What are remote workers really doing?
Survey finds it's not necessarily working, with some implications for employee health and well-being.
Finding work-life balance has gotten much harder for employees now that so many of them are working from home. A survey of over 950 remote workers by Joblist found that it’s even affecting their health.
Related: Health and well-being of employees become a top priority of companies
“From the amount of sleep people are getting while working from home, to making sure they unplug at the end of the day or take breaks when they need them, striking a genuine work-life balance is more important now than ever before,” according to Joblist.
The survey found 58% of remote workers say they’re getting too much screen time. Fifty-two percent are skipping meals or undereating, while 24% feel like they’re overeating. A third say they’re disconnecting from friends and family, and 22% say their personal hygiene has suffered.
Two percent of saintly remote workers say they’re having none of these problems.
Over 12% of workers said they don’t have a dedicated work space at home. “Separating work from life can get much more difficult when your ‘office’ overlaps with near-constant distractions you’re used to being isolated from,” according to Joblist.
“Working” from home
Almost all workers — 96% — admitted to engaging in nonwork behaviors while working from home. More than half were stepping away from their computers to cook (59%), watch TV (55%) or do laundry (52%). A full 29% admitted to having a drink while on the job.
Related: How companies can support employees with substance dependencies
And yet, 74% of respondents said they felt stressed about leaving work early without permission. In fact, a good number of workers feel like they have to make up time for doing things that no reasonable employee would feel guilty about if they were in the office, like breaking to eat (41%) or going to the bathroom (24%).
Eighty-three percent of workers are not being completely honest about their time working at home. The biggest liars were executives, 92% of whom said they had told a white lie about working from home, like making up an IT issue or pretending to be in a meeting. Power is clearly correlated to workers’ comfort with fibbing to their peers, as the percentage of people who admit to lying drops dramatically from 90% of managers to 65% of entry level workers.
Employers should take note that almost 40% of workers said they have missed a deadline or meeting because of their unproductiveness. Employers who are reconsidering their wellness benefits to make sure they’re meeting employees’ needs should also consider the impact to company culture if a large share of their workers are remote. Without shared space to reinforce cultural standards, employers may need to draft more explicit policies about what constitutes acceptable work-from-home behavior.
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