At the start of the year many of us faced changes to the way we work as the COVID-19 virus began to spread worldwide at an unprecedented rate. Employers and employees embraced a new virtual workspace. In many cases these changes were introduced quickly in response to the rapidity with which the infection was spreading, leaving little time for contemplation, planning or preparation. Many organisations were required to move from office-based to a 100% remote workforce in a matter of days with many employees needing to adjust to unfamiliar working conditions.

Individual circumstances clearly differ but everyone faced personal disruption and worry, whether that was juggling childcare and conference calls, working in cramped bedrooms, financial pressures or maintaining remote relationships with family and friends. As strategies are being considered to reverse lockdown conditions, employers are asking themselves whether lessons learned during the pandemic may be translated into new working paradigms. It is highly possible that, having found remote working to offer benefits to employers and employees alike, whole businesses will maintain the remote working model beyond the end of lockdown. Some of the largest, most influential companies have already committed to a much more flexible work environment going forward.

However, should be sounding a note of caution? The extraordinary and unprecedented experiences associated with COVID-19 have been intimately linked to health and wellbeing and the impact on individuals is far more personal and far less predictable than we might see on the surface. How has it affected your continuing development and your relationship with management? This is a time when compassion and careful listening are at their most necessary and ‘management’ must lend an ear to your experiences and continue to take responsibility for the well-being of employees.

The anonymous survey we are currently running hopes to give a voice to all those who have experienced change. We invite you all to take part and to commit your voice for posterity so that we can all benefit from your insights when considering the challenges ahead.

Mental health must certainly be a concern in the future. As many people worldwide have started working remotely, face-to-face communication has virtually ended. Consequently, it is not so easy to read the signs on whether a teammate is struggling with mental health issues such as stress when all our interactions are conducted from on the other side of a screen. Many people find it tricky to spot signs of mental distress in another person at the best of times.

Even in team based settings and regular work reviews people still suffer the consequences of stress and achieving a good work-life balance. Working from home offers many benefits for employees and companies alike but does it blur boundaries between ‘work time’ and ‘private time,’ do we take the rest we need? Do we continue working past the end of the day, eat lunch at our desk and review emails during the evening meal? These can be harmful to our mental health and our home relationships. It is essential for employers to know how they can support employees in maintaining their mental well being while working remotely.

When I first established my company in 1998, I embraced what was then a novel working model. The idea was that the company would work fully remotely. With employees engaging directly with their client teams and the company serving as a central hub of dedicated, full-time professionals. The aim was to create a team hardwired to deliver rather than diffuse networks of freelancers that were common in the industry at the time. The model was successful and we were so pleased with the outcome that we even published an analysis of the financial benefits for Niche and the Niche team.

However, over time I noticed that the model had issues. There was little or no proper interaction between members of the team, no social bonding and the informal transfer of skills was almost non-existent. We were missing the water-cooler effect. Some employees completely dropped any pretence of team interaction and relating to management, becoming lost in delivery, but delivery only on their terms. As ‘the employer’ I started to become concerned about the effect the remote model might be having on their mental health. To cut a long story short, in 2005 I changed our model of working to one that involves time in a shared office environment and things have since run more smoothly.

Obviously, the current circumstance is giving me echoes of pre-2005. What can I do? Somewhat reassuringly times have changed. The technology we work with has improved immensely. Now face-to-face communication between teams of five, 10, 20 or more are simple. Virtual team working is now a reality. For myself, much of how I read how people are managing is through non-verbal communication. Good managers know that people who experience symptoms of mental health issues, such as depression and stress, exhibit changes in body language and their day-to-day behaviour.

Signals differ between individuals. We all have our own sense of ‘normal,’ and identifying that someone’s behaviour seems out of the norm (for them) will usually come down to how well you know them. Fortunately, with my current team I have a good strong baseline ‘reading’ having worked in the same office space before the lockdown.

Even if you don't know someone too well, body language and tone of voice are powerful forms of non-verbal communication that you need to pay attention to if you sense a teammate is struggling. How can we pick up on these signals when we no longer share a physical space? Experts stress the importance of making eye contact — albeit via a computer screen — and listening very closely to a person as they speak, observing their tone and body language. In the future ‘virtual’ world teams clearly need to include scheduled opportunities to interact and not hide in the background of town hall meetings.

Those who are vulnerable or struggling are unlikely to speak up. In these cases, to really find out what’s going on we need to engage in a conversation directly, asking how they are, truly listen to the answer, and encourage them to open up if they feel comfortable. We must assume that the best way to achieve this is to schedule regular proactive check-ins where we can ask teammates to express how they feel in a few words, without judgment, or share how they’re choosing to make time for their well-being. But we don't really know if this approach is what people want or feel they can engage with. Our current survey is looking to gain insights into the situation. It should be noted that regular check-ins are important for all team members, and this includes those currently on furlough or sickness absence. Managers should not to forget to keep engaged with every member of their team.

Outside of video calls, we can also look out for any odd changes in a person’s messaging syntax and style in email communications, keeping an eye open for whether a person has suddenly become less communicative online. We may notice a change in the style, the way people write their emails or whether they are still sending emails outside of work hours. In the same way that regular absence can be a sign of mental distress, during the lockdown a reduction or lack of engagement also applies.

Our current study is looking to confirm whether there are key factors that could contribute to dissatisfaction with the home working environment. For example, poor balance between work and family can be a major stressor for women with young children and have a negative impact on emotional well-being. Family-friendly workplace attributes may reduce stress and depressive symptoms among this population. However, few studies have analysed the role of specific workplace attributes on mental health outcomes among women with young children because available data are limited. Equally, what is the impact of fewer opportunities to access training or simply ‘impress the boss.’ Has the current pandemic left people in our industry feeling anxious about the future, their future? And finally, how do people feel the work paradigm will change when the number of infections starts to wane?

In terms of the biomedical science world, we probably have the highest concentration of higher education and post-doctoral scientists outside academia. We might hope therefore that any population survey could provide valuable insights into the impact of the present change in their circumstance and what will happen when the current situation changes. We are hoping that we can capture that collective intelligence. In the words of Homer’s ‘The Iliad,’ written sometime in the late eighth or early seventh century BC. “Two heads are better than one.” I must assume therefore that many heads are better than two.