COVID-19 Pandemic has been emotionally challenging for all of us changing our lives in unprecedented ways.
The Coronavirus Pandemic gave an opportunity to work from home. It gave a practical insight into how feasible it was for both the employee as well employer and their business.
This experience was very beneficial in understanding the culture, system of working from home and exploring new possibilities.
Work from home had been emotionally and physically exciting, but over a period of time somewhere the thin demarcation between personal and professional relations started weakening , building up unknown stress. There are many advantages and disadvantages of working from home.
Many companies are still allowing their employees to work from home as they are benefitted in multiple ways from this pattern of working culture –
1) Flexibility and agility –
Working from home had become flexible for most of the employees as it provided a comfortable and peaceful atmosphere, without much disturbances but also the homely environment diverted minds from the work assigned.
Initially the culture was happily welcomed by many people but as time passed by, people found it difficult to manage office work from their homes.
They were working for hours together as they were asked to stretch their working capacities. Their traveling time had reduced and that time was utilized to complete the job assigned to them.
These expectations lead to disharmony at home as managing both the household chores along with their office work was getting too exhaustive.
2) Physical and mental stress –
People started complaining of pain in the neck region, backache, headache, eye strain to exposure to screen for longer durations and disturbed sleep.
These all ailments increased due to spending too much time on screens, sitting continuously in one position without involving physical activities.
Even the meal timings were not controlled, this lead to all digestion problems and hereby affected their health.
Everybody at home was mentally disturbed and that got reflected in their work.
The other psychological problems which many of them faced was the effectiveness and performance at work. Both the qualities were badly affected.
3) Potential burnout –
An office provides a clear physical distinction between work and home life, working at home leads to staff forgetting to differentiate between work-life and home-life.
This lead to major confusion with the employees finding it difficult to analyse and understand the capabilities of their staff.
Work related discussions with colleagues, higher authorities gave better solutions which almost everyone missed at home. Many things were happening uncontrollably, projects got delayed as they couldn’t be managed and sorted out at home.
It became difficult to maintain the team spirit as the employees were working at home on their own.
Working from home became more difficult for many of the females, single parents as they had to balance both the jobs simultaneously. Managing kids, their online studies, household chores and office work.
Less physical space at home created a hurdle for many of them as they couldn’t focus on their work. Children at home, senior citizens often unknowingly caused interruptions during working hours.
4) Missing The Moments –
Working from home leads to distance in relations with the office colleagues. Many people missed their fighting for seating chair in public transport, having tea parties together at a common tea point during their breaks, personal interactions, commenting on looks, attires complimenting each other and many more such things.
5) Enjoying the offs / breaks from work –
Less holidays were sanctioned by the employers as their staff was already at home, spending time with their family. So even if the employee was not keeping well, he / she had to report and attend the online office work as they would be working only for a few hours. So again it was a pain for the employees that even after staying back at home they couldn’t rest freely.
Tips To Reduce The Stress And Make Working Easy
Various small efforts taken towards making work from home easy would help people to get rid of the stress and get relief.
A specific area should be designated at home to create a working office with the necessary stationeries and a comfortable chair with good back support and neck rest.
After every 2 hours of work, some basic stretching exercises, the eye exercises should be performed. A small tea, snacks break should be taken which will provide rest to eyes and brain and increase the output.
Listening to soft music, performing yoga, meditation, breathing exercises will help in releasing the stress and building up positive energy.
Small and frequent meals should be taken to avoid large gaps, which otherwise gave rise to stomach upsets. A regular, balanced and healthy diet should be consumed to keep fit.
7-8 glasses of water are required daily to maintain energy levels in the body.
Regular, time to time interaction with family members and office colleagues would help in maintaining healthy relationships.
Every work either office or home, should be categorized as per their demands and importance, so that it becomes easier in completing the tasks / achieve the targets at right time and with less stress.
A specific time should also be reserved to interact on social media to stay connected with close friends, relatives. All this work should be planned and a specific time table has to be maintained which would avoid creating any confusion.
In this way all the office work and the household chores would be managed smoothly and everybody’s life will be at ease. Any work related issues should be sorted out in the working hours only and should not be further discussed when spending time with the family.
Managing time and balancing it between work and household chores allows smooth functioning of all the jobs to be done in this pandemic situation.
Several strategies should be developed to balance work and family responsibilities which will certainly help in increasing productivity.
Recognizing and working towards this complex situation is a challenge that everyone is facing and has happily accepted.
We, at Lifeblyss, have made an attempt to provide a few feasible tips which would help in creating a sustainable balance between work and family life in this changing environment. We hope these tips will surely help you in dealing with the daily challenges of work from home and help lead a healthier life.
