No official shift timings, available all the time, 7 days a week.. are employees being climatized to a toxic work environment?
COVID has forced us to lock in our homes and work from home
has become an important part of it. No doubt WFH has been the lifesaver when
we could have easily drowned in the extreme circumstances where stepping out and
getting to the office was practically impossible. But as they say, everything has
its pros and cons so does work from home.
Fluid Shift Timings: When the pandemic started mostly every organization offered flexible shift timings to their employees in order to support them better which was and is a kind gesture from their end. Now people are working as per their convenience and as per their availability, some work at night as it gives them the needed focus, some in the afternoon when kids as asleep and so on. Though it definitely has given us more control over our life and routine and genuinely a lifesaver at times but there are some cons of flexibility as well:
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Now anyone can ask you to stretch or work till
late: As they know you have worked till morning yesterday so its quite
implicative you can do it today as well, the only difference is yesterday you
did it for yourself and now you’ll be doing it for someone else that easily
come under the name of either organization or teamwork.
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Not officially logged off: There is a trend
that can be seen during this time that most of the time people are ‘Away’ and
not actually ‘logged off’ (working people know what I am talking about). In
simple words you have not concluded anytime for the day as in the feeling when
you log off your system and can plug yourself off from your work from sometime
is missing and instead, it's always ‘BRB’ aka Be Right Back.
Your Phone is no longer yours: You feel it or not but during
this time of work from home, I have felt that my phone is no longer mine it's an official property now. Most of the time its either official calls on Zoom,
Skype, Teams or normal phone calls, or now even wats app is no longer a
personal space, there well you get to be updated with your office group. So
normally when you expect a call from a friend or watch something good on your
personal device now you are attending client calls and a follow-up call with
your boss to decide the forward course of actions.
Work From Home = No Leaves? : It has been seen prior COVID
as well when most of the people when asked for a day off have been denied and
asked to work from home as per their flexibility instead. Now, this doesn’t happen
everywhere but definitely happens in a lot of places. Currently, where we are in a
situation of prolonged work from home and for some people even permanent work
from home, would giving the same answer when asked for a day off be right? As
for the employee, it does not work from home it's his normal life now where he can fall
sick, can have some personal work, or even need a change for a day or two.
All of the above activities being part of our daily life
now has forced me to think if this pandemic has moved us to a toxic work
culture? As the line between personal and professional life is now faded away,
people are finding it hard to keep a balance between both.
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