18 ms·
Study Finds Hybrid Work Improves Mental Health Compared to Remote or In-Office
- digitcatphd 3y agoThis suggests hybrid work may provide mental health benefits compared to fully remote or fully in-office work.
- fatfingerd 3y agoIt looks very partial lock down period oriented though, which makes it a not very representative study. For example, the socializing hybrid provides may have been a lot better than almost no socializing with people outside the home, but far fewer WFH people today may be that isolated.
- chandler767 3y agoI wonder what the responses would have looked like if they had asked about overall quality of live instead of just Mental Health. I personally like a hybrid environment. However, I think I've been more satisfied with life overall since being remote full time - even if I'm not as happy now with how I engage with my job.
- jjcon 3y agoI feel exactly the same way. I’d probably be happier wrt to work if I could be hybrid but being remote lets me live in a smaller town, in a place I love for everything else. I wouldn’t trade it for pretty much anything.
- xeonmc 3y agoWhen you get sick of one mode, you swap to the other for a change, to keep your sanity.
- belthesar 3y agoAnecdotally, I prefer hybrid work to fully remote or fully in-office. I do like getting in-person time with my team, but I don't find it effective for all types of work that I do.
- gumballindie 3y agoBoiling the frog. Y'all will return to offices before you know it, and say goodbye to affordable housing, raising a family, saving money and maintaining actual friendships. If possible, you'll be put into company towns - labor camps with nice decoration - so you can sleep, eat, and work onsite.
- khazhoux 3y agoThat slippery slope is very slippery!
- goodpoint 3y agoAny slope is slippery when your boss is pushing your hard.
- Eumenes 3y ago(And That's A Good Thing!) ... I agree, aren't some VCs drawing up some plans to build a "tech city"?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gumballindie 3y agoThey are - google is one of them. The same company that wants you to work onsite, pay for the privilege all while you are away from your family and friends. The very same company takes makes money from remote customers.
- compumike 3y agoQuite similarly, I imagine that if there were a chart sort of like like Figure 1 with "mental health" on the y-axis but having "total work hours per week" on the x-axis, there'd be a peak somewhere above zero hours but far less than 40 hours. (Controlling for same type of work, sames ages, etc.) Anyone want to guess what the peak x-axis value would be?
- thecosas 3y agoI think it's important to remember that this may apply generally to a workforce, but not necessarily equally across all workers. Let's remain focused on flexibility vs prescribing things across the board. It's certainly harder to have those conversations and to accommodate variation, but the result for employees and employers would be better with a little investment of time (and sometimes money) here.
- matwood 3y agoI can believe this. We're 100% remote company, and it's great. But, we recently had a 2 day all staff in person meeting, and even the introverts came to me afterwards and said how enjoyable it was. I think what's key is not trying to force things. And I know, this isn't hybrid, but it highlights the importance of seeing each other once in awhile.
- thecosas 3y agoI think well-executed "on-sites" where the company covers travel and lodging, etc are incredibly important for fully remote and partly remote teams. There should be plenty of notice given and they should be on a repeatable cadence once or twice a year.
- ahoka 3y agoHaving a two team building days with your colleagues is not in-office work.
- VincentEvans 3y agoI think a more precise way to phrase it “it’s not hybrid work”, at least not the kind of hybrid work that is being discussed.
- rqtwteye 3y agoAgreed. I am happy fully remote but I am also happy when I meet my coworkers in person from time to time. I wouldn’t mind going to the office maybe once a week and I think it would be beneficial.
- unshavedyak 3y agoThere's also the big introverts (or w/e) like myself who loathe going in at all haha. My company used to do yearly retreats when we were smaller and i couldn't stand them. But i'm glad if some people enjoy this stuff. I just don't want to force remote people in office, or force office people to be remote. Part of what i value so much about WFH (going on 10 years now) is the work life balance. I love hearing peoples children in the background, or people stepping out to run an errand or deal with life. I love that we can value and respect the individuals life for them to be able to do these things. Yea, we have "work to do", but work should be there to live life, not the other way around. Feels like we've clawed a bit of that back with more WFH recognition. Yet despite being purely WFH, i still respect that others desire going in, or hybrid, or etc. I just hope we can all learn to work with people, however they best live their life.
- lsy 3y agoThe study finds a statistically significant correlation but that’s hard to disentangle from all the factors that make it possible for people to work remote or hybrid. It also would be interesting to see how this result varies across number of days spent in the office. My guess would be that seeing coworkers 1-2x a month would get most of whatever social benefits hybrid has if any.
- MSFT_Edging 3y agoWhen I go into the office, I have an extra hour of my day taken from what would typically be my personal time. When I work from home I can log off and immediately go for a run in the sun, especially important as the winter approaches. I have a gym I can access at work, but then I'd be on a treadmill staring out the window at a parking lot and the concrete ass of a big box store. Guess which one I'm picking every time. Its crazy how fast that sun starts falling when you're stuck in traffic.
- ravivooda 3y agoHmm, do you work at Meta Bellevue office? Sounds very similar.
- isykt 3y agoWhen I go into the office, it’s after taking a brisk 21 minute walk or a 6 minute train ride. I listen to music. I prepare myself mentally for the day. When I’m done, I leave my computer and my work phone sitting on my desk, and walk or take the train home. I don’t devote a single square foot of my home to my employer. When I’m home, it has nothing to do with work. I would never allow my employer to colonize my home.
- digdugdirk 3y agoThat sounds like an ideal lifestyle. I wish everyone had a similar situation, but unfortunately it's all too rare.
- Retric 3y agoDo you not have a computer at home? Because devoting a few gigs of my Home PC to work is easily worth avoiding 12 minutes per day on the train + however long it takes walking to the station and waiting for the train twice. Really I used to live 1 subway stop from the office and WFH was still a significant time saver.
- unshavedyak 3y agoYup. I'd pay (and do! for 10 years now) my own dime to maintain a good PC solely for work. It's a stupidly easy investment for me compared to 1-3h of commute every day. I also now require extra rooms for offices anytime i look at homes. The life balance is just so amazing for me i'm never giving it up, if i can. I feel respected in a way i never thought possible, before.
- asow92 3y agoJoin a coworking space and go in a couple times a week. It's a great way to get the best of both worlds.
- philote 3y agoUnfortunately the only coworking place near me is $200/mo for a shared desk area, $300 for a dedicated desk. I've been wondering how hard it'd be to start my own coworking spot.
- asow92 3y agoAs someone who owns a coworking space with similar prices, I'd say you really can't do it for cheaper than that, and we barely break even each month. I'd say don't open one unless you want to work hard to save pennies over dollars.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- labrador 3y agoIt doesn't matter if I work in the office full time or part time, if my management team is made up of control freaks with a micromanaging nature that is distrustful of people "wasting company time", then my mental health is going to take a bad hit. If my management team has faith in me to get the job done, provides me with clear goals I can provably meet with metrics and trusts me to manage my time wisely, my mental health is going to be great, whether I'm in the office or not. Asking which is better, WFH, hybrid or in office, seems to me too simplistic. A lot of depends on which type of work a person is doing and what type of management style they work under.
- dicroce 3y agoFor me, hybrid > remote only > onsite.
- turnsout 3y agoIt all depends on what we mean by "hybrid." If it means going into the office to use Zoom, then no thank you. Remote is draining but convenient, in-person collaboration is energizing but inconvenient. Hybrid done wrong is the worst of both worlds.
- virtual_void 3y agoI find it interesting that we always frame it as if we all perceive it in the same way. I find in person to be draining, so the opposite of you. I guess this is the core of the difficulty. Not everyone feels the same but very often we’re forced into someone else's ideal. I agree with your main point - hybrid isn’t great when it is too prescriptive. Works well enough if each team is given the flexibility and latitude to decide what works best.
- me_smith 3y agoI agree with this. Driving into the office to be stuck on Zoom is not fun. My team is spread across three geographic regions plus people that are WFH that day. No matter what, we have to be on Zoom to collaborate. I’m not sure how this makes us more productive…
- robotburrito 3y agoI could believe it. I like working remotely, but will also admit it leads me to be super isolated and lonely sometimes.
- gustavus 3y agoActual title of the study: The Impact of Working from Home on Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study of Canadian Worker’s Mental Health during the Third Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic I wonder if there could be any possible confounding factors in this study? I have made it a habit of disregarding any sociology or psychology studies done during the COVID pandemic as there were massive confounding factors across all of society for many people, and in my mind leads to it being anything but representative for many people. Science is about finding truth, we need to make sure we are putting sand in the corridor if we really want to have valid information.[1] 1. https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
- itsdrewmiller 3y agoYou're missing out if you're blanket disregarding research from one of the biggest natural experiments of all time. Take it with a grain of salt, sure.
- imafish 3y agoI work most days in the office. By choice. That is the important part. I have the flexibility to work wherever I want, no questions asked, no one keeping track. All asked, is that I get shit done and show up to our very infrequent in-person meetings. Although I am quite introvert, I work in the office because I enjoy and need the social interaction. Ultimately, what matters to me is not whether fully remote, hybrid or in-office is optimal. What matters is the freedom to choose what fits best with my personal life.
- bufordtwain 3y agoPersonally I like the ability to choose where I work (trust/freedom).
- simonebrunozzi 3y agoBullshit. Mental Health is best when you can pick where to work, which is almost always remote. Commute is so detrimental to mental health, especially until we'll have the so-much-promised self-driving cars.
- huytersd 3y agoWorking directly with people is disastrous for my mental health. My base heart rate dropped 20 points once I started working from home. I’m not introverted, I have a rich social life and I’m usually out of the house if I’m not working. I just don’t like working directly with people.
- brennaw1 3y agoWe needed a study to prove the obvious?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Apocryphon 3y agoThese RTO discussions always miss out on this consideration: what if improved the in-office experience? What if we got rid of open office layouts and instituted cubicles, offices for teams, pairs, even individuals? This doesn't improve commutes, but at least it beats the status quo.
- ideamotor 3y agoI haven’t been in a cubicle since 2008 with a job I left, and yes this skews my perspective.
- zerbinxx 3y agoI would absolutely kill for a job that’s 2 days per week in office with everyone on my team in one room. It’s really amazing but it’s hard to find anything but places that do “zoom from open office”, which is nonsense.
- watters 3y ago> The levels “Very little of the time”, “Some of the time”, and “Most of the time” were collapsed into a single level—“Hybrid”. “Not at all” was recoded as “Do Not Work from Home” and “All of the time” was recoded as “Work from Home Only”. Imagine you had a 5 increment rating system that was 1–5 stars. Then, to interpret the data, someone decided that 2-,3-, and 4-star ratings were all equivalent.
- dimal 3y agoThe HN title is editorialized and misleading. The study found an association, but no causation. > We conclude that hybrid work arrangements were associated with positive self-rated mental health For example, one explanation for the lower self rated mental health of fully remote workers could be because they already have poorer mental health and stay out of the office because that would be even worse. The HN title should be reverted to the originally published title. And even if hybrid is “better”, this study can only say that it’s better on average. Since no individual human is average, it will always be worse for some subset of the population. The whole problem is that CEOs are trying to cram every human into the same Procrustean box.
- richij 3y agoCould someone please edit the headline to include "(2022)"?
- hiyer 3y agoHybrid work doesn't provide any advantage compared to WFH except for avoiding commute 2-3 times a week. 1. You still have to live within a commutable distance of your office, which, if you have to pay rent, is expensive. 2. You still have to arrange for someone to accomplish the chores you're able to do at home when you WFH - like cooking, dropping and picking up your kids, etc.