psychology
Is working from home a curse or a blessing? That’s what science says
During the first lockdown in April 2020, the proportion of people working from home rose to up to 27 percent
© borchee / Getty Images
The corona pandemic has strongly promoted the home office in Germany. Studies show how this affects work culture. Who benefits, who is more likely to suffer?
For the morning conference in pajamas, at noon on the yoga mat instead of in the canteen and an early evening with the family: Most people’s reality has little in common with this ideal of the home office. After a good year and a half of the corona pandemic, studies and surveys instead paint a differentiated picture of the psychological and physical consequences of working at home.
One thing is clear: work in your own four walls has been boosted by the pandemic. Used According to a study by the Hans Böckler Foundation Before the Corona crisis, just four percent of the workforce in Germany mainly or exclusively working from home, the proportion rose to 27 percent during the first lockdown in April 2020. The numbers are now falling again, but they are still significantly higher than before the pandemic.
Studies now provide information about the consequences of working from home – for example one in the specialist journal “Nature Human Behavior” published research by Microsoft. The technology giant, which commissioned the analysis itself, ordered home office in March 2020. The study now analyzed data and communication from almost 61,000 employees from December 2019 to June 2020.
More work in the home office
Result: Although more work was done in the home office, communication and collaboration between different departments suffered. Specifically, employees spent less time in face-to-face one-on-one conversations; instead, they made more use of e-mails or text messages. According to the authors, this leads to employees being isolated and less information being exchanged. And that could have a negative impact on production and innovation.
For Hannes Zacher, work and organizational psychologist at the University of Leipzig, the study shows only one side. “While the Microsoft analysis offers a rather negative perspective, there is also evidence in research that the ability to work from home can be positively accepted by employees – but only if it stays within a certain framework.”
Accordingly, studies suggest that one to two days of home office per week are ideal for satisfaction and self-reported productivity. In such a framework, it would be possible not only to design communication digitally, but also to hold personal conversations. “From a psychological point of view, a video conference is still better than an e-mail. In the long run, however, it cannot replace face-to-face conversations, especially when it comes to talking to one another in a trusting manner, working together creatively or resolving conflicts. “
Teams break up into subgroups more quickly
Zacher himself had started at the end of 2019 to survey almost 1,000 workers about their physical and mental health. The start of the pandemic turned it into a long-term study: The participants have been surveyed every month since March 2021. The psychologist collected observations on the consequences of the corona crisis on the world of work.
“Before the pandemic, extroverts were the ones with the greater well-being compared to introverts,” Zacher cites an example. It was the other way around: “Extroverts were more likely to be stressed by the situation, while introverts cope better with it.” Reticent people in particular would have found formats such as video conferences to be more pleasant.
At the same time, Zacher and his colleagues saw that teams disintegrated into subgroups more quickly – an observation that fits a result of the Microsoft study. “A possible breaking point is the one between employees who are present and those who work in the home office,” he explains. Here management must ensure that there are no feelings of inequality: “Managers must communicate and justify work structures well so that neither satisfaction nor corporate culture suffer.”
In all discussions about mobile working, it should not be forgotten that the place of work is also an important resource: “The office acts as a great equalizer in which everyone has the same opportunities,” says Zacher. In contrast, when working at home, socio-economic factors come into play: “Childless couples in a large apartment can certainly work better at home than single parents or younger employees who live in shared apartments or confined spaces, for example.”