Analysis: splitting work between home and workplace comes with unique characteristics, benefits and challenges
The world of hybrid work has introduced new benefits and challenges to the ways we work well and stay well. This nontraditional way of working, where workers divide work between in-person and remote, has become increasingly popular in the wake of the pandemic. Morgan McKinley's Global Workplace Guide found that 92% of respondents in Ireland have a strong preference for hybrid and remote work.
As hybrid work will remain common and favourable for the foreseeable future, it's important that we better understand the unique characteristics, benefits and challenges that arise when splitting work-time across onsite and remote locations. Understanding these realities of hybrid work will enable individual workers, managers and organisational and coaching psychologists to best support hybrid workers to work well and be well.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, how remote working has changed how we learn on the job
One example of this is new research which showed that effective time management is key to successful performance and sustained wellbeing in hybrid workers. Whether working in the office or remotely, the ability to manage one’s time autonomously, handle interruptions and distractions, set and maintain boundaries, and prioritise and stay focused on important tasks are all crucial to doing good work.
However, the hybrid work model introduces an additional complexity, requiring workers to establish effective time habits across and between multiple working locations. Interestingly, these time habits are not always consciously developed and maintained. Very often, we fall into patterns without even realising it, considering them concrete norms rather than malleable factors that we can adjust to improve our experiences.
Becoming aware of our current work-time habits and their impacts on our productivity and wellbeing is a critical first step to better managing our time. When we understand how we currently spend our time, we can see what is working well for us, what we might like to improve and how we could go about making relevant changes.
From RTÉ Brainstorm, a brief history of time management
We might look at our calendar or diary to outline our time use, but tools like the reflective time journal can prompt more nuanced insight into what we actually do with our time each day. A reflective time journal instructs us to track our time using a number of different categories which may include time period (for example, every 30 minutes); main activity (occurring in the time period); other activities (that also occur in the time period); location; quality of time and notes of any reflections, thoughts or feelings that arise in tracking this time.
Though it takes time to complete the time journal, documenting these nitty gritty details can help us to truly understand where our time goes each day. Without this awareness, we may inadvertently perpetuate patterns that hinder our productivity and try our wellbeing both in the short and long term. For example, by specifically tracking a main activity and other activities that occur in a specific time period, the time journal prompts us to pay attention to instances of interruptions, multitasking, and distractions, items we might miss if only looking back on our calendar or diary.
While interruptions, multitasking, and distractions aren’t all bad, they can act as some of the biggest "time thieves" in our days. These time thieves can impact our ability to concentrate and complete tasks, increase mistakes and oversights, and also lead us to feeling more stressed and less satisfied with our time.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, Caroline Reidy from The HR Suite and Tracy Keogh from Grow Remote on the the work-life balance of Ireland's 500,000-plus remote workers
By tracking our time in the reflective time journal, we can begin to identify patterns of interruptions, distractions and multitasking that occur throughout the day. When dividing work-time across onsite and remote locations, we can observe how interruptions and distractions occur differently across these locations. From there, we can reflect on the impacts of these patterns and ways we might resource ourselves to better handle them in the future.
For each period of time tracked, the reflective time journal also prompts users to give a quality of time rating based on how satisfied they feel about that time period. Looking back over the tracked workweek, we can reflect on the characteristics that contribute to high quality and low quality time ratings.
By tracking our time, we can begin to see patterns of interruptions, distractions and multitasking that occur throughout the day
Perhaps interruptions and distractions impacted the low quality of time ratings? Or, maybe we feel more satisfied when completing certain tasks in the office as opposed to at home? Whatever the case, these quality of time ratings invite us to reflect on our current time use to identify meaningful insights that can inform how we intentionally manage our time going forward.
As time management is a key component of successful hybrid work, a current UCC study seeks to understand whether the reflective time journal can support hybrid workers’ work-time practices and wellbeing. Making effective change can be challenging to do alone so the study also looks at whether working with a professional coach can further support hybrid workers to put their time journaling insights into meaningful action. More information about the study and participation criteria is available here.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
