3 Flexible Work Stressors and How you Can Handle Them

Flexible working arrangements have become the new normal. An estimated 80 million employees across the United States made the transition to flexible work as a result of the pandemic.

Most importantly, people overwhelmingly value flexibility (92%) and have taken advantage of flexible work options (82%) according to a Deloitte survey of 1,000 professionals. But how are employees adjusting? Are employees experiencing struggles related to working remotely?

Answer: Absolutely.

Source: Buffer – 2022 State of Remote Work

Let’s talk about three common pitfalls employees face when working in a flexible work environment and what managers can do to help their employees continue to thrive in the modern workplace.

1. Blurred boundaries between work and personal life

Think about a time when you worked in a traditional office setting. Your typical schedule might have looked something like this: you wake up on Monday morning at 7 AM to sneak a workout in before driving to work. There’s some traffic but you make it to the office in the nick of time. You spend the day working on your to-dos in your workspace and attending meetings. You meet a friend for lunch, get back to work in the afternoon socializing with colleagues in between, then drive home after work. You spend your evening with family and friends and go to bed. Rinse and repeat.

Your daily routine was formed around your structured work schedule.

With flexible working arrangements, these routines are often less defined. Perhaps you wake up and can start work at any time. You have a child home sick from school who wants you to play with them, an aunt in town who wants to see you, and a work project due at the end of the week. How do you juggle your time?

Your employees may have experienced this change. Suddenly, they are left with all of their previous priorities plus the extra responsibility of how to structure them into their day.

While some love spontaneity, the truth is that predictable daily routines are less mentally taxing and increase the likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviours like quality sleep or exercise. Plus, blurry personal and work lifestyles can lead employees to greater exhaustion, increased family conflicts, and lower levels of well-being if work-life interference isn’t managed.

What you can do:

Reducing blurred boundaries starts with increasing physical boundaries. A study with Slovakian teleworkers found that a lack of a dedicated work room when working from home decreased participants’ work-life boundaries.

While you can’t control whether your employees will have a spare room at their disposal for a permanent home office, you can provide them opportunities to create some separation between work and home when they need it.

Remote-first companies like Grammarly refocused their office space as “collaboration hubs” for employees to meet, connect, and brainstorm, as well as, zones for focused work. This way, employees always have a workspace adaptable to their needs.

In addition, for employees that prefer to work from home, providing key resources for a more effective ‘mobile office’, like noise-cancellation headsets, can help them create a more focused physical workspace.

2. Feeling ‘Always On’

While physical boundaries can help redefine blurred work-home boundaries, the digital age means employees still have access to their devices (AKA work) 24/7. With an increasing reliance on smartphones coupled with the incessant lights and sounds from notifications, our brains are flooded with the reward chemical dopamine. This can make it difficult to break from screen time. It also means it can be nearly impossible for your employees to ignore that *ping* from their phone during their personal time, especially if it is from their boss.

Flexible work arrangements are about giving your employees a say in when and how they complete their work. But without guidelines in place, you won’t know if you can reach your employees when you need to. Your employees also won’t know when it’s okay not to respond and enjoy some downtime.

Result? Employees feeling overworked leading to higher stress levels, or even mental health impairment and burnout.

3. Lack of social support

One of the things people miss most about the office is socializing with colleagues. From the hallway banter, eating lunch together, to Friday afternoon drinks, there’s always an opportunity for informal connections to balance work responsibilities. Fully remote employees especially run the risk of experiencing social isolation.

Research by Gallup showed that those who worked 100% remotely reported a higher percentage of feelings of loneliness. At the same time, a comprehensive review of loneliness and its impact on health (Park et al, 2020) shows loneliness is associated with numerous negative mental and physical health outcomes and lower overall well-being.  

What you can do:

A trick to replicating the in-office experience is through recreating opportunities for informal communications. It starts with incorporating online occasions for employees to gather. This can look like ‘structured unstructured’ time during virtual team meetings for employees to chat about matters outside of work, holding virtual bonding sessions like team movie nights, or creating an online social spot channel. 

Flexible work arrangements have become a permanent part of many workplaces and for good reason. Employees value the benefits of flexibility, and employers are evolving to accommodate. Nonetheless, it is crucial to be aware of the potential barriers of a flexible work arrangement and make the necessary adjustments. By ensuring employees maintain some structure in their work days, understand what’s expected of them, and have access to the social support they need, employees can reduce stress levels and reap the benefits flexible work has to offer.