When working from home becomes our life

One year ago, today, on Feb 28, 2020, we sent a message I drafted from our CEO with a warning that this pandemic was real and something our company was taking seriously. We stated, “It is extremely important that we all take this threat seriously by adequately preparing not only at work, but at home.” 

The next day, my wife, my youngest son and I left on a long planned two-week spring break trip to visit our family in Northern California. We in no way felt like we were not taking the threat seriously, we just had no idea like so many what we were facing. 

A week into our family vacation the seriousness of our message was becoming more apparent and while on a call with our executive team, sitting on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Mendocino, California, I helped make the decision to send all of our non-frontline employees home for two weeks of remote working. Our thought was this was a temporary measure we were taking to help “flatten the curve”. By April, at the latest, we would all be back in the office and things would return to normal.

We flew home early and for the first time in fifteen years I began working remotely. It all seemed surreal and those first two weeks were a novelty that was refreshing, despite the unknowns and the scariness of the pandemic raging around us. My wife and son were also at home and we went on a walk in our neighborhood each evening and we loved being together in a way that we never had been before. 

Much of our in-person meetings were cancelled those first two weeks and there were more phone calls than Zoom meetings, as we re-calibrated our work schedules to adjust to this temporary situation. Our ways of working were in transition and changing, though at the time it all seemed temporary and new.

A year later our lives have adjusted to working from home and this new way of working has completely upended our lives and not always in a good way. 

As a global company, with employees in different time zones around the world, many reoccurring meetings now begin at 6 AM or end at 11 PM. Without travel and in person meetings we find our calendars blocked out weeks in advance and some days we do not even have a moment away from the camera to grab a snack.

In my house I have found that our evening family walks have been replaced with catching up on all of the missed emails of the day and the joy of not having a commute has been replaced by a longing for that time when we used to let our minds prepare for the day or decompress in the evenings with an audio book. 

With travel restrictions in place, most vacations and escapes have been put off, with the general feeling it is not worth taking time off if we can’t travel anywhere. 

Stress is at an all time high and we are realizing that our work has become our lives.

I acknowledge that I say this from a place of privilege. I am one of the fortunate ones who still has my job, while so many over this past year have lost more than I can imagine – from jobs they valued, to loved ones who are no longer around the dinner table with them. I grieve with you and my heart breaks with yours. 

Yet, today, I write this article for the approximately three thousand employees working from home in my region who I hear similar sentiments from daily. Those who feel this stress and whose reality has become days and nights that seem to flow together with unending work. Those who I hear a weariness in their answer, “I’m doing ok”, when I ask the question, “How are you really doing?” 

Knowing our colleagues are in the same situation seems to have devolved into us ignoring any semblance of working hours. We set up calls during what would have been commute hours and it feels natural to call a peer with a question at 8 PM in the evening – after all, what else are they doing we ask ourselves? 

In a nutshell, our lives have become our work.

It is with this reality that over the past couple of months I have found myself wrestling with answers on how to change this. Not just for myself, but for the thousands of amazing colleagues I work with from Alaska to Argentina. We have tried “forced” vacations, yet, I continue to see the lowest levels of time off requests in all my years of working in human resources. 

So, I ask the question, do you find yourself in a similar place? 

What have you done to avoid work consuming your life? 

What proactive steps has your company taken to help employees through these times of long-term stress? 

What do you think we should do? 

Do you have any recommendations?

I still find myself on my laptop doing emails at eleven PM most nights and working on Sunday nights catching up before another long week, so I in no way have this figured out. That said, I am trying to be more deliberate in finding ways to offset this new reality of work taking over my life.

For a long-time I have fought against talk about “work/life balance”. I have always felt this phrase creates artificial walls that aren’t beneficial to either our employees or the company. There is nothing wrong with shooting off a quick reply to an important email in the evening, taking a call from a hard to reach colleague over the weekend or keeping up on email for an hour in the mornings while on vacation. I have felt the same way about employees taking personal calls during their workday or running out for important errands. Life and work overlap and realizing and embracing this is healthy and important and ok and having a defined start and stop on either of work or life has always seemed artificial and inauthentic in a way. 

Well, that was all good in theory until this year when we found that working from home has meant that work has become our life. So, what do we do now?

A few ideas I am incorporating,

·      Ignore the outdated idea of an 8-5 PM workday. Find gaps in your calendar and block them for a ride on your Peloton, a morning meditation practice, a midday hour in your garden, a midday workout and shower or a run through the neighborhood. Whatever you need to recharge. Do this often and be deliberate about it. You may not be able to prevent the 6 AM calls with your European colleagues, but that should not mean you forget about your health. Do not feel guilty for carving time out for yourself during the day.

·      If possible, block out evening family mealtime and make this time sacred. Our family has never been one to watch much TV and we have valued the nightly ritual of eating a meal together and talking about our days and sharing moments of gratitude. The thought of a TV interrupting this time would have but me in a conniption fit in the past! Yet, we saw this time getting chopped up with my remote work. My wife and I deliberately relooked at this time. Knowing I spend my entire day talking, we moved our dinners to the kitchen bar and now kick off each dinner with a TV episode. We started with The Mandalorian, then watched a couple of reality shows (Alone & Blown Away) and now we are into Modern Family. This time ends with us laughing, comparing each other to the various cast members and connecting in a different way. It has become a special time for us. Plan a deliberate time each day to be uninterrupted with your family.

·      Take a deliberate tech Sabbath once a week. Knowing my tendency to respond or send emails 24/7, I’ve deliberately tried to completely unplug every Saturday and focus entirely on the family. PA has opened up their ski resorts and we have been out eight times this year – more than most seasons. We have tried to be outside most Saturdays, hiking and breathing in the fresh air, a welcome respite from video conferences. I think this is more important than ever before. Give yourself permission to completely unplug and take one day of rest like you have never done before.

·      Schedule some happy hours with colleagues! I now have two different teams where we’ve scheduled a weekly “Drinks & Drama” meeting instead of another routine Zoom. We are connecting in a way that seems more personal and breaks up the routine, yet, still allows us to have a regular connection. Remember, your team still needs time to blow off some steam and it is important to provide this time.

·      Force yourself to use your personal and vacation time. You might not be able to make that planned trip to Italy right now, but you still need time away from work. Take some extended weekends. Be safe and get out of the house! Rent an Airbnb in a place within driving distance that you may never have thought of going before and use some of your time to get outside. You will come back renewed.

·      Connect authentically with those around you. Be open about your struggles and really listen to your coworkers, family and friends. Realize that none of us have all the answers, but we all need to be heard and acknowledged and this is a time when this is critical for all of our sanity. If you are a leader of people, resist the temptation to have answers and instead be one who authentically and actively listens.

We do not know how much longer this will last and we all need each other. 

The future of work will look different and we are all trying to figure this out. At our company we’ve began the conversations about future remote flexibility, as the old school myths of working from home being a holiday have been forever proven false. 

While we may not know what that future will look like, we do know that right now our lives have become work and this is not healthy. Try some of the above ideas and please share what you are doing. We are all in this together!