Office blues?
September always marks the end of Summer and the return to school. Even people who aren’t kids or don’t have kids are affected - Facebook brims with uniforms and smiles, buses are full of kids and the roads suddenly congested. There is certainly a shift in the air felt by all. For many (including me), this September saw a return to the office at the same time and this change after months of “WFH” was met with varying levels of fear, anxiety, panic and even the development of new phobias.
The previously-not-thought-about 2 hour daily commute is now being questioned. The Covid-appropriate confinement in the office and movement restrictions are creating feelings of being trapped. Post-lockdown appearances are being fretted about. There is anxiety about seeing so many people at once after such a hiatus. Unprecedented frustrations like not being able to go to bars en-masse after work to sweeten the deal are also being added to the mix.
When we break down all these grievances, there are elements of social anxiety, agoraphobia, fear of public transport, claustrophobia and the obvious nosophobia (the fear of catching a specific disease). I’ve deliberately put nosophobia at the end of that list. Interestingly, only two out of the dozens of people I have seen in the past week were actually worried about getting Covid-19.
So, if it’s not nosophobia that’s forefronting our heightened levels of anxiety then what is it? I believe that this pandemic has created a seismic shift within ourselves. It caused us to stop and realise how fragile we all are. How this world will simply continue turning with us on it or not. Many people lost family and friends. We heard of the hundreds of thousands that died across the world and continue to do so. We know economies have fallen and businesses have closed. It has shocked us to the core that something we hadn’t about in 2019 could have created so much devastation in such a short period of time. Will this happen again? And again? We are now all that little bit more wobbly because in a heartbeat, things we have been working towards, or have invested so much in, can simply disappear. And that is frightening.
What companies need to recognise is that their workforce is now categorically more vulnerable. They need to step up and support their employees more - not just financially but mentally, emotionally and spiritually too. The office gripes need to be taken seriously as often people will moan about more trivial things but there are bigger underlying concerns.
It’s all very well having safety protocols and sanitising stations but, in these strange times, mental health checks and flags are even more important to ensure that employees are heard, supported and triaged so that they stay as healthy and happy as they can.
