Technology is changing the way we work and where we work – but allowing employees to work from home may not always succeed from a health and wellbeing perspective.
Technology is changing the way we work and where we work – but allowing employees to work from home may not always succeed from a health and wellbeing perspective.
Increasing numbers of employees are taking up the option of working away from the office as advances in technology bring greater flexibility to the workplace.
At face value it appears to be a win-win; employers can tap into a larger pool of potential workers not able or willing to work from office locations, while employees are afforded more flexibility and the opportunity to enhance and enrich their life outside of work.
There’s no doubt that working remotely, or teleworking, can bring improvements to an employee’s emotional wellbeing, but it’s not a guaranteed outcome. In fact, research has shown some potential downsides that counter the obvious upsides of working from home.
Increasing demand
Data from a recent McCrindle Research survey found that 80 per cent of employees would stay longer with an organisation if they were offered the flexibility of working from home or remotely.
It’s only recently that technology in Australia has started to catch up with demand to enable teleworking on a routine basis, with about 17 per cent of Australian workers estimated to undertake some work at a site other than the office.
From an economic perspective, teleworking is expected to significantly improve national productivity. Last November, (then) prime minister Julia Gillard quoted research by Colmar Brunton and Deloitte Access Economic predicting that, by 2021, teleworking could help grow annual gross domestic product by $3.2 billion and create 25,000 new full-time jobs, including 10,000 in regional Australia.
It also found that 66 per cent of non-working people with disabilities would consider joining the workforce via teleworking arrangements, as would 60 per cent nearing retirement and 70 per cent of people living in remote areas.
So the case for change clearly exists, and results showing improvements in employee health and wellbeing give it even more weight.
The University of Melbourne and the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society recently surveyed teleworking employees and found significant wellbeing benefits from such flexible working arrangements.
Working away from the office was found to have engendered a more positive attitude towards work, given workers more sense of control over their work (which reduced stress), and facilitated a better work-life balance.
But the research has also shown that such benefits are not achieved by immediately moving a worker from working full-time in the office to working solely from home.
Instead, most people have expressed a desire to work away from the office for only some part of their working week.
Hybrid working
According to the McCrindle research, 78 per cent of respondents expressed a desire to do a certain amount of their work from home, but 36 per cent of this cohort requested that most of their employment be office-based.
McCrindle Research director Mark McCrindle says this is because people still needed social interaction for both professional and personal fulfilment.
“People aren’t as connected with community organisations any more, so the workplace is that point of social interaction, and they’re not so keen to lose that one source of social interaction,” he says.
Perth-based digital strategist Justin Davies is all-too familiar with the social isolation that can arise from long periods working solely from home.
“I found working from home great, I didn’t have any problems with that,” Mr Davies says.
“But when you sometimes do four or five days from home you can feel a bit isolated.
“I’d just get this natural instinct to ring somebody and talk to them even if it was just making appointments.”
Mr Davies is one of many Perth workers who have become members of co-location working space Spacecubed on St Georges Terrace, a shared ‘office’ out of the office.
Spacecubed members range from the self-employed to employees of large global companies without an office in Perth, and a significant number of start-up entrepreneurs.
Todd Soulas is a consultant and business analyst who also recently started working out of Spacecubed.
“It emulates the environment I had at other companies that you kind of miss out on when you’re working by yourself,” Mr Soulas says.
“(Working from home) you can lose perspective of how you’re supposed to interact with other people … it has some serious built-in risks.
“(Spacecubed) helps you look forward to going to work the next day because you can go for drinks at the end of the day or you can simply just talk to someone.”
Most of those found at Spacecubed still work from home a couple of days a week, but see the co-location portion of their working week as an imperative to retaining good mental health.
It reinforces findings of the McCrindle research and that from the University of Melbourne, which found teleworking was most successful when it formed part of a ‘hybridised’ working week that included working in a collaborative office environment.
In addition, the Melbourne study found some work tasks, for example in-depth analytical tasks requiring concentration, were better undertaken in a home environment as this resulted in higher productivity.
Other issues
However, Mr McCrindle says higher productivity can be negated by the social isolation resulting from the home environment, and some surprising health and safety issues.
“A fair proportion (of respondents) said that when they worked from home they did have unexpected workplace safety issues that they hadn’t thought of, mainly through ergonomics,” he says.
“They might have a desk and a chair there (at home) that they’ve worked a little bit on before, but for people doing a full eight-hour day there, or for some people two days, it’s not designed for that, whereas the more ergonomically designed professional office is.”
Perhaps not surprisingly there’s an increased propensity for teleworkers to eat more and sneak snacks from the pantry. This increased food intake can have a detrimental impact on their health and household expenditure.
“Suddenly through the day you’re getting through a little bit more of the snack foods and perhaps just consuming a little bit more food than they would have previously, and so they’re noticing the grocery bill going up more,” Mr McCrindle says.
Those working out of Spacecubed attest to the working-from-home health dangers.
“You can get the occasional patch where you go ‘hang on I’ve just spent three hours on the couch doing absolutely nothing, what happened?’” Mr Davies says.
“So I think being in a group environment is helpful.”
Fellow Spacecubed worker Chris Baudia says the co-location environment is also good for enabling productive work from a logistical perspective and promoting more sustainable work habits.
“You can’t work eight hours in a row a day – you’re not efficient and you need to have some breaks,” he says.
“Here (in Spacecubed) you don’t have the hierarchy so you can say to people that you’re busy or you can just have a break. No one’s going to wonder what you’re doing.”
Element Internet director Cameron Norsworthy also splits his working week between his home office and Spacecubed and says the latter helps break his bad work habits.
“I’m a person who can sit in front of my computer and get lost for nine hours, so being here and having people interrupt me is a good thing and gets my mental state re-energised,” he says.
“It’s very easy to get into a comfortable state when you’re working from home; there’s no disturbance, there’s no challenge and nothing to compare yourself against and it’s very easy to get entrenched in that state.
“But to do good work regularly you need to have stimulus around you.”
New dawn
Earlier this year Yahoo! banned teleworking arrangements, claiming it was working against the collaborative ethos of the organisation.
In a private memo to staff, chief executive Marissa Mayer said communication and collaboration was important for Yahoo! to be the absolute best place to work.
“That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings,” the memo reads.
Mr McCrindle says the decision shows the importance of face-to-face collaboration in the development of creative output and the avoidance of social isolation, but organisations need to test the waters to see what option is right for them.
“We’re on the dawn of this as a growth work option and I think therefore we’re on the dawn of some unplanned challenges for employers,” he says.
“They really need to do some risk management on this; there are some definite grey areas in terms of workplace injury or health-related strains.”
BDO Australia partner Mat Hannan specialises in helping businesses implement technology.
He says some clients have already started looking at managing the health and safety risks of teleworkers – some have structured social interaction via teleconference, while others have undertaken assessments of at-home workplaces to consider ergonomics.
Another tool was the timing out of computer log-ins, which was becoming more common to prevent employees from overworking.
Where now?
The drive towards teleworking may not continue on the same trajectory as the past two decades, however, with Generation Y workers much less likely to request working-from-home arrangements.
The McCrindle research suggests younger generations are less productive in a solitary environment and more enthusiastic about collaboration, which Mr Hannan says exemplified the impact of technology growth.
“The actual time (Gen Ys) spend socialising hasn’t lessened, but the uptake of social media and technology has allowed them to socialise more, whereas in previous times they may have been less interactive,” he says.
