New research from LinkedIn has revealed some of the concerns Aussies have about working from home, including dwindling social skills and personal hygiene.
According to the research, one in four Australians say their personal hygiene has suffered as a result of working from home, presumably because they don’t have an office aircon pumping at all times, and ergo are experiencing sweat for the first time in years.
Some 34 per cent of respondents also said they felt “out of practise” at wearing office-appropriate clothing (rehearsing outfits is, of course, intergral to many people’s nightly routine).
Similarly, 28 per cent felt out of practise at keeping their workspaces tidy, though it could be argued that piles of empty chip packets and cans of diet Coke on an IKEA desk is post-modernism sculpture in practise.
The impact of working from home on interpersonal and social skills were also a central concerns for respondents.
Some 37 per cent were concerned that they had “forgotten how to banter” while working from home. Granted, it is difficult to practise one liners if your only audience is pot plants.
Other concerns included time management (28 per cent), making small talk (38 per cent), spending all day with other people (35 per cent) and general etiquette (20 per cent). Not swearing at your co-workers is probably a good start for the latter three.
However, there were also things people missed about the office. Topping the list was spending time with colleagues at 27 per cent. Understandably, it’s hard to spend 15 minutes gossiping by the water cooler when the water cooler is your kitchen sink and your co-worker is a cat.
Other parts of office life that people missed include office banter (18 per cent), having a seperation between work and home life (18 per cent), and social experiences such as lunches, birthdays and drinks (11 per cent).
Seven per cent said they missed the commute – no judgement here, but you know lockdown is starting to grate when your find yourself longing for rush hour on the metro.
On the positives, four out of 10 people said they had a higher level of empathy and consideration for their colleafues, but 42 per cent of people would be uncomfortable hugging a colleague, should they return to the office. Given those statistics on personal hygiene, that’s probably fair.
Featured Image: iStock/gorodenkoff
