Since the start of the pandemic, many of us have made the shift to working from home. But while the benefits of home-working have been widely extolled, it also poses challenges. How can remote workers ward against isolation and recapture the sense of camaraderie they might have experienced in the office? Abi Millar finds out


Simple tips for working from home
KEEP REGULAR HOURS
Without the commute, the temptation might be to work longer. Keeping to a timetable ensures you keep that division between work and home
GET OUT
If you are living and working from home, you might find yourself going out less, but making the effort to get outdoors feeds the soul and will keep your mood up
OFFICE SPACE
While not always possible, trying to set up separate office space, away from where you relax at home means you can still leave can shut the metaphorical door on your working day
One of the furthest reaching changes that occurred this year was the shift towards working from home. Whereas in the past, home-working was a minority pursuit – the preserve of freelancers and those with very forward-thinking employers – it has now become something close to the norm.
For many white-collar workers, the commute to the office has been replaced with a trudge to the kitchen table. Work meetings have been replaced with Zoom calls – the camera artfully positioned to show off the participant’s bookshelves – and smart-casual attire has given way to leggings and slippers.
In the UK, 49% of workers reported working from home at some point in the week ending 14 June, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In Australia, 32% of workers predominantly worked from home during April and May, while the figure for New Zealand was around four in ten.
It’s a dramatic change – last year, only 5% of the British labour market said they worked mostly from home – and like any change of this magnitude, it comes with its pros and its cons. For sure, there are many people who thrive on solitude, love their home comforts, and enjoy the extra hour in bed occasioned by cutting out their commute time. But there are just as many who have struggled, and very much miss aspects of their old life and identity.
“Working from home is a skill, particularly in relation to boundary setting,” points out Thom Dennis, CEO of the business management consultancy Serenity in Leadership. “Many organisations have experienced a spike in productivity from their people working from home, but this can be attributed mainly to the additional time released from travelling to the workplace and an inability to set clear boundaries of when and where work starts and stops in the home.”
He adds that it has not been an equalising experience across the board. In families, women have tended to bear the brunt of childcare and other domestic responsibilities, not to mention home-schooling. According to a report called Burnout Britain, 86% of women who were carrying out a standard working week alongside childcare experienced mental health problems in April.
There are class disparities too. Some people have the benefit of dedicated home offices, while others are crammed round a dining room table, or stuck working from their bedroom in a house-share. Then there are the basic differences in people’s psychological makeup. As Dr Lynda Shaw, a Business Psychologist and neuroscientist, explains, these have become more apparent as the pandemic has worn on. “Originally, it was a case of OK, we can do this – a honeymoon period almost,” she says “But we know that has worn thin as people have got used to working from home. It’s been great for people who are more introverted, but the extroverts have hated it, and then you’ve got those in the middle who oscillate between the two. It’s affected people very differently.”
Especially for the extroverts, one of the major challenges has been dealing with the loss of office community. Whatever your relationship with your co-workers, home working can mean eliminating a much-needed source of social contact.
“Not going to the workplace deprives the employee of access to socialising and chatting, which actually are very important and are not fulfilled in a limited online conversation,” says Dennis. “Many people cite reasons to go to work a the camaraderie, conversations, sharing of experiences, all of which contribute positively to the experience of the one third of one’s life one spends at work.”
He adds that some companies, aware of what’s being lost, are devising office routines in which people come to the workplace a couple of times a week in order to mix and network.
“But these are forced environments and experts are doubtful that the same advantages will accrue. The responsibility for work mental welfare that falls to companies is now in the spotlight,” he says.
What home-working takes away is the opportunity to make friendships organically, in that way that comes about naturally through hours of proximity. It can also limit your opportunities to forge business contacts in a non-forced way.
“Another issue I’ve seen is that companies are trying to be kind and compassionate and flexible, so that their staff can choose whether to go back in or not,” says Dr Shaw. “However we’ve got to be really mindful that it’s not creating a ‘them and us’ mentality. They’re more likely to get the promotion – they’re not having to commute an hour each day. You’re setting up a division and that to me is worrying.”