Managing well-being and performance in the new work normal
Managing well-being and performance in the new work normal
For many of us technology has been a lifeline during a period when working patterns changed completely. However, for some of us, the move to working online has taken some adjustment. Andreas Lökken, Chartered Occupational Psychologist at Alumni, shares his thoughts on how the new normal in working impacts our mental well-being and how we can best mitigate its effects after the pandemic.
Can working online destroy your happiness?
When digital platforms are used wisely, the short answer is no, but it does have some subtle but important effects on our social cognition and emotions. Our working lives have been changing for a while now, but the emergence of the pandemic has accelerated these changes. Technology may have enabled us to keep our jobs but not without a potential social cost to our workplace interactions.
People have a fundamental need to be social and share information, and in the absence of opportunities to have real life interactions, we are naturally substituting these with digital platform interactions, for instance Facetime, Teams or Zoom meetings. Digital platforms are excellent for the exchange of information and superficial interactions but when it comes to creating psychological safety in teams and sparking creativity, they have some disadvantages.
Human brains have hormones, essential to social emotion and cognition, locked away deep inside of them. These hormone levels vary with the bandwidth of a relationship; face-to-face physical interaction with eye contact being most intense, and simply communicating via half-duplex texting creating the smallest effects.
Oxytocin is generally considered the most powerful of these social hormones. Evolutionarily speaking, our ancestors relied on oxytocin to fortify and create close-knit relationships with each other, procreate, and build survival-based communities.
“Digital platforms are excellent for exchanging information and communicating in a global context. When it comes to creating team safety and creativity, IRL interactions are still indispensable.”
While excellent for the exchange of factual information, digital communication cannot compete with direct interpersonal interactions in terms of socio-emotional bandwidth. Studies have shown that the highest levels of oxytocin release happen when we meet face to face, allowing us to make full use of all the senses we use in order to understand our counterpart.[1] Nonverbal cues add several layers of information to the exchange; a dynamic complexity of variations in eye contact, body movement, and facial expressions. Overlying all is the intricate cognitive network that enables humans to perceive differences in meaning depending on the identity of the speaker and their relationship with the self. In short, if you want help with a problem at work, you are much more likely to feel better about it after sharing it with a colleague in person, rather than via an email or video. On the other hand, if you have bad news to share – like laying somebody off – you may be tempted to do this via email. However, by doing so you may take the easy way out, depriving your recipient of the opportunity to get support in dealing with the emotional consequences of your decision.
A heads-up; relying purely on digital communication increases the risk of reactive behaviour from your recipients, depriving yourself of the opportunity of doing social damage control. Leaving people alone to deal with their emotional reactions is not only a social hazard, but a business risk.
How can we work better when working digitally?
One-on-one time with managers and co-workers is fundamentally important. Digital team meetings with many participants are good for structured exchange of information but suffer from lack of group dynamics. A structured approach from the meeting manager is vital, doing check-ins to catch every individual’s thoughts and perspectives. This is something we do quite naturally around the boardroom table but easy to pass by when looking at a multitude of faces on screen.
Digital meetings also offer fewer social constrictions on our behaviour. Participants may be tempted to turn off the video feed while managing another task, a scenario that simply wouldn’t happen in a meeting room. Ideally, remote workers should have a dedicated office space set up for holding meetings. Occupying this space will ultimately cue us to respond with more attention to the business matters in hand. Similarly, having a set structure to the day is important. As a bare minimum, phones should be switched off during digital meetings, possibly also turning off their own video self-view. We are often distracted by our own image and paying less attention to the other participants as a result. It is also important to take breaks. As long digital meetings progress, our efficiency and attention span will decrease. Scheduling short breaks of 10-15 mins per hour is ideal – supporting your ability to stay focused and use the full capacity of your brain in complex decision-making.
We also need to remember to maintain the social side of business relationships that we usually take for granted. Our brains need the space to offload the everyday stressors of life by connecting with like-minded souls. Not every meeting in your diary should be business related, have digital meetings with colleagues whilst sharing a coffee or lunch together and simply chatting.
How can managers encourage resilience in their workforce given the new normal?
There is much talk of physical vulnerabilities in relation to the coronavirus, but senior managers will also be under pressure, feeling the need to demonstrate leadership in unusual circumstances. Most likely, team members will also feel vulnerable about their performance within their role – a quite natural reaction, considering the amount of uncertainty in this situation. Taking time to remind colleagues that they are doing a good job in a hard situation will build their confidence and provide significant support to performance.
We also need to spend time together, going completely digital post-pandemic would not be the right thing to do. It is easy to underestimate the cognitive load involved in collaborative work and people will be returning to the office with lots of unsorted thoughts. What will the office look like? How will the commute feel? Who has been seriously affected by the pandemic through personal or financial loss? As offices gradually re-open and we all restart our tiresome commute, what should we be aware of? On the one hand, we crave and need human interactions and on the other - we are now less used to them. Our social skills are like a muscle, they need to be used or they go flabby, and it will take time for us all to get back up to speed. It is likely to feel overwhelming to have to interact with everyone in the office. The sharing and comparing of our collective pandemic experiences could last for weeks, much in the same way you might share your experience of a round-the-world trip (although probably less enjoyable). Make space in your day to share but don’t feel that you must to talk to everyone about these things, all the time.
All of us will be weighing up the potential safety risks to ourselves and family, with the need to earn money, restart the economy or provide a service to others. People who are more naturally worrisome may still have overwhelming feelings about contamination and interacting with others. Try to be candid and start by acknowledging the uncertainty that the pandemic has caused. As with any period of intense and unrelieved stress, when it is lifted, there is sometimes an impact on general well-being. It is possible that as lockdown eases, the workforce will only gradually realise how hard it has been. In the longer run, we as a society need a common narrative about how the Covid crisis affected us, and it will take time and effort to write it.
Senior managers will need to create a fundamental sense of social togetherness. Finding the right balance between digital and real-life interactions and working relationships will require a good deal of social alignment. Working from home or remotely may have been challenging and it may be useful to arrange a back to work meeting with employees to kickstart the process.
When trying to make the best of our learnings about moving meetings to digital platforms, managers should discuss with their teams how they would like to run supervision, check-ins, and sign offs both in the office and remotely. Being open and offering support, letting people know how and when to contact you will strengthen the social bonds within the team and reduce emotional stress.
SIGNS OF EMOTIONAL IMPACT FROM THE CRISIS
• Changes in performance and productivity
• Missed deadlines
• Calling in sick frequently and absenteeism
• Irritability and anger
• Difficulty concentrating and making decisions
• Withdrawal from work activity
• Difficulty with work transitions or changes in routines.
Lead by example
Like in most successful ambitions, it is a good thing to start with yourself. Re-invest in your personal relationships, connect with your loved ones because they are the ones that are truly important and help keep you aligned in your professional life. Map your most important professional stakeholders, and actively invest in rebuilding relationships with a long-term focus. When managing others, pay special attention to their need of structure and social belonging, while allowing for individual variation. If the pandemic has taught us anything it is the importance of the company of others.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277914/
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