While many Singaporean workers enjoy the flexibility of working from home for approximately the past one and a half years, WFH arrangements have also been cited to be one of the reasons behind workers’ reported decrease in mental health as they lose social relationships at work and experience feelings of isolation.

A survey commissioned by The Straits Times among nearly 1,800 people found that 8 in 10 Singaporeans prefer to work from home. However, working from home brings its own challenges. One complaint revolves around blurred boundaries between work and family domains, to an extent that juggling work and household responsibilities become difficult. Not only are there space constraints to separate workspaces from other areas in the home, but engaging in caregiving duties also means that employees face frequent interruptions while working.

Working from home leads to lower mental health and increased isolation

With regards to connecting virtually to work matters, employees face what I call a “disconnect while connecting”. On the one hand, employees are connected more than ever via information and communications technology. Work-related inquiries can be answered quickly over email, or even instantaneously through the telephone, video calls, and direct chat messages using online platforms like Slack, Skype and Microsoft Teams. On the other hand, despite being constantly connected, employees face a disconnect in trying to fulfil the human need for connection and belongingness.

Firstly, documented communications via emails and direct messages tend to be mainly work-related – and workers lose out on the more informal “water-cooler” conversations that they can engage in with their colleagues over lunch or work breaks. Such interactions have been shown to be important in the mental and emotional well-being of individuals.

Secondly, as shown by prior research on virtual teamwork, conflict and coordination problems can escalate quickly, as virtual communication tends to lack the depth and richness needed in effective collaboration. In face-to-face discussions, matters and potential misunderstandings can be clarified quickly, using cues like facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice.

Thirdly, being away physically from work has led to newer and more frequent forms of surveillance by superiors, and workers feel micromanaged in an environment where their physical absence arouses potential mistrust in their work productivity.

Lastly, newcomers or fresh graduates who are onboarded virtually do not have the full grasp of the organisation’s culture and practices, and often feel alone as they lose out on the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with co-workers best done in a physical setting.

Fear of contracting COVID-19 in public spaces

Although the percentage of Singaporeans who worry about catching COVID-19 has been steadily decreasing since May 2021 according to Statista, a mandate or a forced move to the office still leaves a bad taste in employees’ mouths.

Despite the perceived risk of contracting the virus being relatively low, a study by Wunderman Thomson interviewing 500 Singaporeans cited that the fear of contracting COVID-19 in public spaces was a major source of anxiety among the 74 per cent of respondents who reported being anxious.

Having to physically commute to work (often with public transportation) not only takes away time and energy that could be channelled to working from home, it also poses a health risk to these employees. By forcing employees to physically come to work, managers signal to their subordinates that their physical health is not the top priority in the midst of a pandemic.

Important for remote managers to display empathy

How can managers keep Singaporean workers satisfied and overcome the challenges of both WFH arrangements and commuting to work? According to research published in the American Psychologist earlier this year, there is a need for remote leaders to get their employees’ buy-in by clearly communicating organisational values that will guide company policies and demonstrating confidence that strategic goals can be achieved.

Recent research by the World Economic Forum also highlighted the importance of leaders in exercising empathy by understanding the hopes and challenges of workers. Not only does empathising help create those human connections we seemed to have lost recently, taking action to assist workers to allay their concerns provides the signal that company policies – including asking workers to physically commute to work – is in the interest of employees.

Policies that adapt to the current situations need to be accompanied by the appropriate indication from management that they are implemented carefully, mindfully, and with everyone’s interest at heart.

Best practices moving forward

A hybrid working arrangement – which involves a combination of office-based and remote work – is gaining traction among companies. It caters to employees’ preference for an increasingly flexible work policy while providing the option for workers to form quality relationships with colleagues. In November 2020, DBS announced their distributed workforce model: all employees will be given the flexibility to work remotely up to 40 per cent of the time.

A four-day work week has also been successfully implemented in Microsoft Japan and the local city council in Iceland, where higher levels of productivity and lower levels of burnout were reported. Trials are being run in Spain and Unilever in New Zealand, and there are calls for four-day work weeks in London and Singapore in a bid to reduce carbon footprint and to allow individuals to lead fuller lives.

Managers and workers navigate teething issues together

This unprecedented level of flexibility may pose some complications in planning for managers. How much office space should the company retain and pay for? What additional resources in terms of technological devices and skillsets should the company provide to allow for a seamless transition to a hybrid arrangement? How can meetings be planned if there is too great a variety in team members’ personal preferences on the times and places in which they carry out their work activities?

Rather than planning more and moving in the direction of micromanagement, leaders should instead embrace this uncertainty as they navigate through this time of forming new norms and routines at the workplace. Reconsidering appraisal systems could be a start. In place of tracking the number of work hours to measure worker output, a shift to results-based assessment provides employees with the drive needed to fulfil their work objectives, while granting them autonomy on how they want to achieve them.

Employees also need to take responsibility for making these arrangements work. Timely submission of work deliverables, as well as showing a willingness to help others – these are some examples of how employees can prove to managers that a trust-based system will not be abused.

They also need to recognise that they can fulfil their social needs insofar as they arrange physical meetings or lunches with their co-workers. Flexibility on the employees’ part to accommodate others’ schedules may mean that they cannot customise their individual work schedules completely, but doing so is important in furthering their mental and emotional health.

Managers and employees alike need to understand that they both need to be adaptable to changing times and share the responsibility. Mandating workers to commute to work or expecting managers to accommodate personal or family schedules may slow down our progress to a sustainable arrangement post-pandemic. Instead, we could move faster through a culture of openness, transparency, and trust in those social connections we so desperately need.

The article is an abridged version of the one first published in CNA.