Lockdown: working at home and its discontents

The enforced lockdown imposed by the government on 23 March 2020 had a huge impact on the world of work. In particular, it affected different parts of the workforce in distinctive ways. The first lockdown broadly split people into three similar sized groups. About three in ten workers continued to work from home, and about the same proportion continued to travel to their work, earning the broad-brush label of ‘essential workers’. The remaining third were people unable to work, including the 30 per cent of the workforce that were furloughed.

Over time, there has been some adaptation to government restrictions both by employers and employees. By the third lockdown, whereas the figures for people working from home remained pretty stable, more people were travelling to work, rising to about four in every ten. This was partly due to more manufacturing plants and construction sites being able to continue their operations. This adjustment contributed to the share of workers furloughed falling to about two in ten.

This differential impact of lockdown has opened up or magnified divisions within society. While most professional and white-collar workers were able to work from home and assumed their jobs would remain secure, many furloughed workers were worried about their future.  Unsurprisingly, lots were anxious about losing their jobs when their workplaces were closed down indefinitely.

Others were concerned about losing their skills or not being able to progress with their career and earn promotion.

Divisions also formed within the same workforce between those who retained their jobs, usually on full pay, and those who were laid off on furlough with their incomes cut, usually by a fifth.  Meanwhile, some of those who were able to, and expected to continue working, were envious of their furloughed colleagues who were being paid for doing nothing.

Living at work

Workers’ experience of the lockdown depended both on which broad grouping they were part of, as well as being influenced by their personal and household circumstances. In the first instance, many of those working from home were excited about not having a daily commute, about having more time with their families, to enjoy nature and even have some autonomy in managing their week. However, these novelties have somewhat diminished over the year, especially by the time the third lockdown was imposed.  

Working from home began to become more arduous. One person I interviewed described the experience as being like ‘a hamster in a cage’. The distinction between work and home life became more blurred than ever. With no commute to physically separate work from home and no distinctive office surroundings, the sensation of living at work became more tangible.  

Also, with the pervasive use of digital tools, the trend seemed to be towards 24/7 working, including the constant checking and responding to emails, as well as being tied to Zoom calls for much of the time. The overall impact encroached on people’s leisure time. Without adequate time to think and reflect, for many their sense of autonomy and control by continuous working from home was not extended, but undermined.

Parents and young workers had additional challenges to handle. Due to the prolonged closure of schools for the children of home workers, one survey of the lockdown period found two-fifths of all working parents were having to balance home schooling with a full-time job. On average, these parents spent three hours a day schooling, having to make up lost work hours in the evenings after their children had gone to sleep. Many parents with less spacious homes, as well as younger workers with or without children, had to use their kitchen tables as the ‘office’, resulting in inevitable work disruptions from the clatter of household life.

Isolation

Younger people with less previous working experience often found home working especially atomising and demotivating. Remote working has therefore been most challenging for new recruits and especially those taking their first job, with their recruitment, onboarding and initial work all being conducted online.

Towards the extreme, young analysts from Goldman Sachs reported that they were working 95-hour weeks, had little sleep and received brusque treatment by senior bankers. On average, they put their job satisfaction at two out of 10. One even wrote that the experience was worse than foster care.  While the banking industry acknowledged that these were quite normal experiences for young staff, historically being in the office together helped to take the sting out of this stressful situation. With face-to-face contact, young workers could build up a team spirit, and go to the pub together for a drink.

The isolating experience of many younger new joiners highlights how home working robs even office work of its social collaborative character. Young recruits need to be able act as sponges, absorbing the ways of working from more experienced colleagues.

Already some organisations are learning that something important is being lost from not having face-to-face inductions with their new joiners, and are experimenting with alternatives. The consultancy PwC, that normally recruits hundreds of graduates and school leavers each year, has designed a virtual space for new joiners to help bridge the gap between physical and virtual workplace. With the same objective, IBM has created Facebook groups and formalised a 10-day induction process to ‘imbue the culture and spirit of collaboration, teamwork and self-reliance’ and help new starters feel more secure. While it is positive that employers are making an effort, these attempts remain prescriptive and formal. It is unlikely they can fully substitute for new joiners being able to spontaneously create their own social networks from direct physical contact.

Home surveillance

Another concerning trend amplified by working from home during lockdown is the extension of employee surveillance.  One YouGov survey found 12 per cent of firms were already monitoring their staff working remotely, while eight per cent had plans to implement monitoring, and another six per cent were considering it.

Silkie Carlo, director of the anti-surveillance group Big Brother Watch, describes this lockdown trend as the natural progression of existing surveillance in the workplace: ‘Now that is morphing into home surveillance it takes on a new shape and is more worrying, because some employers aren’t realising that yes, some employees are working from home, but the home still remains a private space.’

Collaborative culture

The Covid restrictions will be lifted at some point, but it is likely the current debate about office-versus-home working will continue. So far it seems probable that a hybrid form of working will be adopted by many organisations. People will have the choice, or in some cases be expected, to work from home for at least part of the week. However, office space will remain in some form for workers to attend as acknowledgement spreads that direct social engagement is necessary for effective working.

Physical collaborative working activities are valuable for helping create a corporate culture, for potentially enabling creativity, serendipity and productive working practices. They can also help offset the dehumanising features of work.  With the world of work unlikely to return as it was pre-Covid, it is important we guard against the persistence of the downsides of lockdown working.

Para Mullan

Fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Para’s expertise is in people management. She retired in early 2021. Her last post was at EY-Seren, as Operations Director. Previous to that she worked as a senior project manager at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Para is a fellow member of the CIPD.

Her main research area is into the future of work, investigating work on cultural, social, technological and organisational levels. She is a regular contributor to the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum.

Other interests include current political affairs. Para is passionate about free speech and the right to speak one’s mind without being ostracised.