A week ago a bomb suddenly exploded on the employees of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). In a mail received from the HR department of the office, it was said that the company is completely ending work from home and from October 1, all the employees will have to come to the office.
Obviously TCS employees are having difficulty accepting this change. For the last three years he was completely working from home. It had become a settled pattern of life. The habit of daily hustle and bustle, bumps in public transport and getting stuck in traffic was gone.
They will now have their own difficulties and challenges to adjust to this new change. During Covid, a new culture of work from home started all over the world. Initially it was difficult to accept this change and now it is becoming difficult to change it.
A senior employee of TCS Mumbai says that now she will have to commute in the local train for two hours every day. In work from home, children were also taken care of at home. Work-life balance had also improved. Now the same hustle and bustle begins again.
In a study by PwC (Price Waterhouse Coopers), 60 percent of the people said that they do not want to return to office after working from home.
In a 2021 Harvard study, researchers found that returning from work from home to full-time office life is affecting people’s mental health. In a survey by Economic Times in India, 83 percent people expressed their reluctance to return to office.
But since the time of Covid has passed and full time office work has become our reality, it is very important to keep your mental health healthy while returning back to office.
We talked to Dr. Drona Sharma in this regard. Dr. Sharma is an Ireland, UK based consultant psychiatrist and is affiliated with the UK Medical Council, Irish Medical Council and Gibraltar Medical Council.
It’s just an office, not a jail, why be so afraid?
It is natural to feel stressed at the thought of going to office after a long gap. Write down the worries and questions that are arising in your mind regarding suddenly going to office, point by point on a paper. Such as-
Will have to deal with office politics.
- It will be difficult to follow the healthy food routine at home.
- Time will be wasted in travel. Will have to get stuck in traffic.
- Work-life balance will deteriorate again.
- There will be no flexibility in working hours.
- Expenses will increase after leaving home.
- Caretakers will have to be arranged for children and the elderly.
It is not that all these questions are not genuine. But writing them down on a paper made the picture of the problems clear in your mind. When the problem is not clearly known then we do not understand what the anxiety is really about.
After writing it on paper, you can now find a solution to every problem. Such as-
- You can make a better strategy to deal with office politics.
- Instead of getting frustrated stuck in traffic, you can use that time creatively by listening to a good podcast.
- You can compensate for the increased expenses by cutting expenses elsewhere.
- May be more conscious about work-life balance.
- You can take healthy food with you to office.
Accept change with positive thinking
There is a book by Norman Vincent – ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’, in which he writes that the seed that grows into a plant by ripping the heart of the earth is also possible only through positive thinking.
Whether everything in life is good or bad, as per my wish or against my wish, the difference between these two is only of perspective. If this attitude is positive as well as logical, then the impact of a single incident on us changes.
As positive thinking says, look at the better side of change. Logical thinking says can we stop this change from happening? Is this within the scope of our authority? And if not, then we will focus on those things for which we have agency. We cannot decide that we will follow all the traffic rules on the road, but we can definitely decide that we will never break the traffic rules.
Create a new sleep and wake schedule
Those who have discipline regarding health in their life, they follow the routine of waking up early in the morning and sleeping on time in every season and at every time, but work from home has also made people a little lazy. Waking up late and staying up late watching Netflix. Now the time has come to change this haphazard routine.
Change your routine a week before starting office. Start sleeping on time and waking up early in the morning. Set the time of lunch and breakfast according to office time. It will be challenging for the first few days, but soon the body will adapt to this change.
Don’t run away from office politics, face it.
There is some politics in every office. Till now you were avoiding it due to work from home, but now it is time to face it. Believe me, by facing it instead of running away from it, your mind and social skills become sharper.
What we think of as office politics is often not just dirty politics but the complexities of people’s social behavior.
Office work is better in the sense that this space gives you a chance to hone your social skills. You can deal with office politics better by being more generous with your colleagues.
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