Home offi­ce after pan­de­mic – a bles­sing or a threat

After a pan­de­mic — is such a plan­ning sta­ge even possi­ble today? We can’t be sure, but it’s cer­ta­in­ly hard to talk abo­ut tem­po­ra­ry solu­tions any­mo­re. Ada Olszew­ska, our Quali­ty Spe­cia­list, won­ders what is behind the chan­ge in our mind­sets, how do chan­ges in the way we work affect us and do we have any influ­en­ce on the­se changes? 

In March 2020 when we left our Codelab’s offi­ces we never ima­gi­ned that it would last over a year. We used to be very clo­se-knit. Discus­sions over the kit­chen com­mon table whi­le having bre­ak­fast and lunch were almost our tra­di­tion. We used to see each other also after work, both pri­va­te­ly and on company’s events. Remo­te work was quite a chal­len­ge at the begin­ning, but we quic­kly adapt and cur­ren­tly we are as pro­duc­ti­ve as befo­re, whi­le also having tho­se discus­sions over bre­ak­fast remotely. 

Late­ly we have been deve­lo­ping the best way to work after pan­de­mic. We cre­ated the team of employ­ees from vario­us depart­ments (HR, Softwa­re engi­ne­ers, Mar­ke­ting, Pro­ject Mana­ge­ment etc.) to get as many ide­as as possi­ble and cre­ate a solu­tion that meets the needs of all inte­re­sted par­ties. We also con­duc­ted an ano­ny­mo­us survey to gather everybody’s opi­nions and insi­ghts. What sur­pri­sed me the most was the lar­ge num­ber of people who dec­la­red no will to come back to offi­ce, even for couple of days during the month, the­re­fo­re, deman­ding 100% home office. 

This chan­ge of mind­set is noti­ce­able in ful­ly remo­te jobs offers incre­ase on the IT mar­ket. Wor­king from home comes with many bene­fits such as less com­mu­te stress, loca­tion inde­pen­den­ce, money savings and so on but it cau­ses lack of rela­tion­ships among cowor­kers, decre­ased work-life balan­ce and enhan­ce iso­la­tion. Espe­cial­ly the last one requ­ires fur­ther consideration. 

Scien­ti­sts has been doing rese­arch on the effects of the pan­de­mic sin­ce the begin­ning and now, after a year of social iso­la­tion, they obse­rve that many people are afra­id to return to the­ir for­mer lives despi­te being ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted. The­re is even a name for this type of social with­dra­wal, known as the cave syn­dro­me, best por­tray­ed by a report by Ame­ri­can Psy­cho­lo­gi­cal Association. 

A recent stu­dy shows that near­ly half of Ame­ri­cans (49%) feel une­asy abo­ut adju­sting to in-per­son inte­rac­tion when the pan­de­mic ends. Adults who rece­ived a COVID-19 vac­ci­ne feel the same way (48%). Near­ly half of the popu­la­tion are afra­id of going to the offi­ce eve­ry day, meeting friends, visi­ting fami­ly, social gathe­rings, bir­th­days, and weddings. 

It would seem that people after such a long period of for­ced iso­la­tion will hap­pi­ly return to par­ty­ing toge­ther. Some of them yes, but not all, and no one expec­ted such a high level of social with­dra­wal befo­re. The stu­dy from Uni­ver­si­ty of Bri­tish Colum­bia publi­shed in May 2020 pre­dic­ted that an esti­ma­ted 10% of people in the midst of the pan­de­mic will deve­lop COVID stress syn­dro­me, or mood or anxie­ty disor­ders. Today it is known that the num­bers were gre­atly unde­re­sti­ma­ted. Emer­ging into the light after a year loc­ked down turns out to be a dif­fi­cult trans­i­tion to a lot of people and we begin to under­stand the pro­blem that must be addressed. 

We had to learn the habit of wearing masks, phy­si­cal or social distan­cing, not invi­ting people over and as any habit it is very hard to bre­ak once it is for­med. An esta­bli­shed habit needs time and effort to be chan­ged, even when we want to chan­ge. What abo­ut tho­se who don’t want the­ir habit of social distan­cing to be altered? 

One may ask what is wrong with stay­ing at home. Cave syn­dro­me is a new phe­no­me­non and a new pro­blem, it is yet not known how serio­usly our socie­ties will be affec­ted by it. As a mat­ter of fact, we alre­ady know a simi­lar phe­no­me­non to cave syn­dro­me, tho­ro­ugh­ly rese­ar­ched, that occur­red in Japan aro­und 1920s. It is cal­led Hiki­ko­mo­ri. also known as total with­dra­wal from socie­ty and seeking extre­me degre­es of social iso­la­tion and con­fi­ne­ment.  More­over, the Hiki­ko­mo­ri phe­no­me­non grows stron­ger with time. It starts with no inte­rest in going to scho­ol or wor­king and spen­ding most of the time at home and evo­lves into not leaving the room, com­ple­te­ly depen­ding on family’s help. Accor­ding to Japa­ne­se govern­ment figu­res rele­ased in 2010, the­re are 700,000 indi­vi­du­als living as hiki­ko­mo­ri within Japan, with an ave­ra­ge age of 31. 

It might seem as an extre­me phe­no­me­non of very deman­ding Japa­ne­se socie­ty but pro­blems with get­ting back to the socie­ty has been also obse­rved betwe­en inha­bi­tants of rese­arch sta­tions in Antarc­ti­ca (The win­ter-over syn­dro­me) or astro­nauts. The com­mon fac­tor is the iso­la­tion for a period lon­ger than 6 months. 

So, what can be done if some­one doesn’t go out or is afra­id to do so? Do people suf­fe­ring from cave syn­dro­me need pro­fes­sio­nal tre­at­ment or just a bit more adju­st­ment time? It all depends on the level of seve­ri­ty but even in mild con­di­tions mind­ful­ness and addi­tio­nal measu­res are advi­sed. Social inte­rac­tions can be stress­ful, but it is worth remem­be­ring that avo­iding stress will lead to wor­sen stress resi­lien­ce. Hiki­ko­mo­ri exam­ple does not yet mean that the post-pan­de­mic cave syn­dro­me will fol­low the same path. The pro­blem is that we do not know, and it is bet­ter to pre­vent than to heal. 

NASA has the rein­te­gra­tion pro­cess for astro­nauts coming back to Earth. It is mostly focu­sed on get­ting the­ir phy­si­cal abi­li­ties back, streng­the­ning musc­les and bones but the­re is also a fami­ly sup­port team to help facing some inter­per­so­nal and emo­tio­nal challenges. 

We in Code­lab also deci­ded to slow­ly come back to nor­mal social beha­viors and rein­te­gra­te. Remo­te work will be tailo­red to the employee’s needs and expec­ta­tions as well as to pro­ject requ­ire­ments. We focus on inte­gra­tion, company’s events and check for any discom­fort or anxie­ty regar­ding coming back to the office. 

We are try­ing to return to our “after hours” on-air events, but also to our inter­na­tio­nal team meetings, which has recen­tly beco­me a lit­tle easier. Soon, in the next artic­le in this series “Code­lab in the Crown”, we will sha­re with you in deta­il how the imple­men­ta­tion of a new wor­king model in Code­lab looks like, and what our idea is to pro­vi­de not only the best wor­king con­di­tions and the­ir selec­tion, but also to pre­se­rve what we have the most valu­able, that is the Code­lab culture.