The wellbeing of remote workers and distributed teams is finally being taken seriously, and new research from Nuffield Health has recently explored the implications in a landmark UK literature review entitled “The effects of remote working on stress, wellbeing and productivity”.
The research examines the complex intersecting worlds of flexible work, remote work, and partly flexible/office-optional work through the lens of employer responsibilities and benefits, and the effects on the remote workers (who in this case are mostly employees rather than freelancers), and faced the issue of defining terms in the first place amid an increasingly diverse range of set-ups. Importantly, the research acknowledged that there are challenges with both implementing and ongoing effectiveness of remote working, which require good planning and management on all sides to make it work well.
The online office
But what struck me on reading the report was how little attention it paid to the digital workspace and its evolving role in addressing the three elements of concern (stress, wellbeing and productivity). The issue of ‘modern technology’ was dealt with by the seemingly-dated reference to how “The use of computers, especially laptops,tablets, smart phones, Skype and social media has been transformative. It is almost impossible to imagine business today without this network.”
Thereafter all the discussion of mental health, stress, work-life balance and so on, took place outside of the context of the communication and collaboration matrix which underpins remote and colocated work today, and is fundamental to meeting the interaction needs of the digital workforce, wherever they are sitting. Because not only does the digital workspace enable effective visible teamwork and collaboration, it facilitates the social interaction and connection between colleagues and associates working together from different locations.
Visible teamwork
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Pilar Orti[/caption]
