How isolation changed the workforce
Employers can find opportunities for workforce resilience while managing the mental health risks.
More than a year of isolation has been a key factor in new workforce attitudes, such as requests for workplace flexibility and remote technology, and fears about working together again. Companies cannot expect the employee population returning to work to be the same as the one that went home. They no longer have the same expectations, motivators and, importantly, mental health.
Related: Stress, bad decisions shoot up in 2021
We’ve gone through a crisis – a trauma – and everything was upended. We all faced an extent of isolation that could resemble shadows of prison treatment. For many, our new way of working gradually started to feel safer and more comfortable than past standards. This year, we have the opportunity and the challenge to open up, re-emerge and reconnect. But we are not the same workforce that shut our physical doors in 2020.
It may be easiest to see the preference for different work behavior by looking at consumer behavior. People shop online even as they head back to stores to seek great experiences. The dine-in restaurant business is expected to boom, even as take-out stays strong. These differences that were made possible with technology became valuable during the pandemic and have moved consumers to demanding both remote and in-person services. The same is true for the workforce facing a return to work. For companies, there are risks and opportunities moving forward.
The risks of a post-pandemic workforce
Years before the pandemic, there was a tide of increased health risk driven by increased isolation in Western society. U.S. and international government health organizations were already studying the trend and impact of isolation as a public health risk affecting anxiety and depression, but also cardiovascular and immune system problems. Interpersonal experiences were replaced by social media and computer interaction replaced face-to-face interaction.
Isolation continues to grow as people can achieve more alone, or with the help of machinery and computers. More people live alone and even date less frequently. This tide became a tsunami of isolation during COVID-19 lockdowns, exacerbating the innate stress and anxiety around the disease and increasing the prevalence of mental health issues. Isolation may not be healthy, but for many it has become comfortable.
Many individuals have weathered the storm well and will fare well moving forward, but as a workforce population, we cannot expect our mental balance to snap back to pre-pandemic levels. Some science behind this can be seen in brain imagery that measures the impact of long-term trauma and stress. It shows a growing amygdala that is triggered with a fight or flight response and a shrinking prefrontal cortex that promotes reasoning, empathy and emotional control. It is not surprising that studies of past pandemics show a higher rate of trauma-related illnesses several years after the pandemic is over. There is also an increased propensity in some to avoid contact with others, which worsens isolation and overall mental health and wellbeing.
Offering services
Many employers want to offer support and guidance for those who need help with their mental state. But the old model of getting help is not sustainable: self-recognition of the need, visiting a primary care physician who recommends visiting a psychiatrist or psychologist. During times of trauma, this process can be too cumbersome. And these days, psychiatrists and psychologists are often booked.
To make sure the population has access to adequate triage, company benefits and services should provide access to options including early intervention. Effective programs can provide the advantage of trained non-psychologists, like social workers, who can step up immediately and offer a few sessions that help people manage through strain or a crisis moment. Digital support has also become vital, where workers can reach out when and where they need to with the ability to reach someone privately. Individuals facing emotional trauma do not all travel along the same path, so new mental care models need to provide options, ease, availability and the security to help people get beyond the stigma of feeling mentally unwell.
Organizational functions
Having more people on edge can lead to more turnover. For an effective continuum of care, an organization’s environment matters just as much as the services it offers in making a mental state better or worse. Many company leaders were aware of this and started to address the mental health trends that suggested a need for better care models in the workplace even before the pandemic. It’s just more critical now, as workers will be more disappointed when they wake up in a high-risk state and at crisis.
One effect of the isolation-induced stress is that people who are under stress become more attuned to stress – affecting them to far greater levels. The edge becomes too intense over time. Now people are returning to workplaces and even good things, like re-opening, are change and are likely to trigger stress. With evidence of so many people on edge, it is not just coincidence that every week there’s been a workplace shooting as we enter a stage of fewer restrictions.
Recognizing the opportunity
Workplaces will want people to come into the office, collaborate, communicate and have hubs. Even at three days a week, that opportunity can cause three days of anxiety. In the general population, everyone looks the same and seems to act the same as they come back into the office, but symptoms of trauma-impacted workplaces suggest otherwise. Even without extremes like workplace violence, we have seen higher levels of conflict among workers and many people re-evaluating their lives and deciding to reduce stress by changing jobs or full occupations. Many companies and surveys note an increase in worker turnover and turnover risk.
The pandemic crisis created greater awareness among CEOs who now acknowledge mental health as one of the most essential components of business success. It gave employers the reality check to stop taking mental health for granted and supercharged the need for companies to provide a psychological safety net. As the population takes steps to shed its cocoons and face contact with others, employers have a pivotal opportunity to evaluate and address how the returning workforce has changed and plan for intervention as early as possible. That often means tearing down the old system of communication, the old environment of competition or measurement and the old system of traditional employee benefits, and creating a new system that works for both employees who will welcome the return and others who may resist.
In a more aware work environment, managers will be trained to recognize behaviors and offer immediate guidance for getting help without shame of a stigma – and without inducing too much stress on the managers themselves. As futurist Faith Popcorn wrote some time ago, the future of management and leadership will be less about parceling out work (which bots can do) and more about supporting worker wellbeing. With a positive workplace environment that addresses obstacles to mental health, managers can help workers shed their isolation, build mental resilience and reconnect.
A certain number of organizations will take “the new workforce” to heart and build in support for mental health and wellbeing into daily business processes. Other companies will eventually follow or will risk losing people, higher disability costs or igniting a tinderbox for a work environment.
Paula Allen is global leader and senior vice president of research and total wellbeing at LifeWorks.
Read more: