The Rise of Hybrid Work and the Importance of Self-Care in Remote Workspaces

When Covid Hit – Working from Home!

I started working from home in March 2020 along with hundreds of other staff, with just a laptop at the dining room table.? I suspect this resonates with a lot of you.? The year that never was!

I live with chronic pain and so I thought working from home would be really beneficial.? Which it was, but sitting on a dining room chair for nearly 9 hours a day started to take its toll.? I took for granted walking up the corridor, catching up with my colleagues, moving around often which really helped with my pain management.?

Hybrid Working

Having a mix of working from home and popping into the office or working onsite has now become normal.? For some, there is no option, they have to work onsite, such as clinical staff, retail, transport etc.

However, for a lot of us, hybrid working now seems to be the norm and I suspect it is going to be the case for a very long time, if not permanent.? Research has shown that over 70% of working people want a mix of both working from home and being onsite (according to Adecco Group).?

What are your feelings on this?

Organisations have seen the benefit of this, not having to purchase/rent real estate for increasing staff numbers, the use of hot desks on a rotational basis, not having to pay so many energy bills, reduction of travel expenses.? The flip side though is that some staff members have not been kept in contact with, where they have felt isolated from those onsite.

Those working from home are paying more though, some people don’t have enough room for a ‘home office’, lack of decent WiFi – especially when more than one of you are having to use it all at once for work, childcare issues (especially when their child has been ‘pinged’ by the NHS App and have to self-isolate, whilst still having to be a working mum or dad, carer).?

The other side of it is that reduced time to travel to work, you get this time back for your home life, or you carry on working because ‘it’ll just take a minute or so more’.? There is an element of flexibility.? You can be home for that delivery now and not take off valuable annual/holiday leave.?

Set Up for Working from Home

My world changed when I got my office chair home.? Oh my word, I didn’t realise what a difference having a proper chair made to my wellbeing.?

Then came the extra screens, a proper keyboard and a mouse.? However, I was still set up on the dining room table.? The table was still really too high.

I also found that I was working longer and taking less breaks, which meant I wasn’t moving around enough and this impacted my pain management.? The feeling of guilt that I had, with colleagues on the front line in the NHS and I was happily tucked up at home.? ?

Do those feelings sound familiar to any of you?

As a team, we set up a coffee hour once a week that we caught up at virtually.? This was a place where we didn’t talk shop.? We talked music, films, hobbies, what we were doing the weekend, a bit of laugher to bring us together.? We also did virtual quiz nights to keep us sociable.? Great fun!

Quite a few of the team though really missed the face to face contact and so we made our onsite office ‘Covid safe’ with a maximum of 5 of us in at once.? We now rota into work onsite each week.

Things have changed at home too, with me moving into our spare room (I’m very lucky) and now have a proper workplace set up.? This is more comfortable, but also, the kit isn’t in my face every evening when it was originally set up on the dining room table.? I can close the door on it each evening.

Self-Care

Even though I can close the door on it at home, I have found I don’t take so many breaks, meetings are back to back, I don’t move around so much and sometimes work longer than I should.?

I’m also more tired, as concentrating so much on video calls.? I think this will resonate with many of you too.

So what do we do to help our own self-care?

Get ready as if you are going to work onsite, get dressed and look presentable.

Taking regular breaks - don’t feel guilty.? This includes lunch breaks.

Take a walk at lunch time – I started off well and let it slip.? Now I’m back on it again.

Have team virtual get togethers – it’s okay to laugh and joke, it’s important for team building.

Pencil out Friday afternoons if you can, to catch up on those emails and finish the week on a high – I borrowed and passed this on from a colleague and it’s a really good feeling having that time to have a bit of headspace at the end of the week.

Connect with others virtually – pick up the virtual phone and have a video call with someone – don’t leave everything to email.? Check in on your team mates.?

It’s okay not to be okay.? Be honest if you are not yourself.? Working from home can be isolating.?

Please share what you do for your own self care, it may help others.

The New Normal

We have had to adapt so quickly and some of us have had a few wobbles, but we have supported each other amazingly. We have even celebrated birthdays virtually and a lot of thought has gone into trying to make these unique and special for the person receiving their ‘virtual’ birthday card or ‘virtual’ party.

So is hybrid working here to stay? What do you think?

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