There appears to be a widely accepted suggestion that the so-called “new normal” – whereby the enforced regime of working from home instead of an office, attending virtual meetings, conducting school classes or tertiary education lectures remotely via online connectivity – is wreaking havoc with the mental health of all users concerned.
In this month’s Channelwise, my esteemed editor attempts to delve a little deeper into some of the trends that are being reported regarding the mental health of employees who are increasingly being forced to work remotely and who are subjected to newly coined conditions such as “Zoom Fatigue Syndrome”.
One prominent research organisation reported recently that it had conducted a comprehensive survey of companies and found that Covid-19 has negatively impacted the health of 55% of the global workforce.
The survey claims to have polled more than 20 000 workers to measure the change in workforce health across multiple employee well-being elements, including work-life balance, psychological safety, burnout, collaboration, innovation, and responsiveness.
The organisation claims that its survey established that all segments of the workforce have experienced significant and widespread damage to workforce health.
However, elsewhere in the same report there is reference to the fact that “among the employees surveyed, 30% experienced limited or no change to their psychological safety. Another 34% experienced a decline in psychological safety, while 36% reported significant improvements.”
And the report also found that an overwhelming number of managers and employees surveyed reported that operational productivity and efficiency had been maintained and, in some instances, dramatically improved during the same period of enforced remote working.
The apparent contradictions in some of the survey findings are not adequately addressed nor explained. This is possibly due to the fact that the methodology appears to have relied heavily on quantitative research methodology conducted online rather than the use of qualitative research techniques.
The outcome prompts one to recall an age-old cliché that describes the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments and which is often mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain that says: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”.
It is possible, and highly likely, that the claims of having been mentally compromised by the enforced working conditions brought on by the pandemic has nothing whatsoever to do with the “new normal” remote work ethic, but rather the unquantified threat of the virus itself to the world and life as we know it.
Not since the Spanish Flu of 1918 when it is estimated that more than 500-million people were infected resulting in anything from 17-million up to 100-million people died, has the world faced anything similar.
Fear of this, the deadliest pandemic in human history, being repeated is bound to have had far more impact on the mental health of survey respondents than has been given credit for.
As a more accurate measure of how the “new normal” may be impacting the mental well-being of the working population, it would be interesting to see a breakdown of respondents according to their generational classification based on:
- 1946 to 1964: Baby Boomers
- 1965 to 1979: Generation X
- 1980 to 2000: Millennials or Generation Y
- 2000 to date: New Silent Generation or Generation Z
Each of these generations have a vastly different attitude and experience when it comes to the use of technology and how best to adapt to accelerated digitisation, which is what is now an inherent characteristic of the “new normal”.
It would not, therefore, be too surprising to find that a detailed analysis of the generational breakdown of respondents showed that the 30% who experienced limited or no change to their psychological safety were Generation X; that the 34% who experienced a decline in psychological safety were drawn from Baby Boomers and slightly older members of Generation X; and that the 36% who reported “significant improvements” were Millennials or Generation Y.
Without going into a detailed analysis of just how each of these generations regard or are affected by rapid technological advancements, it must be assumed that the younger and more “connected” and familiar an employee is to the tools of the “smart economy”, the more opportunity they will see being created by working conditions in the “new normal”.
After all, as Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States, once said: “Out of adversity comes opportunity.”
So let’s put the WOKE approach to research behind us and get on with making the best out of what life throws at us. And here is where the “lemonade out of lemons” cliché applies.