The Coronavirus has changed the work environment. Across the country and in much of the world, employees who can, are working from home. Initially, most employers expected that the productivity of their employees would fall because of inadequate home workspaces and household interruptions.
Preliminary data, which is mostly anecdotal at this point, suggests differently. Productivity has not taken as big a hit, and perhaps it has not fallen at all. Theories on why that is include hard-working and dedicated employees, absence of normal workplace interruptions, more efficient meetings, time saved from the elimination of commuting.
Could this cause workplaces to change after the pandemic? Will employers be more open to employees working from home in the future. Will employees want to continue working from home after the pandemic, either partially or completely?
The next question is, can employees sustain this level of productivity if the work-from-home requirement continues for weeks or months? Or are some employees already starting to show signs of stress?
To help answer the latter question, Mark Murphy of Leadership IQ recently published an article* entitled, “Three Warning Signs That Your Remote Employees Are Starting to Crack Under the Stress of Working from Home”. Here are the signs:
- Decreased Resilience (ability to handle adversity)
Symptoms include difficulty concentrating, loss of interest in things that used to be enjoyed, and feeling irritable or angry - Making Mistakes
Symptoms include making more mistakes and missing more deadlines than normal, or exhibiting distractedness or spaciness - Language Is Becoming More Negative and Emotional
Symptoms include language that includes absolutes such as “impossible” or “never (e.g. “this project is impossible,” or “I’ll never finish in time”).
Can the massive remote-work experiment maintain a reasonable level of productivity? That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, check in with your employees and assess whether they are exhibiting warning signs.
*https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2020/04/23/three-warning-signs-that-your-remote-employees-are-starting-to-crack-under-the-stress-of-working-from-home/