Photo: AFP
New information about Americans working from home lays out a precarious balancing act for employers. Remote workers can be more engaged than those in the office, but also lonelier.
That’s the finding in Gallup’s recent “State of the Global Workspace” report.
The report found employees at home had levels of engagement with their work 60 percent higher than those in the office, 31 percent for those working remote full-time, versus only 19 percent for those in the office full-time.
But remote workers reported higher levels of emotional distress. The report found they experienced the highest levels of loneliness, sadness and anger.
“The disconnected feeling of not being able to interface with people face-to-face can get you down if you’re remote for too long,” said Lone Star College Economics Professor Hank Lewis. “They’re experiencing the side effects of isolation and they’re getting squirrelly.”
Lewis says the findings are revealing important as growing numbers of businesses call for employees to return to the workplace to improve communication, collaboration and teamwork.
The report also provides confounding crosscurrents about the effect of remote work.
Only 36 percent of fully remote workers reported feeling like they were thriving in their lives overall.
But among workers in the office full-time, even fewer, 30 percent, reported feeling like they were thriving.
On those questions, hybrid workers scored higher. “I prefer hybrid, to fully online or fully in the office,” Lewis said.“It really is the best of both worlds.”
As businesses seek to have their workers back in the office Lewis suggests flexibility may be the order of the day. “If the executives could find a way to allow more hybrid work, a compromise would probably be the most ideal for worker satisfaction, as well as productivity for the business,” he said, “because that’s really the bottom line.”