employers provide Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for their employees where they can share their personal and professional problems without being judged and with the trust of confidentiality. The Human Resource Department plays a crucial role in this and has to be vigilant about such issues amongst employees.

Gradually things are coming to normal, or we can say the “NEW NORMAL”. We all have to learn to cope with this situation and a little support and understanding between employee and employers, super ordinates and subordinates, working and non-working members of the family, can make a big difference to the situation.

These are some of the possible issues people have been facing during work from home. As a mental health professional I have seen these issues amongst people but there is a possibility that many of them did not approach any mental health professional and discussed about their difficulties.

Readers of this article are free to share their struggles via email. Write a half page note and send at info@talktocure.com. Your story could possibly bring out something important that may benefit in identifying the common issues and their management. Also, not only the working people, family members finding hard to cope with the work from home situation are welcome to share their thoughts and struggles.

Neelam Verma

Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Talk to cure