According to the “Global Talent Barometer 2025” Manpower Group As much as 67 percent people working remotely experience a high level of stress every day. Among the stationary employees, it is 51 percent, and among hybrid only 43 percent.
Their professional plans are equally disturbing. Almost half of the remote employees (49 percent) plan to leave work in the next six monthsand more than a third is afraid of dismissal.
Why is remote work so burdensome?
Although 92 percent remote employees believe that he has appropriate competences, and 89 percent knows the purpose of his work, it is a system in which they operate, gives them a sense of stabilitydevelopment or support. Paradoxically, the most aware and competent employees also feel the greatest stress and uncertainty.
– Remote work makes it more difficult to be noticed as an employee – says Agnieszka Krzemień, Career Coach and Right Management Talent Solutions. – This makes it difficult to gain tasks that develop us or join a new project. The manager, in turn, is more difficult to see the daily successes of people from the team. Meanwhile, an employee who is noticed and heard is less frustrated and his doubts are more efficiently addressed. This translates into a lower level of stress.
In addition, a remote work model based on independence and individual responsibility can lead to breakdown in team cooperation. As a result, the best individual employees go to managerial positions, but they are unable to manage or inspire teams, as Harvard Business Review recently wrote.
Team communication and building problems
Remote work lacks rituals, joint breaks, quick questions asked at the desk. Instead, there are calendars full of online meetings, at which many people appear pro forma and do not participate in them.
According to Harvard Business Review It is remote meetings that are one of the main sources of inefficiency today: they stretch, engage too many participants, require completion.
They are in a particularly difficult situation new employeeswho are not able to observe others, do not participate in random conversations and do not experience a team rhythm. In such an environment, problems are less often solved and relationships are built.
Companies such as Gather offer tools to replace office everyday life: virtual rooms, avatars, interactive spaces. Although they are trying to reproduce office interactions as well as possible, nothing can replace spontaneous conversations in the queue for coffee. This is where the best ideas are born.
– Even if not everyone needs conversations at the espresso machine, many of us value quick access to information, team support and simply the presence of others – emphasizes Agnieszka Krzemień. – Man by nature needs a group. A key element of maintaining relationships are minor conversations that do not have a specific information purpose, but give a sense of being in a group. The remote model limits these interactions.
What's more, two cultures clash in companies with a large participation of remote work. Employees employed before Pandemia and those who came later understand the principles of cooperation differently, which leads to grinding and communication chaos.
No support in Work-Life Balance
– Although flexibility and lack of direct control are undoubted advantages of remote work, they can also become a source of stress – says Katarzyna Gołek from Manpower. Working from home means no border between work and life. Instead of greater balance – permanent availability.
Every fifth surveyed employee admits that the employer does not support him in maintaining a balance between private and professional life. As Agnieszka Krzemień notes, the penetration of these two spheres can lead to chronic fatigueand in the long run to burnout.
What next with remote work?
For companies, remote work was to be a way to save, but its real cost can significantly charge the budget. Remote work leads to a decrease in efficiency, weaker relationships and relaxation of ties with the company. Manpower Group data shows that already 14 percent employees in Poland declare that they do not identify with the values of the company in which they work. This, in turn, is a quick way to burn and increased staff rotation.
The paradox of remote work is that what people were supposed to give more space to people today fills this space with tension. It is not enough to give people a laptop with teams. If companies want to maintain a remote model, they must invest in its structure. You need mental support systems, mentoring, clear principles of cooperation, better leadership.
