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First published in Polish by Barbara Habrych

How do the pandemic and shift from traditional to remote work affect health and well-being of employees?

A book of recommendations published by the Pracodawcy RP organisation entitled Praca zdalna 2.0 - rozwiązanie na czas pandemii czy trwała zmiana? (Remote work 2.0 - solution for the time of the pandemic or permanent change?)[1] quotes the following data:

• psychological benefits of remote work are felt by 74% of respondents and the negative effects are experienced by 94% of them,
• about 30% of respondents do not have the possibility to combine work and family life,
• 45% of respondents suffer from isolation and lack of social contact.

No matter if you work remotely or not, we have been under constant pressure for over a year. We have observed constant changes and experienced uncertainty to a greater extent than it was the case before the pandemic. Obviously, our work environment had generated stress before the coronavirus changed our lives. But you need to bear in mind that it is easier for co-workers to notice that someone’s behaviour can be indicative of deteriorating mental condition when they see them for eight hours a day than during an hour-long video meeting held once a week.

The CSO reports a 25% increase in the number of sick leaves related to mental health conditions in 2020 as compared to 2019. According to a survey conducted by Hays Poland [2], one in three employees have experienced a mental health setback, and only 36% of them received support from their employers in this respect.

The activities offered by employers include: workshops aimed at developing the ability to cope with stress, training to support a healthy lifestyle, physical exercise, meditation, and breathing exercises. Some employers also offer online psychological support, webinars and online mindfulness courses.

These activities are very important and effective, and they should be used. However, when stress is caused by the way we work, it is worth looking at what we can change in the way we organise or carry out our tasks in order to reduce stress.

^{Photo by Paico Oficial on Unsplash}

Causes of stress that stem from the work itself include:

• Quality overload - when the work is too difficult, i.e. complex tasks are associated with responsibility for other people and material liability.
• Quantity overload - when there is too much work, for example physically demanding work, rushed work, overtime work.
• Quality underload - monotonous or too easy tasks, i.e. simple, repetitive activities, work that does not satisfy needs or aspirations.
• Lack of control over work - you cannot make decisions related to your work, for example: duties are performed within fixed and unchanging hours, you cannot stop work in case of an emergency, you cannot decide about the method or pace of work.
• Working conditions - when work is performed in hazardous conditions. For example: working in noise, operating expensive or dangerous machinery and equipment.

Once you’ve analysed the causes of your stress, it’s worth considering whether you can change anything about your work and discuss this with your manager or team. If you work remotely and are responsible for organising your work, it's all the more reason to look at what you can change to make work less stressful.

A method that can help you reorganise your work is job crafting.

Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, define job crafting as self-initiated, proactive strategies to change the characteristics of one’s job to better align it with personal needs, goals, and skills[3]. If you perform your favourite activities in a way that suits you, you gain energy for the activities you like less, which also form a part of your responsibilities.

How to craft?

You can craft your job in three ways. You can do it by:

altering tasks - that is, changing the way tasks are carried out or their scope and nature as compared to formal requirements.

In practice, this can include reporting opportunities for organisational or technical improvements or pointing out perceived errors in company procedures;

altering interactions - i.e. changing interpersonal relationships to build satisfying bonds.

Examples include: sharing knowledge with other employees, helping colleagues with every day matters, mobilising others by pointing out the positive aspects of their work, integrating teams through informal meetings, taking into account the employee’s life situation, which goes beyond the obligations imposed by the labour code;

altering cognitive perception of work. It involves defining your role in the organisation and understanding its purpose. This alteration is based on changing the way you think about your role or a particular task.

For example: realising that each work environment brings new challenges and also new and specific problems; realising the need to perform tasks that you dislike, but which are important for the company’s interests; trying to limit their scope, if there is another person who can do them better than you can[4].

Job crafting is possible in an environment where an employee enjoys a certain amount of autonomy to organise their work. Perhaps there was no such an opportunity before, but with the prevalence of remote work, new opportunities have opened up?

Where to start?

STEP 1.  Map your work: list all the tasks, activities you do at work, assess the time needed to complete them and their importance.

STEP 2. Identify what is important to you; what your values are; what you enjoy about your work.

STEP 3. Take a look at your tasks and resources. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How can you use your resources to modify the tasks you perform?
• How can you take care of your needs, engage your talents, and base tasks on your values?
• What can you realistically do to minimise the things that bother you?

I craft, and how about you?

Altering tasks: my way of doing this form of job crafting is to take care of my health (spine, eyes). I do this by avoiding sitting in front of a monitor as often as possible. When doing research for this article, I searched for a podcast[5] on the subject and listened to a conversation about job crafting while walking my dog.

Altering interactions: an important part of my work is learning and looking for new contents, inspiration and ways to deliver this knowledge during training and workshops. I found two ‘support groups’ made up of people with similar goals and facing similar challenges. We meet once a month to share inspirations, ideas and good practices, and to give each other feedback on the quality of tested solutions.

Altering  cognitive perception of work, tasks and interactions, i.e. three in one: I’m not keen on the part of my job that involves reporting and tediously entering data from various files and forms into systems. In this case, I use all three crafting methods:

1.      I do this together with my colleague (online) - one of us searches for indispensable data and dictates, while the other enters it into the system. By not having to switch between screens, we get things done much faster than one person would do it.
2.      While working on it, we take breaks to joke a bit, have a casual conversation, through which we satisfy our needs for socialising and interpersonal contact.
3.      I began to look at the not-so-loved part of my job as an important element, thanks to which decision-makers receive data on the basis of which further projects can be developed and funded to meet the real needs of beneficiaries they are addressed to.

In the article Praca zdalna, praca hybrydowa: czego nauczył nas rok 2020? (Remote work, hybrid work: what has the year 2020 taught us?) I take a look at the available statistics, which suggest that remote and hybrid work will become a permanent feature of the labour market. This is why it is worth organising it in a way allowing to feel its benefits and minimise the difficulties.

In what ways do you craft your work?

Barbara Habrych – teacher, HR expert, business and education trainer. She specialises in staff recruitment and labour market, HR processes, adult learning, tutoring and the development of competencies of the future. EPALE Ambassador.

Bibliography:

[1] https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/node/300388

[2] https://www.hays.pl/blog/insights/pandemia-wplywa-na-kondycje-psychiczn…

[3] G. Bartkowiak, A. Krugiełka, Job crafting wśród polskich przedsiębiorców i przedstawicieli kadry kierowniczej, Zarządzanie i Finanse, marzec 2018

[4] Przykłady trzech sposobów przekształcania pracy pochodzą z badań G. Bartkowiak i A. Krugiełki w polskich małych i średnich firmach produkcyjno-handlowych

[5] Blog post inspiration - podcast: https://audycje.tokfm.pl/podcast/102477,Job-Crafting-czyli-jak-przekszt…