10 Undeniable Benefits Of Working From Home, According To Science

Posted on 08/04/2024 by Boris Clair

Four years since the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to shut down office spaces around the world, remote and hybrid work seems here to stay.

About a third of US workers who can work from home now do so all the time, according to a Pew Research Center survey from March 2023. (The majority of U.S. workers – 61% – do not have jobs that can be done from home, Pew notes.)

Still, there are a lot of work-from-home skeptics out there – most of them C-level business executives. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has remarked that engineers “get more done” in-office, and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that remote work “doesn’t work for those who want to hustle” while calling all US-based employees back into the offices in May 2021.

Companies that insist on mandatory full-time attendance at the office do so at their own peril; today’s employees value the autonomy that comes with remote or hybrid work and are increasingly leaving workplaces that forget they have lives outside their 9-to-5.

In March 2022, Microsoft’s second annual Worker Trend Index found that 53% of respondents prioritise their health and well-being over work, “and if unhappy, more than half of Gen Z and millennial respondents said [they’d] seriously consider switching employers over the next year.”

Of course, working from home is not without its drawbacks. Many working women say they feel greater conflicts between their job and family roles while teleworking, and studies have shown increased rates of depression and anxiety during remote work. (Though it’s worth noting, most of the research was conducted while respondents were living through an active pandemic ― stressful in its own right.)

Still, with increased social support and systems put in place by managers and organisations trained in managing hybrid teams, research also suggests there’s plenty of benefits to working from home. Below, 10 studies and surveys that quantify just how game-changing remote work can be for employees and companies.

Remote workers experience a better work-life balance

Prior to the remote work era, a healthy work-life balance often felt like a pie-in-the-sky goal for workers: nice to idly dream about but never quite attainable. Now, it’s more in reach: Among hybrid workers who are not self-employed, 71% say working for home at least partially helps them balance their work and personal lives, according to the Pew Research survey.

They don’t feel micromanaged, either, despite being out of the office and outside the eyeline of their bosses. The same Pew survey found that employees who work from home at least some of the time (71%) say their manager or supervisor trusts them a “great deal” to get their work done when they’re out of the office.

Working remotely can halve an office worker’s carbon footprint

Working from home isn’t just good for your morale, it’s also pretty good for the planet. According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, people who work remotely all the time produce less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of on-site employees.

Hybrid work arrangements help some, too. Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with office workers.

In 2015, Xerox reported that its teleworkers drove 92 million fewer miles, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 41,000 metric tons.

Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with office workers.

Remote workers tend to eat more healthy ― up to a point

Research on remote work can be a little contradictory – is it good for your mental health or does it lead to depression? – so in December 2023, British researchers set out to interpret over 1,930 academic papers on teleworking and hybrid work arrangements.

What they found was that people working from home tend to feel lower rates of stress, eat healthier meals and have lower blood pressure.

The study, funded in part by the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, pointed out some negatives, too. One of the studies reviewed found that 46.9% of employees working from home had put on weight. Another study put that number around 41%. Remote workers also tended to drink and smoke more.

A downside for workers: Remote employees work longer hours

Though working from home is often equated with laziness and low productivity, the aforementioned British study found that remote workers tend to work longer hours and that their work is more likely to bleed into evenings and weekends. Regrettably, they’re also less likely to take sick time.

Another study – this one tracking more than 60,000 Microsoft employees over the first half of 2020 – found that remote work led to a 10% boost in weekly hours.

One drawback was less collaboration. The Microsoft study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, found that cross-group collaboration dropped by about 25% of the pre-pandemic level.

Less commuting time means more time for work

Remote employees are working more because they’re spending less time stuck in traffic. One 2023 University of Chicago study looked at data from 27 countries and found that remote workers saved 72 minutes in daily commuting time. On average, employees spent about half an hour of that extra time engaged in daily work, which comes out to more than two hours a week.

Since the pandemic, some social scientists have highlighted the downside to eliminating the daily commute: In one 2022 study published in the Organisational Psychology Review, researchers argued that commutes are a source of healthy “liminal space” – a time free of constraints from work and home that gives people a chance to recover from the workday and mentally prepare for reentering the home.

“Without the ability to mentally shift gears, people experience role blurring, which can lead to stress,” the study’s co-authors wrote in The Conversation. “Without mentally disengaging from work, people can experience burnout.”

Remote or hybrid work options may help with employee retention.

Worried about losing your employees to more enticing offers? Give them the chance to work from home. In 2019, video conferencing company Owl Labs surveyed 1,200 U.S. workers between the ages of 22 and 65 and found that remote workers were 13% more likely to stay in their current job for the next five years than on-site workers.

When asked if the opportunity to work remotely would make them happier, 83% of the survey respondents agreed, while 80% agreed that working remotely would make them feel like their employer cares.

People of colour say they’re able to manage stress better working from home

More Black professionals want flexible work policies than their white, Asian and Latino colleagues, according to a 2021 study conducted by The Future Forum, a research consortium organised by Slack.

Black workers reported a 50% increase in their sense of workplace belonging and a 64% increase in their ability to manage stress when they began working from home.

In the wake of the pandemic and office closures, many Black Americans spoke of how draining microaggressions in their office environments can be.

“Most of my interactions with my co-workers are very focused on the work that we’re doing, and for me, I appreciate that,” Christina, a Black software engineer, told HuffPost in 2021 after switching to remote work. “Sometimes hearing your co-worker’s opinions on current events are not really the most inclusive opinion. It’s nice that I don’t have to delve into that with them.“

Black workers reported a 50% increase in their sense of workplace belonging and a 64% increase in their ability to manage stress when they began working from home.

Mothers and caregivers report higher rates of well-being with hybrid work

A March 2023 study out of the University of Melbourne found that women – especially mothers and caregivers – reported improved well-being when they’re given the option to work from home. The researchers posited that such flexibility helps women balance paid employment with unpaid caregiving and household duties, which women disproportionately bear the brunt of.

Remote work has been a benefit for people with disabilities, too

Workers with disabilities appreciate the option to work from home because it reduces transportation and accessibility challenges they face going into the office every day. It also allows them to better manage chronic health conditions.

“Before COVID-19, work from home was generally not popular, and disabled people had to try hard to get these accommodations,” Meenakshi Das, a software engineer focused on accessibility, told HuffPost in 2021. “It took a pandemic for people to realise how accommodations are low-cost and totally doable, and I hope it stays that way.”

There’s benefits for employers, too. Almost two-thirds of disabled employees believe they were more productive when working from home than at an office or external workplace, according to a 2023 study out of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Workers with disabilities appreciate working from home options because it reduces transportation and accessibility challenges they face going into the office.

Employees with flexible schedules tend to have better mental health

Employees at workplaces that prioritize flexibility and higher job security are less likely to experience serious psychological distress or anxiety, according to a March 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open. The study, which polled more than 18,000 U.S. workers, defined “job flexibility” as the ability to adjust their own work schedule to meet personal demands.

Workers with flexible schedules were 13% less likely to experience daily anxiety, 11% less likely to experience weekly anxiety and 9% less likely to experience anxiety several times a year. The researchers also found that increased flexibility and job security led to reduced absenteeism ― a win for everyone involved.

So THIS Is What Video Calls Are Doing To Our Brains

Posted on 30/10/2023 by Boris Clair

If you’ve ever been on a work video call (and after COVID, it’s safe to say lots of us have), then you’ll probably know the particular stressors the medium can bring.

There’s the person who’s accidentally muted themselves. There are the patchy internet connections. There’s the awkward, crossed-mic silences when the person leading the call asks a group questions (martyrs, IMO).

And now, a paper published in Imaging Neuroscience has found that video calling people affects more than just social cues; it suggests that the contact method can have a pretty noticeable effect on how our brains process the interaction.

“Separable Processes for Live ‘In-Person’ and Live ‘Zoom-like” Faces’,” a study led by Yale professor Joy Hirsch, found that “the social systems of the human brain are more active during real live in-person encounters than on Zoom.“

People who we see on video calls “do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” Hirsch said.

The researchers used brain imaging tools to look at the neural activity of pairs speaking via video call and those speaking in person.

The scientists observed high levels of neural activity during face-to-face interactions, along with long gaze times, increased pupil diameters, and what appeared to be enhanced face-processing abilities.

Those who were looking at an image on a screen had a “suppressed” social response compared to those who were talking face-to-face, the paper revealed.

“Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during Zoom encounters,” said Professor Hirsch. “This is a really robust effect.”

The Yale study highlighted the unique impact face-to-face interactions can have on our brains.

“Online representations of, faces, at least with current technology, do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” said Professor Hirsch.

So, if you’ve ever felt like a video meeting was genuinely mind-numbing, you might be onto something…

If You Go Through This Many Rounds Of Job Interviews, It’s A Red Flag

Posted on 05/10/2023 by Boris Clair

For Tejal Wagadia, some of the job interviews she had after getting laid off a few years ago are her “villain origin story.”

Back when she was unemployed, Wagadia applied for a staffing agency’s technical recruiter role. It was a “super frustrating” process, she said. The recruiter initially promised that it would be just two rounds of interviews to meet teammates, a hiring manager and the business co-owner. But then the interviews kept coming until it became a total of five rounds at an office, lasting at least two hours each.

“They’re like, ‘The other owner also wants to meet with you.’ OK. ‘You know what? One more hiring manager wants to meet with you.’ OK,” Wagadia recalled.

By the third interview, she realised her time was being wasted. “None of the questions that they asked me were about my skill set or my qualifications. Especially at the owner level, they asked me questions about my employer that had just laid me off,” Wagadia said. Still, she participated in two more rounds due to the “sunk cost fallacy” of investing so much time already and because she was “desperate at that time to find a job,” she said. But she still didn’t get the role.

And Wagadia’s not alone in enduring excessive interviews like these. There are countless stories of job candidates being strung along through an indefinite number of interviews.

So, exactly how many interview rounds is too many? Hiring experts shared their tipping point.

Employers that do more than 5 rounds usually don’t know what they want — and that’s a big red flag.

Eddiana Rosen, a human resources specialist with recruiting experience who coaches job seekers, said that if a company doesn’t know who it wants to hire after five rounds of interviews, it has “a broken system.”

Rosen went through this herself in one memorably indecisive hiring process, where she had eight in-person interviews and one final Zoom interview for a promising startup job in New Jersey.

“I was driving and paying for parking every single time,” she said. She got the job, but she knew her time had been wasted.

“The majority of people who are interviewing have another job, and I think that asking people to come in more than a certain amount of time to interview is just ridiculous,” Rosen said.

Companies that drag out their hiring do not know what they want, experts say.

“They’re afraid of making the bad hire,” Rosen said. “But at the end of the day, the more that they take time, the more they risk losing good candidates, because essentially, the more qualified the candidate, the less they’re willing to put up with these bad hiring practices.”

Rosen said she saw employers hire faster in 2021, when job seekers had more leverage. But in this tight labor market, she has seen the number of interview rounds balloon to around five or more. “Five [rounds] would be like the absolute maximum if I’m really interested in that company, but four is more of where it should be,” Rosen said.

Wagadia, who now works as a technical recruiter, also firmly believes that an organisation’s hiring process should take no more than five rounds of interviews, from the first screener call to the offer or rejection.

She said that after five, “you’re telling them, ‘Hey, a) we don’t have a process, we are not organised enough to have a process,’ or b) ‘You’re not important enough, or good enough for this role. So we’re going try and figure out whether you are good enough.’”

Ebony Joyce, a career coach and diversity consultant, finds that for midlevel non-management roles, “typically any more than four [rounds] is too many.” But for more senior roles with potential employers, that number can increase.

In general, she said candidates should ask themselves: “Did I learn something about them? Did they learn something about me? … You should be going to each interview learning more about what the company’s problems are, and how you can solve that problem.”

If you’re not learning anything new, that may be your sign that the rounds have gone too far, Joyce said.

Employers should be upfront about their expectations.

Although a job candidate can sometimes get the job after many interview rounds, a company’s wishy-washy behavior is not a good sign that you are the preferred candidate.

“If you are a top candidate for an employer, they will make you a priority,” Wagadia said.

Now when she talks to job candidates, Wagadia models what she wishes she had seen in her job interviews. She shares that she may not be able to give an exact date for when the hiring process will end, but she can explain what an average hiring timeline looks like, “such as six to eight weeks,” and what the interview rounds will entail.

Rosen, who previously had a sponsorship with Teal, said that more employers should use the career development platform because its job listings let candidates know upfront about the number of interviews, who they will be interviewing with, the questions that they can anticipate, and how long each interview will take.

For example, a current listing for a senior backend engineer at Teal explicitly states that there will be four interviews and that the first one will be a 30-minute Zoom call with the chief technical officer, where the goal is “high level qualifications & mutual fit.”

In this way, there are no surprises and candidates can decide for themselves if this is a job they want to apply for. “That way you can opt out,” said David Fano, Teal’s CEO. ”[You] know exactly what [you’re] getting into.”

Fano said interviews are typically no more than three rounds for Teal candidates. The first is a “smell test”; it assesses if they are who they say they are. Then the second interview’s goal is to answer “Are they technically capable?” The third is about work culture: “Are they a culture add?” Candidates meet team members and can decide if they want to join.

“At the end of that, we feel like we have enough information to make the decision,” Fano said, adding that hiring “doesn’t benefit from groupthink where more voices and more opinions is necessarily better.”

Here’s how to gently push back when your time is not being respected with job interviews.

If an employer doesn’t set a time boundary and keeps scheduling more interviews, set it for yourself in the beginning of the hiring process.

Joyce said she successfully coached a client to ask what the interview process would look like in the first round and to state, “I have a five-interview max.”

You can also make the call to bow out of consideration when the number of rounds is becoming egregious.

Rosen suggested you do this by saying something like: “It’s been quite a bit of a lengthy process so far, and I’ve had to say no to other commitments. … I would really appreciate if you can let me know how much longer I’ll have to be in the process, because if I have to go much longer, I’ll have to get myself out of the race, just to respect each other’s time.” With this approach, your tone is more politely curious than demanding.

And if you’re not interested in continuing the relationship, Rosen suggested that you simply state: “Hey, I am so appreciative of the time so far. Unfortunately, I’ll have to take myself out of the race, considering this process has been so lengthy for me.”

Ultimately, employers disrespecting a candidate’s time can be a bad omen for how they may one day disrespect your work-life boundaries as an employee.

“At the end of the day, your time is just as valuable as theirs,” Rosen said. “Being respectful of your own time is very commendable.”

I’m An ADHD Coach – Here Are The 3 Time Management Hacks I Swear By

Posted on 27/09/2023 by Boris Clair

Have you ever been told to ‘just try time management’? If you’ve got ADHD, it’s likely that you’ve tried every time management hack in the world, but none of them seem to work.

We often know what to do, we just can’t do it. Having a brain that only experiences time as ‘now’ or ‘not now’ can make it extremely difficult to plan ahead, organise our time, or prioritise our work. This is linked with the 30% developmental delay in executive functioning skills such as memory, self-awareness, and motivation – it is not your fault.

Having a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes means that we might zoom ahead on the things we’re interested in, but crash into walls when we need to slow down. At work, this can be extremely difficult as we try to juggle endless competing demands.

As neurotypical solutions don’t work for neurodivergent brains, here’s 3 ADHD-friendly time management hacks to thrive at work:

1) Hack your interest based nervous system

People with ADHD have interest based nervous systems, which means we thrive off interest, adrenaline, and novelty. By understanding what interests you, and how you can incorporate gamification and fun into planning ahead, you can stay one step ahead of procrastination by planning ahead.

As an ADHD Coach, I’m constantly supporting clients to figure out the ways that work best for them to manage their time – from colour blocking their work in their calendar in advance and wearing watches, to setting up calendar reminders and arranging weekly body doubling sessions to focus on the things they don’t want to do. You can also never have too many clocks around you!

As we have a limited number of ‘spoons’ of energy, it’s also sensible to hack your days by doing something you don’t want to do first thing in the morning. For me, this is going to the gym – I incorporate my interest based nervous system by sleeping in my gym clothes and finding accountability buddies!

2) Turn marathons into sprints

As our brains are constantly seeking dopamine and stimulation, we can turn long term projects into sprints by incorporating artificial deadlines and accountability. It’s much easier to work with short term goals that feel immediate and urgent, which can be harnessed with regular 1:1 meetings and dopamine boosts such as positive feedback celebrating our ‘wins’.

For example, I break down long term objectives into three month goals. Setting short term priorities can help us to break these down further, such as by setting weekly or daily goals, and to share these with another person for accountability, checking in on how it went at the end of the day.

Instead of trying to do everything on your to do list, picking just one thing to get done can help you to get started, overcoming the common challenge of ADHD decision paralysis.

Having visual reminders of short term sprints can be highly effective and motivate us to get them done, such as by visualising our progress with trackers. This also helps us remember what to not do – if something isn’t one of our sprint goals, it’s a ‘not now’! Writing down distractions or ideas in a notebook enables us to return to these when we review our next set of sprints.

3) Ask for help

Asking for help at work may feel overwhelming for people with ADHD, but it’s important to remember that you deserve to be supported – and this helps everybody! One highly effective technique for time management at work is by asking your team to use a briefing document for new work.

This sets out in a shared document what a project will involve, breaking objectives into short term actions, and scheduling any check ins with colleagues as needed. In general, it can be very helpful to have written instructions for everything in the workplace, and to regularly ask your manager what you should prioritise and how you will know when a piece of work is complete.

Having additional check ins is a common reasonable adjustment employers can implement to help employees with ADHD to manage their time effectively. This could be with a colleague, or externally with an ADHD Coach, for example.

Ultimately, it’s important to have a foundation of psychological safety at work to empower you to feel safe enough to focus on the ‘not now’. Having colleagues who clearly set out expectations and support you to ‘do what you know’ empowers you to use your super whizzy brain within a structure of safety and support.

It might feel like we’re surviving from day to day, but creating an environment tailored to our brains can enable us to use these unique traits to thrive at work because of our ADHD, not in spite of it.

Leanne Maskell is an ADHD Coach, the Founder of ADHD Works, and author of new book ADHD Works at Work

1 In 61 Pregnant Women Say Their Boss Insinuated They Should Have An Abortion

Posted on 19/07/2023 by Boris Clair

Shocking new research from the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed has revealed that 1 in every 61 pregnant workers says their boss has insinuated they should terminate their pregnancy for the sake of their career.

Pregnant Then Screwed, who campaign for the rights of parents and against sex discrimination, surveyed over 24,000 parents to uncover the discrimination that women face in the workplace when they become mothers.

The data shows that over half of all mothers (52%) have faced some form of discrimination when pregnant, on maternity leave, or when they returned to work.

One woman involved in the study, Connie*, told her boss about her pregnancy at eight weeks and was told, “It would be easier for your future career if you just brought a coat hanger”. Three colleagues went on to tell Connie that she had ruined her career and should have had an abortion.

For some women, the consequences of having children can have life-changing consequences on their career, with one in five mothers (19%) making the decision to leave their employer due to a negative experience.

Additionally, one in 10 women (10%) revealed they were bullied or harassed when pregnant or returning to work, and 7% of women lost their job — through redundancy, sacking, or feeling forced to leave due to a flexible working request being declined or due to health and safety issues.

If scaled up, this could mean as many as 41,752 pregnant women or mothers are sacked or made redundant every year.

“These stats show how far we have to go before mothers are truly accepted as equal members of the workplace,” says Joeli Brearley, CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.

“We know that women are treated differently from the point they get pregnant. They are viewed as distracted and less committed to their work, despite there being no change to their performance. This bias plays out in numerous ways, affecting women’s earnings and career potential. There is absolutely no excuse for bosses, who hold the power, to tell their employees to abort a pregnancy. It is sex discrimination and it is inhumane.”

Portrait of a stressed woman tries to work from home with baby in arms

The discrimination that women face doesn’t always come from their boss; in fact, 73% of women shared that a colleague made hurtful comments about their pregnancy or maternity leave, and 74% of women said that a colleague insinuated that their performance had dipped due to pregnancy or maternity leave. Some women even experience criticism based on the way they look when they are pregnant – with 64% saying their boss or a colleague had made inappropriate comments about their looks.

“The fact that the majority of pregnant women have experienced inappropriate and degrading comments from a colleague or their boss about the way they look is shameful,” says Brearley.

“Why as a society do we accept women being a target for such abuse? These hurtful comments chip away at women’s confidence, ambition and feeling of belonging,” she says.

“Pregnant women are made to feel like an unsightly burden, no wonder a high proportion of women report feeling depressed or anxious when pregnant and one in five women leave their employer after becoming pregnant.’’

The study’s data and the shocking stories shared by pregnant women in workplaces around the UK highlight the worrying and pervasive attitudes towards women in society — even in a supposedly equal one like the UK.

It isn’t just about having children; women are being treated differently for decisions relating to their reproductive health, too. An especially worrying trend in our post-Roe v Wade world, which is seeing our rights rolled back across the globe.

For instance, a third of women (31.58%) who told their employer about having an abortion felt that they experienced discrimination or were unfairly treated as a result. And the majority of women (57.6%) didn’t even tell their employer they had an abortion, presumably for fear of being judged negatively.

Women being bullied out of the workplace for being pregnant, or choosing not to be, is just one more example of the ways women’s freedoms are being infringed upon, and shows that, in the end, the patriarchy doesn’t want us to win.

It’s something we should all vehemently stand against, together.

If you or anyone you know has experienced discrimination in the workplace, please call the Pregnant Then Screwed helpline on Tel: 0161 2229879

*Name changed to protect anonymity

‘Body Doubling’ Could Be The Answer For Serial Procrastinators

Posted on 16/07/2023 by Boris Clair

What are you putting off right now? For me, it’s sorting out my clothes into a pile to keep and a pile to donate. It’s been months. OK, fine. It’s been a year.

I just can’t bring myself to do it. Now that I’ve admitted mine, you can admit yours (to yourself, don’t worry).

There’s something about these tasks that – for some of us – feels so overwhelming, so impossible, when, in reality, they’d usually take no more than a couple of hours to sort and finally tick off our mental to-do list.

This is why some people are trying the ‘body doubling’ method.

No, it’s not quite the Hollywood version where somebody who looks like you does the hard parts (though this would be ideal).

Instead, it’s when you tackle these somehow mountainous tasks with the help of somebody else. Not by having them do anything for you, but instead just being present while you’re getting through the task.

Why does body doubling work?

Catherine, a civil servant from Scotland, who has ADHD, said that body doubling, even if it’s just done over FaceTime, keeps her accountable without the other person ever actually having to hold her to account.

“It’s almost as if having them there reminds me to do the thing – [they’re] a comforting reminder, and somebody that helps me stay motivated to complete the task,” she says.

Some creators have tapped into this helpful hack by creating “study with me” videos that people have watched whilst getting through their own work.

Even the digital presence of somebody else can remind people to stay on track and keep them motivated.

How to find a body double for productivity support

According to ADDA, the world’s largest organisation dedicated to helping adults with ADHD ‘live better lives’, when looking for a body double you need to “find someone who can be quiet and independent”.

The idea is that they can sit, read, knit, or work quietly on a laptop. Their job is to not engage with you – they’re just there in the background.

“It requires energy to instruct, supervise, or be interrupted by another person, and that expenditure of energy equates to distraction,” says ADDA.

They also add that you can hire outside help if need be, such as an assistant.

However, for some people, a ‘study with me’ video, a loved one on FaceTime or even working from a cafe with others around them is enough to keep them motivated and on-track.

It might actually be time to tackle that task.

Feel Like The Work Slog Never Ends, With No Reward In Sight? This Is For You

Posted on 24/03/2023 by Boris Clair

Another workplace label just landed, and you’re probably going to relate to it: rust-out.

Somewhere between boredom and burnout, rust-out isn’t a case of being fed up with your job but more about how you’re being treated within that role.

If burnout is when you push yourself too far, rust-out is when you’ve effectively been forgotten by your manager – leading to frustration, exhaustion and just… a desire to quit. You’re stuck in a position, and can’t go anywhere else.

Teena Clouston, author of Challenging Stress, Burnout and Rust-Out, told Cosmopolitan: “Rust-out is a lot deeper and more profound than boredom.

“It’s where people don’t feel they’re don’t anything purposeful or being recognised.

“They often feel blocked – as if there’s nowhere for them to progress to, and it can be a much harder issue to address than burnout.”

Burnout is already recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an occupational phenomenon, but it’s worth putting rust-out on your radar too.

After all, not everyone joined the Great Resignation during the Covid pandemic – there are bills to pay (and they’re only getting more expensive thanks to the cost of living crisis).

Analytics company Gallup found in 2022 that just 21% of respondents were engaged with their jobs around the world.

And a Workforce Hopes and Fears survey from PwC in 2022 found that Gen Z and millennials were the most likely age group to switch employers in the next year in the search of a more fulfilling job.

This is pretty evident just from what is going round online, too.

The famous term “quiet quitting” went seriously viral before, and involves people doing the absolute bare minimum at work, diverting the rest of their energy into searching for something else.

But with rust-out it seems like motivation is gone altogether.

Clouston explained: “The mental impact of rust-out can be quite dark. You can feel depressed – like you’re stuck in the mud, unable to move.”

She claimed this then had a domino effect on the rest of our everyday lives outside of work, too.

And rust-out doesn’t help anyone, including your employers.

“As a general rule, once someone starts to rust out, the quality of work goes downhill, as the employee loses interest, finding the job unfulfilling,” Clouston said, leading to cynicism.

But Clouston said that experiencing rust-out doesn’t mean you have to quit completely.

She suggested speaking to your manager to see if you can amplify the parts of your role you really enjoy, or create a progression plan for your role.

“This can help you review what you want in the workplace and help you find that opportunity for change,” she explained.

Clouston advised moving the focus back onto your wellbeing too, and remembering the pastimes which gave you joy before.

But if this doesn’t help, and it doesn’t seem like you can develop at work even when you try, you might want to start looking for a new job.

9 Things I Won’t Do After Working As A Nanny

Posted on 10/03/2023 by Boris Clair

There are 2.2 million domestic workers in the U.S., and a lot of them are nannies.

Nannies have busy, demanding jobs with tasks that can completely vary from family to family. They may be responsible for driving children to school, making meals or live-in caregiving.

Nannies work in private homes, often putting them outside of public view, so their critical roles in families and society can be undervalued and exploited. Misunderstandings can happen between what parents think they want in a nanny and the reality of what it’s actually like to employ or be one.

That’s why HuffPost reached out to nannies for what they think about working for families and the biggest “won’ts” they have learned. These are their hard-earned lessons.

Responses have been edited for clarity and length.

1. I won’t accept money under the table

“I’ve been in the industry for over 25 years now. And I remember when I first started, that was the big thing: People paying you under the table and not paying their taxes.

“I remember even working for a family and they were lawyers, so they figured out how to get around it. I was like, ‘I can’t buy a car because I don’t have any proof of income,’ because I got paid in cash. … It was really weird. At the time, I was young and I did not understand the whole business of it. It definitely was done and it’s still done even though it’s illegal. People still try to pay you under the table.

“On a bigger scale, when COVID happened, so many nannies who were getting paid under the table couldn’t file for unemployment. It’s a big ‘no’ for me.” — Kimberly C. Brown, the CEO of the Nanny Kim on the Go consulting agency in Jersey City, New Jersey.

2. I won’t be paid less than a liveable wage

“About 10 years ago, I took a nanny job that paid $200 a week, so a lot of the stuff that I post [on TikTok] is based on real experiences that I have gone through within the last 10 years.

“A lot of people undermine our education and our professionalism because they assume it’s a little girls job. I am a professional and I have tons of education, and it is not comparable to being a teenager [babysitting].” — Coco in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Coco’s last name has been withheld for privacy reasons.)

3. I won’t forbid a nanny from answering a phone or leaving the house

“I would never tell the nanny they can’t take the child outside or can’t answer their phones at work. People have to realise that nannies work during the day when most calls come in.

“A lot of people, they feel like nannies need to be ‘on’ all the time. That could be exhausting and wear your nanny out really quick. [I would never] assume that they don’t have emergency calls that may come in.

“I’ve definitely had that at work or at a job where they’re just like ‘Oh, I don’t want you to answer the phone for anybody but us’ or ‘I don’t want you to have your phone on at all.’

“I’ve worked with families where they won’t give me a key to the house, because they don’t want me to go in and out. They don’t want me to take the kid to the park. I just sit in the house all day with them until they come back. And that’s just not normal.” — Brown.

4. I won’t assume a nanny is a housekeeper

“I am more than happy to help out and I understand that managing their home is part of my position, but it’s not my job to scrub your baseboards. It’s not my job to wash your windows. It’s not my job to clean out your pantry and your fridge. I’ve even been asked to take the dog to the vet or come over if I have a day off, let’s say, and they say something along the lines of ‘We don’t need you today, but we just need you to stop by and water the plants.’ Something like that, to me, is inappropriate. I live an hour away, and I’m not going to drive an hour to water your plants.

“This job is very weird because you can be family with your bosses. It’s strange. You don’t want to be treated like any ‘regular-degular’ employee, because if I wanted to do that I would work at a day care.” — Coco.

5. I won’t contradict a family’s decisions

“As a nanny, I won’t contradict my employers, even in the smallest ways. Parents deserve to be respected in their absence, and my role is to be a supportive team member.

“I may offer advice or information, but ultimately will defer to the parents’ judgment. As long as the children are safe, I follow the guidance and preferences of my bosses when making decisions in their household.” — Amber Sembly in Atlanta.

6. I will not work without guaranteed hours in my contract

“An issue that I’ve seen happen to other nannies and even to myself as well a couple times is a family will hire you, they’ll say whatever hours they need, say it’s Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Those are the set hours you’re going to base your life around, you’re going to keep your schedule open. But then every once in a while, the parent might get home early. But that affects your pay at the end of the day. So those guaranteed hours just keep you safe in case they do send you home early.

“Vacations — that’s a big one as well, especially with spring break coming up right now. [The family I work for is] going out of town with the kids for spring break, but I’m still getting paid for that week because of my guaranteed hours in my contract.” — Maiya Mosley in St. Louis.

7. I will not hire a nanny without meeting them

“If I were to hire child care, whether it’s short-term or long-term, I would definitely make sure my kids are comfortable with them and do a trial, even a few hours or so. Luckily for me, I’ve never had any issues. But I always think it’s crazy when people are like ‘OK, come over tomorrow night and watch them.’ And I’m like: ‘OK, you haven’t even met me yet. Are you sure?’

“Calling references, too — you want to do your due diligence. Luckily I have very good references and kids really like me, but I would never message someone on an app and be like, ‘You sound great, come over tomorrow.’” — Teniya Renee in Boston.

8. I will not arrive home late

“I wouldn’t come home late. Obviously, it happens, but I would definitely let the nanny know ‘Hey, I’m running behind,’ because nannies also have things to do after work. Being a nanny can often seem like, to a family, that you’re beholden to them. That’s a big one that comes up for nannies.” — Danny Rosenthal, the owner of United Nanny Agency in Chicago.

9. I will not assume a nanny knows what I need

“Most families don’t realise that hiring a nanny means opening a small business in their home. Families have a huge learning curve … [and] hardly ever set expectations or explain how to accomplish the tasks they have set out for them to do. Families have no idea that they prefer their clothes folded a certain way or that they prefer one brand of paper towel over another — that’s real — but every family is particular. Very particular.

“If you want a nanny to do something, you need to show them. If you want a nanny to buy something, you need to tell them what brand, what store and which aisle. Years of experience means a nanny is capable of learning how to work with a family, but it doesn’t mean they know how to do everything the way you like it.” — Rosenthal.

Facts Are Facts – Four Day Working Weeks Work, So Give Us Them

Posted on 21/02/2023 by Boris Clair

The world’s largest trial of a four-day workweek is complete and there’s good news – it had such a positive outcome the majority of companies said they would be happy to offer a shorter working week to their staff.

61 companies from different sectors were involved in the trial, which ran for six months starting from June of last year.

Managers ensured that salaries stayed the same for staff who participated in the study.

″There’s been a decline in the number of sick days taken during the period of the trial. Before the trial, on average, each person would take four or five sick days per year – that’s down to less than two,” Chief Executive Mark Downs says.

So can we finally admit that we don’t need to work five days a week? When news of a possible four-day working week first emerged, people were skeptical.

“The combination of industry time commitments varying so greatly across the board, as well as close to universal workforce shortages across the board, creates an ecosystem simply incapable of supporting the continued running of certain businesses with working hours under 37.5 hours a week,” Sarah Austin, founder, and director at the Lloyd’s Bank British Business Excellence Awards, previously told HuffPost UK.

“However, this does not mean employee wellbeing should be shelved – businesses that can’t, at this time, adapt to a four-day work week model, can still promote and initiate employee mental health holiday allowances, childcare flexibility and, where possible, hybridisation to not only support their employees, but to also allow them to remain competitive in the current job seeker-led market.”

Nichola Johnson-Marshall, co-founder of cultural transformation consultancy, Working Wonder, is also skeptical this will work for every workplace.

“It’s also great to see commitment and actual trials for a new format of working pattern around a four day (paid for five) working week,” she says, “but we believe that this should be approached as a starting point rather than the end goal and not introduced universally.”

Lockdown has shown us that there are better ways of working than “just how we have worked before”, she adds. So simply cutting working hours might not be the best solution to better work-life balance.

Employers were concerned that a shorter working week wasn’t feasible. Would workers be able to complete goals and meet their targets in a four-day working week? The results from the trial show it’s possible.

It turns out people stop pulling sickies too. The number of sick days taken by 2,900 staff involved a study surveyed by the University of Cambridge and Boston College dropped by around two-thirds.

39% of employees reported that they were less stressed. Two-day weekends come and go, it feels like you don’t have enough time to rest. “Weekends can be quite hectic, so it has been quite nice to have that extra day to see your friends and family, and then you get that extra day off during the week to do all your chores or to have that time to relax,” Tessa Gibson, a senior accreditation officer at the Royal Society of Biology, said.

Overall, it looks like the four-day working week can work. “This is a major breakthrough moment for the movement towards a four-day working week,“Joe Ryle, Director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, says.

“Across a wide variety of different sectors of the economy, these incredible results show that the four-day week with no loss of pay really works.”

Are You A Giver Or A Taker? There Are Two Types Of Talkers, Researcher Suggests

Posted on 18/02/2023 by Boris Clair

We’ve all been stuck in conversations in which it feels like we’re talking to a wall.

“Why isn’t he asking me any questions?” we may grumble to ourselves. “Why are they forcing me to carry this conversation?” we may silently judge.

A recent essay from a researcher who studies conversations offers a fascinating possible answer as to why these frustrating interactions happen.

Post-doctoral research scholar Adam Mastroianni of Columbia Business School explained in an essay published on Substack that there are two types of conversationalists: You can be either a “giver” or a “taker,” and these types don’t always assume the best of each other.

“Givers think that conversations unfold as a series of invitations; takers think conversations unfold as a series of declarations. When giver meets giver or taker meets taker, all is well,” Mastroianni wrote. “When giver meets taker, however, giver gives, taker takes, and giver gets resentful (‘Why won’t he ask me a single question?’) while taker has a lovely time (‘She must really think I’m interesting!’) or gets annoyed (‘My job is so boring, why does she keep asking me about it?’).”

In other words, givers typically end up asking more questions in a conversation, because they believe that’s how to foster the best conversation, while takers believe it’s best to make more declarative statements to ramp up the conversation to its most interesting place.

How to really tell if you are a giver or a taker

Beyond the differences between inviting and declaring, there are other telltale signs that can help you determine if you are giving or taking.

One is how you feel when there are silences in a conversation, Mastroianni told HuffPost. “Givers feel like ‘Oh no, I’ve done something wrong,’” when there are conversational lulls, he said, while takers believe “someone should make something happen” and that that person is them.

Emily Rosado-Solomon, an assistant professor of management at Babson College who researches workplace communications, read the essay and said she buys Mastroianni’s explanation of givers and takers ― and whether or not you are a giver or taker could also be culturally specific, citing the late social psychologist Geert Hofstede’s research on individualism and collectivism.

“People from cultures with very low individualism are probably not going to be as likely to take the spotlight and talk about themselves; they are probably going to be more givers, whereas people from cultures with very high individualism are probably much more likely to talk about themselves,” she said.

Being a giver or a taker can matter a lot at your job

Once you start seeing conversations in terms of givers and takers, you can start to see how it matters in workplaces, too.

Rosado-Solomon said that because all of us carry different cultural perspectives, “What is most important in the workplace specifically is being ambidextrous so that you can communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds.” People have a universal need to feel seen.

She said she can switch between taking and giving styles at work depending on the needs of her conversation partner.

“If asking questions makes that person feel seen, then that is what I will do. I am genuinely curious about other people, which is why I spend my life studying people at work,” she said. “But at the same time, some people are uncomfortable with that, and it becomes an awkward interview inquisition and so I find that I try to switch then to more disclosure and sort of a taker style. And not necessarily intimate disclosure, just sort of taking the pressure off of them.”

Mastroianni said he also sees the giver-taker dynamic come into play when more junior employees are speaking with senior staff.

“Typically, if you’re in the low-power position, you’re going to have to be the one giving, because basically you have more of a reason to talk to the high-power person than the high-power person has to talk to you,” he said. “If you approach that interaction purely in the taking sense, then it might end very quickly. If you don’t invite their participation, they might go do something else, because it’s like, ‘OK we’re done here.’”

Of course, employees in positions of power should be aware of that dynamic and do more giving, too. That’s only fair.

Mastroianni said when he finds himself in the higher-status role, he knows “it’s very easy for me to just let them ask me questions.” He tries instead to take responsibility for keeping up the conversation by either asking the other person questions as well, or giving them something to respond to.

“Neither givers nor takers have it completely right.”

Mary Abbajay, president of Careerstone Group, a leadership development consultancy, agreed that it’s important for any leader to “learn to be a little bit more of a giver, which is really making sure that they are inviting conversation and then that they are listening.”

She noted that the givers-and-takers framework could also relate to how introverts and extroverts clash in the workplace.

“In meetings, the introverts tend to get talked over because the extroverts tend to be takers and they have rapid-fire conversation, but that doesn’t leave space for the introvert to respond,” she said. That’s why it’s important for work meetings to accommodate both styles and for leaders to be in charge of making that happen.

Could gender also play a role? When I asked Mastroianni, he noted he did not have empirical data on the question, but he said he would bet £100 that if people completed a giver-and-taker questionnaire, women would be more likely to be givers, and men would be takers.

“Part of that could be reflected in the power dynamics in society and part of that could be reflected in who do we take our cues from when we are growing up, and who do we learn from in terms of how to talk, who do we listen to.”

Abbajay said she believes women are more likely to be givers at their jobs as a survival mechanism to meet gendered giving expectations.

“Science and research shows that women are often talked over more in the workplace. They’re often mansplained. When you get mansplained, you’re not going to speak up very much,” she said. “I do think women tend to be more givers than takers, and I think a lot of that is based in gender bias in the workplace.”

Neither a giver or taker is inherently bad. But to be a more thoughtful speaker and listener, you need to be self-aware

Regardless of whether you think you have the heart of a giver or a taker, you can learn from the other side.

That’s because neither givers nor takers have it completely right. Takers misunderstand that their “declarations” aren’t guaranteed to be interesting, while givers misunderstand that asking questions is not always the most generous thing you can do in a conversation — and can, at times, be exhausting.

As Mastroianni put it in his essay, “It’s easy to remember how lonely it feels when a taker refuses to cede the spotlight to you, but easy to forget how lovely it feels when you don’t want the spotlight and a taker lets you recline on the mezzanine while they fill the stage.”

Both sides can learn to be aware of “conversational affordances,” he explained in the essay, which are opportunities to help keep the conversation moving forward in an exciting and engaging way.

In practice, for takers, this could mean they ask more questions that the other person would be actually interested to answer. That way, the conversation gets closer to the unexpected, interesting, fun and weird places of how someone really feels and thinks, he said.

And if you’re a giver who finds yourself being steamrolled by a taker, try toning down the questions and playing the taker’s game of responding, Mastroianni suggested. “Sometimes there are fun conversations that can be had that way, because you put less pressure on yourself to be like, ‘Oh, the conversation succeeds because I am pushing it.’”

Being a giver who starts to take more is a way to test the strength of your relationships, too.

“Give them the thing that they are giving. That’s what they deserve. Then you’ll be able to tell the difference between someone who intends to be a generous taker and someone who is a taker because they are selfish,” Mastroianni said.

And if a taker continuously keeps ignoring your cues to share, that may be your sign to leave the conversation “and speak to somebody else,” he added.