Category Archives: Work-life balance

How the pandemic transformed the world of work in 2021

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There were winners and losers as work patterns continued changing, with repercussions for city centres and society as a whole

Of all the predictions on your 2021 bingo card, who had employees being fined for going into the office? Workers in Wales now face that threat since the tightening of Covid regulations amid the spread of the Omicron variant, with a possible £60 penalty for failing to work from home.

That is just one of many examples of how the pandemic has transformed the world of work this year – and perhaps for ever – for city centre employers, their staff and the service industry that depends on them for trade.

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Ready, steady … oh. Can a life coach shake me out of my pandemic-induced ennui?

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It started in bed one morning when I realised I hadn’t had an original thought for months. I needed someone to make me wake up

For some reason it takes me two and a half hours to email my life coach. I write “email life coach guy” on my to-do list. I have a really long shower. I riffle through a stack of unopened New Yorkers, and pretend I am either going to read them, or leave them in my building’s lobby for my neighbours to claim, and in the end I do neither. I watch a 20-minute YouTube video about Amir Khan’s boxing career (“The legendary speed of Amir Khan!”), then check Wikipedia to see how he fared in the fight the video was trailing (an embarrassing knockout). I send three tweets and scroll Instagram. I stand at the fridge and eat some hummus with a plain cracker for no reason at all. Finally, I sit and write the email. It is 36 words long. Tomas, the life coach, writes back almost immediately. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.

The pandemic was broadly fine for me. I worked at home anyway, so I didn’t have any shock adjustment to make. I didn’t (and still don’t) have any children to look after, so there wasn’t any particular agony with my many lives layering on top of each other in a confined space. My girlfriend, Hannah, and I did the usual things to stay sane when confronted with seemingly endless periods of time and no real social life: jigsaws, taking too long to cook dinner, a Sopranos rewatch.

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Stress test: how ‘burnout breaks’ are helping staff recover from pandemic

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Businesses are becoming increasingly aware that exhaustion is a ticking timebomb

This week, staff at Nike’s headquarters in Oregon breathed a prolonged sigh of relief, after learning that they were getting a week off to de-stress and recover from the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an open message to staff posted on LinkedIn, Nike’s senior manager of global marketing science, Matt Marrazzo, told staff: “In a year (or two) unlike any other, taking time for rest and recovery is key to performing well and staying sane.”

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‘Sleep is venture capital’: employers wake up to benefits of a nap

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After lockdown some businesses understand better how flexible working hours enhance productivity

A three-hour break in the middle of the working day for a languorous lunch, followed by a restorative nap sounds like the Mediterranean dream, but employers in Spain are increasingly moving away from this rigid schedule, which for many workers feels more like a nightmare.

The merits of introducing the siesta in the UK have been hotly debated this week after the National Trust unveiled plans to move towards “Mediterranean working hours” at some sites in the south-east, to help cope with rising annual temperatures.

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Leaving burnout behind: the pain and pleasure of starting a new career in my 50s

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I spent 30 years as a journalist before deciding to become a secondary school teacher. While a complete career change is rare, it is one of the best moves I ever made

I had my first midlife crisis in 2006. It started at 7am on a cold January morning when my mother got out of bed, made herself a cup of tea, had an aneurysm and died.

I was a 46-year-old married newspaper columnist with four children, who appeared to be living a more than satisfactory life. But as the sudden axe of grief fell, I looked at my career, which was going better than I’d ever thought possible, and thought: I don’t want this any more.

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‘Idea of commuting fills me with dread’: workers on returning to the office

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Staff warily contemplate going back to work as business leaders say it is vital to boost urban economy

With the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England probably two weeks away, the prospect of returning to offices means the revival of the daily commute.

In a push to bring back more people to town and city centres to boost the urban economy, a group of 50 business leaders, including the Canary Wharf executive chair, Sir George Iacobescu, the bosses of Heathrow and Gatwick airports, the Capita chief executive, Jon Lewis, and the BT chief executive, Philip Jansen, are calling for the government to encourage a return to the office.

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Revealed: rise in stress among those working from home

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New research finds that those living and working alone during the pandemic have suffered the worst effects of all

Working from home during the coronavirus pandemic has caused increased levels of loneliness and mental distress, according to new research into how workers have been affected by the crisis.

With ministers still debating how to manage the return to workplaces in the wake of Covid restrictions, a study by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) found that the biggest increases in mental distress and loneliness during the pandemic were felt by the most isolated group – those working from home and living alone. However, in a finding that surprised researchers, people working from home and living with others also experienced a significant increase in loneliness not felt by those working outside the home.

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Remote working v the office: four company bosses have their say

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Working longer hours or getting more done? Managers debate the upside and downside of how we work

The global pandemic and lockdown restrictions forced many UK businesses to move employees to remote working, practically overnight.

Four company bosses speak about the upsides and downsides of working from home versus the traditional office-based model as they consider what the future might look like for their businesses and staff.

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‘It’s not easy’: seven working parents around the world – photo essay

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Photographers Linda Bournane Engelberth and Valentina Sinis document the lives of working parents from Botswana to the UK for Unicef

If investing in family-friendly policies is good for business, then many companies are missing a trick. Giving parents and families adequate time, resources and services to care for children, while staying in their jobs and improving their skills and productivity, pays off according to employers. But for many, in all parts of the world, paid parental leave and childcare are not a reality. And that can compromise the first critical years of life – a time when the combination of the right nourishment, environment and love can strengthen a developing brain and give a baby the best start.

Evidence suggests family-friendly policies pay off in healthier, better-educated children and greater gender equality, and are linked to better productivity and the ability to attract and retain workers. Momentum for change is growing with an increasing number of businesses beginning to see the value.

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How Britons are cutting stress in half: throw an axe in it

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Forget bowling nights and bar-hopping – the thud of metal in wood is the new way of letting off steam

On a blustery Thursday evening, the sound of deep thuds and high shrieks can be heard along the canal in east London’s Hackney Wick. They emanate from axe-throwing venue Skeeters, named after the famous native American axe and knife thrower. It might sound unnerving, but head inside and the fairy lights – plus colleagues enjoying a work social – soon put you at ease.

“It’s been a stressful year at work so it seemed like a good work social,” says Gemma Sutton, a 27-year-old product designer who tonight tried axe throwing for the first time. “It was fun. Most things you do as work socials involve going to a bar – it was nice to do something a bit different.”

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Married to the job: how a long-hours working culture keeps people single and lonely

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Demanding bosses, impossible workloads, 24/7 email – no wonder many employees feel they have no time outside work to find love

Laura Hancock started practising yoga when she worked for a charity. It was a job that involved long hours and caused a lot of anxiety. Yoga was her counterbalance. “It saved my life, in a way,” she says.

Yoga brought her a sense of peace and started her journey of self-inquiry; eventually, she decided to bring those benefits to others by becoming a yoga teacher. She studied for more than eight years before qualifying. That was about 10 years ago; since then, she has been teaching in Oxford, her home town.

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Esther Perel on life after Covid: ‘People will want to reconnect with eros’

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The acclaimed sex and relationships therapist talks pandemic breakups, the psychological toll of working from home and why she still feels like an outsider in America

A global pandemic tends to strain interpersonal relationships, and the world’s most famous couples therapist, Esther Perel, has been working to save as many as she can – or at least help us understand why they’re failing.

“We know that disasters and crises often function like relationship accelerators,” she tells me over Zoom, speaking from the office of her New York apartment. “A disaster heightens our sense of mortality, of precariousness, of ‘life is short’. And when life is short, you may say suddenly, ‘Let’s move in together, let’s have a child, let’s get married.’ Like, ‘What am I waiting for?’” But you might also say: “If life is short, I’m not doing this for another 20 years.”

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Call centre staff to be monitored via webcam for home-working ‘infractions’

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Exclusive: Teleperformance, which employs 380,000 people, plans to use specialist webcams to watch staff

Thousands of staff at one of the world’s biggest call centre companies face being monitored by webcams to check whether they are eating, looking at their phones or leaving their desks while working from home, the Guardian has learned.

In a sign of potential battles ahead over the surveillance of remote staff after the pandemic, Teleperformance – which employs about 380,000 people in 34 countries and counts dozens of major UK companies and government departments among its clients – has told some staff that specialist webcams will be fitted to check for home-working “infractions”.

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Spain to launch trial of four-day working week

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Government agrees to proposal from leftwing party Más País allowing companies to test reduced hours

Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea.

Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. Talks have since been held, with the next meeting expected to take place in the coming weeks.

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Patter of tiny feet: dancers on leaping into motherhood

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Juggling babies and a job is always difficult – what are the particular pressures for performers and how is the industry taking steps to improve?

Followers of Royal Ballet principal Lauren Cuthbertson cheer ardently for her Juliet, Manon and Sugar Plum Fairy, but are in raptures about her latest role, as mum to baby Peggy, born in December and already the toast of Instagram. Cuthbertson is one of a flurry of dancers at the Royal who are about to give or have recently given birth, in a serendipitously timed lockdown baby boom.

It’s a long way from the early days of the company, when founder Ninette de Valois set the tone. “‘You’re pregnant darling, goodbye!’ That’s how it was,” says Jeanetta Laurence, a dancer in its touring company in the 1960s and 70s. Even now, she says: “It’s hard to think of another industry where having a baby is so intrusive to the work. I’m in awe and wonder at how they manage it.”

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Drawing, running or a podcast in the bath: our readers’ tips for switching off after work

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How best to resist the temptation to send one more email? Try these healthy hacks to put the home back into WFH

Even though it happens in the same space as my Zoom counselling sessions, making music helps me to switch off immediately. I close the camera, switch on my synthesiser and load up the software. That simple process transports me into a sonic fantasy world. I take my voice and the sounds of many of the instruments I play, and I sculpt them.

Every week or two, I upload a tune to streaming sites. Making music used to be my profession rather than a hobby, but that distinction now gives me a feeling of immense freedom. I can create my music in any way I like. I no longer need approval or affirmation from the outside world. John Walter, counsellor, Cornwall

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Blue sky thinking: is it time to stop work taking over our lives?

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Anthropologist James Suzman says now is the perfect time to rein in our unsustainable work habits. But is it possible?

Three encounters loom large in the anthropologist James Suzman’s memory of his brief but informative stint in the corporate world. The first was early on, when he told a colleague that he didn’t need to spend the half-million pounds allocated for a task because he could do it for free. His colleague was horrified. “If you don’t spend your budget,” he said, “they won’t think we’re doing anything!”

Soon afterwards, Suzman was chatting with a board director about what they’d do if they won the lottery. Suzman thought of the director’s massive townhouse and annual bonus. He was surprised when the man told him that, even with a colossal windfall, he’d continue working.

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Shirking from home? Staff feel the heat as bosses ramp up remote surveillance

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As management seeks more oversight of workers away from the office, campaigners fight for privacy to be respected

For many, one of the silver linings of lockdown was the shift to remote working: a chance to avoid the crushing commute, supermarket meal deals and an overbearing boss breathing down your neck.

But as the Covid crisis continues, and more and more employers postpone or cancel plans for a return to the office, some managers are deploying increasing levels of surveillance in an attempt to recreate the oversight of the office at home.

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Another day not at the office: will working from home be 2020’s most radical change?

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During lockdown millions started WFH – and most of us don’t want to go back. In just a few months the landscape of work, family and city life has altered dramatically - but are all the changes positive?

There’s a man sitting at the first-floor window of the house that lies on the other side of my back fence. It’s early August, the weather is sweltering, and his window is wide open. He’s talking on a hands-free phone, laughing in that ingratiating manner that suggests a large payday is at stake. He speaks in a fashionable sales patter that sounds similar to real conversation, but crucially isn’t, and he’s practically broadcasting his pitch to the neighbourhood. WTF? I want to shout, but I already know the answer: WFH.

With the exception of Covid-19 itself, working from home has been the big story of 2020. I’ve been home-based for more than 20 years and for most of that time, before my neighbour began advertising his WFH status, I was a local exception, left to my own devices in tranquil isolation. No one was much interested in the emotional dynamics of my daily work regime. But since the lockdown emptied the nation’s offices, it’s become a national topic of conversation.

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Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life

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After more than a decade of writing life-changing advice, I know when to move on. Here’s what else I learned

In the very first instalment of my column for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, a dizzying number of years ago now, I wrote that it would continue until I had discovered the secret of human happiness, whereupon it would cease. Typically for me, back then, this was a case of facetiousness disguising earnestness. Obviously, I never expected to find the secret, but on some level I must have known there were questions I needed to confront – about anxiety, commitment-phobia in relationships, control-freakery and building a meaningful life. Writing a column provided the perfect cover for such otherwise embarrassing fare.

I hoped I’d help others too, of course, but I was totally unprepared for how companionable the journey would feel: while I’ve occasionally received requests for help with people’s personal problems, my inbox has mainly been filled with ideas, life stories, quotations and book recommendations from readers often far wiser than me. (Some of you would have been within your rights to charge a standard therapist’s fee.) For all that: thank you.

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