A major review of academic literature on the post-pandemic workplace found that working from home allows people to eat healthier, experience less stress and lower blood pressure.
But remote workers are also more likely to snack, drink, smoke and gain weight, a study by UKHSA and King’s College London researchers has found. . And employers who think telecommuters are lazy should think again. Telecommuters are less likely to take sick days and are more likely to work long hours and nights and weekends.
The review, led by UKHSA’s Charlotte Hall, considered 1,930 academic papers on home working, teleworking and other types of hybrid and telecommuting to tease out often contradictory research.
Professor Neil Greenberg, a psychiatrist at King’s College London and one of the study authors, said the study shows that workers and employers need to start considering working from home with the same seriousness as working from the office. He said it shows.
“In the old days of office work, people realized that if you put everyone in the same room with no soundproofing, everything would be uncomfortable and you wouldn’t have a productive workforce,” he says.
“Now that we have moved to a work-from-home culture, it makes sense for organizations and governments to check that those working from home are doing so in the most effective way possible.”
The reviews published in industrial hygiene journalWe identified three themes: the working environment at home, the impact on workers’ lives and careers, and the impact on health. Greenberg said the research showed there were winners and losers in many areas of working from home. The work environment was determined by how much space was available at home, the equipment available, and how much control the worker had over their day.
People with higher incomes often enjoy working from home more, but people with more responsibilities at home, such as childcare and housework (often women and people living alone), tend to feel more stressed. Ta.
“Overall, people feel more productive when they’re at home,” Greenberg said. “While I was particularly suited to creative things, I found it much more difficult to deal with boring matters. Many people are worried about their career prospects, not being ignored if they are not in the office.” That’s the feeling.”
The health effects were more obvious. The shift to working from home during the coronavirus pandemic was “associated with increased intake of vegetables, fruit, dairy products, snacks, and self-prepared meals.” “Young workers and women benefited the most in terms of healthier diets,” the paper said.
One of the studies examined showed that 46.9% of employees working from home gained weight, and another study found that figure to be 41%. Most of the reviewed papers showed that telecommuters are more sedentary.
Greenberg said: “Managers have had to think about finding ways to support telecommuters and create a working environment.
“There’s a great saying in science that at some point you have to stop admiring the problem and actually think about the solution,” he says. “We know quite a lot now. So we have to ask, ‘What is the best training for someone who works partially from home?’ What we don’t need to do is ask, “Would it be helpful to train someone to do their homework?” The answer is clearly yes. ”
Since coronavirus restrictions are lifted in 2022, some companies have insisted that employees return to the office full-time, with companies such as JPMorgan requiring managers to work five days a week. ing.
“If a company like JPMorgan can’t focus on people in their country because they’re worried that they’re going to slack off or not do a good job, I think that’s an outdated concept.” Greenberg said.
Denying the option to work from home means talented employees may find other work, and could be affected by new health emergencies, strikes, bad weather that prevents people from reaching the office, etc. It added that it reduces companies’ flexibility in the event of a crisis.
“If you’re just doing it out of fear, you run the risk of being left behind,” he says. “We looked at a huge amount of evidence over many years and found that there are ways to make a work-from-home approach actually work for organizations and employees alike.”