The end of sleep-work-sleep | The Press

That’s it. The pandemic is not over, they say, but recess is. After two years holed up in their homes, managing their schedules, tasks and obligations on their own, Quebec teleworkers are invited to get dressed and quietly find the joyful train of the metro-work-sleep, discussions in the elevator and queues around the microwave included. Big waste of time, you say? Not necessarily. Here’s why.

Silvia Galipeau
The Press

Are you already sighing? Normal. For the past six months, the polls do not lie. Study after study, teleworkers (who represent, since the pandemic, about 32% of all workers, according to Statistics Canada) are rather mixed about this famous early return (as hybrid and progressive as it is).

The causes are varied: whether it is a fear of the virus, or simply the joys of balancing family and work, or the happiness of managing one’s time (and one’s travels!), in general, many do not return than singing at the factory these days.

Let’s be frank: for two years, for many, work, if it has certainly become virtual and a bit disembodied, has been accompanied by a blessed flexibility. Than the one who hasn’t left a few loads of laundry between two meetings Zoom throws the first (dirty) sock. Hence some gnashing of teeth, which will not surprise any researcher interviewed here. Man is an animal of habits, it must be remembered. However, after having “used” to telecommuting two years ago, and rather accommodated to the thing (for many, but not all), now we should unlearn these beautiful habits (and drop our slippers in passing) ? And then what else, a traffic jam on the bridge? Why so much hate?

Entrepreneur Nicolas Duvernois, who timely published his Succeed in telecommuting the first year of the pandemic, agrees: “The shock of returning will be for some just as powerful as the shock of leaving. “But before crying wolf and the anticipated loss of time, a little sincerity, he pleads. No one, him “the first”, has worked days of seven, eight or nine hours (or more) without rest or break (wee, groceries or the kid’s soccer game), in the last two years.

This so-called “wasted” time around the photocopier or waiting for the metro has therefore rather been “displaced”, let’s say, to the load of washing, to continue with this obviously purely fictitious example.

We are not Robots

And even if you do indeed spend many precious minutes chatting with your colleagues finally found on Monday morning (in addition to looking for chairs, keyboards and other equipment that mysteriously disappeared), is this necessarily “lost” time? “The importance of communication between teams should not be underestimated,” continues the president of Duvernois Esprits Créatives. Team spirit is extremely important for all businesses. It is the DNA of companies. »

And it’s all part of a “healthy environment,” he adds. Let it be said: yes, it is “healthier” to talk about your weekend while having dinner with your colleagues (and, in doing so, “free your mind”) than to gulp down your sandwich, alone, and still alone, in front of your computer.

A “bug”, let’s say, a bit bullied by all these encounters Zoom of the last 24 months. Talk to those who have tried doing brainstorming sessions. With the isolation and the famous little raised hand, creativity and spontaneity took a hit. “How do you get the idea of ​​the century when you haven’t seen a cat?” asks Nicolas Duvernois, who here compares virtual brainstorming to a game of basketball “with his arms behind his back”.

Rediscovering the art of hallway discussion

Nevertheless: this return to “face-to-face”, as “healthy” as it is, will not necessarily be fluid either. The first few times will require some adjustment. Arnaud Granata, president of Infopresse, saw this during an abortive return to the office last fall. “Interacting with colleagues, we weren’t used to it anymore! At the beginning, we had the impression of not being efficient. We were just talking! »

Have we lost the art of (hallway) conversation? Possible. If, in telework, the conversations are mainly focused on the “task” (“we talk to each other for a reason, we are efficient”), he explains, “there, you have to relearn how to be in discussion and creativity . […] We have to relearn how to be in these moments of exchange and accept being less productive”.

Because no, humans cannot communicate “effectively” 100% of the time. “You can’t meet people and only talk about big fundamental questions”, confirms retired philosophy professor René Bolduc, author of the book work and time, to be published soon by Poètes de brousse. Example ? “What is God to you? he illustrates. No ! We take it a little relaxed! Wow! […] Gossip is part of a daily mode of existence. »

And happiness in all this?

And if it was in this return in the flesh, in the bones and face-to-face, with all the human contact that this implies, that resided as a bonus an essential ingredient to our happiness? This is precisely what the speaker, host and author Pierre Côté, to whom we owe the Relative Happiness Index (RHI, Leger Happiness Index), and who has just published a book on the subject entitled Smile, you’re at work. “I have always said that a job is much more than a salary that you earn,” he writes in a chapter devoted to the crucial importance of “climate”. “It is above all an environment where we live. »

In an interview, the author and expert on happiness gives it back.

Because humans, have we perhaps forgotten, through repeated confinements, are “gregarious” beings, he says. And all those little “wastes of time”, sorry, all that is “informal” in the elevator or around the printer, the photocopier or the coffee machine, “it’s part of life” ! “The sense of belonging and commitment to the employer, it’s there! […] Everywhere, people talk about the importance of getting together, at the theatre, in restaurants, in gyms… but at work too! »

This is not a waste of time

From time spent in the metro to exchanges of gossip between office neighbors, three situations reviewed and corrected

Transport under the magnifying glass

Ah! the big question is the time spent in transport, carefully avoided for the past two years by confined teleworkers. Well no, imagine, it’s not wasted time, argues Nicolas Chevrier, work and organizational psychologist. “What is called the switching, he explains, we realized that it was a buffer time in stress management, which allows us to transition between our different roles. Even if you’re stuck on the bridge, it allows you to quietly (!) switch from your role as worker to that of spouse, parent, friend, a transition that was lost by purely transferring from the living room to the kitchen, let’s say , explains the psychologist, who sees this return to face-to-face with a very good eye. “Man is a social animal, we need relationships with others”, he recalls, citing an old and nevertheless convincing study according to which the health risks of not having social contacts would be equivalent to “smoking 15 cigarettes a day”! “Two years ago, we were cut off from these relations, so this return becomes something extremely important. »

This is not just a coffee break

All the experts interviewed confirm this: these little “informal” exchanges between colleagues, chatting about the rain, the fine weather and the latest computer update (or an idea for a report, a project, a mathematical concern, perhaps?), are far from being “unproductive”. Referred to as “soft work” in a recent article by Tea Atlantic (“ Hard work isn’t the point of the office “), this sharing of information would even be essential to the smooth running of an organization (in terms of problem solving and creativity, among others).

Think about it, illustrious Nicolas Chevrier: “Meetings Zoom sometimes last an hour, for something that could have been settled in 10 minutes over a coffee…”

This is a coffee break (and that’s fine)

And even if, indeed, we have to leave for a few minutes to go to the local café (when, just yesterday, it was enough to go to the kitchen in two strides), this is not wasted time either. On the contrary. “Motivation wanes if an individual does not take the time to pick up,” recalls Stéphanie Austin, professor of human resources management, specializing in organizational behavior, at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Also, she says, it is better to frankly pick up a few minutes here or there (to go out for a walk while whistling, or to play Solitaire, each to his own, no judgment) to then plunge back into his work, refreshed. “The more effectively we detach ourselves, sums up the researcher, the more we will be able to fill our batteries. […] and the easier it will be to recommit to one’s work. »

Productivity update

Certainly, according to Statistics Canada data, 90% of teleworkers said they were “at least as productive” at home as at the office. It’s a fact, and everyone has said it: productivity has not decreased in the last two years. But would such a situation be tenable in the long term? “Researchers are mixed, and for many reasons,” says Sonia Lupien, director of the Center for Studies on Human Stress at the University Institute of Mental Health in Montreal. “Two years isn’t long for the brain, there’s no reason to believe that in 14 years performance will still be high. Question of “fragmented attention”, she believes. “We have the impression that we have interference at work, but we have even more at home, because” we can “”, she illustrates. You can: do the laundry, cut your nails, feed the cat, etc. “We are very big generators of interference, she summarizes, and the more we think we have time, the more we fragment our attention. In short: we are less productive here, in the long term. While in the office, it’s inevitable: there always ends up being an end of the day… and happy hours, but that’s a whole other subject!)