Really we’re doing OK
What has life in lockdown been like for ETH members? And what lessons can we learn for the future of our work? Professor Gudela Grote conducted a large-scale survey to look into these questions.
Get up. Switch on the coffee machine. Turn on the computer. Have a shower. Put on a T-shirt and jogging bottoms. Check emails. And log onto the first Zoom meeting. That’s how my first day working from home began. There were more meetings throughout the day, with my colleagues appearing in tiles – some with a swaying palm tree in the background, others offering a glimpse into their homes. In between, I worked on a document and answered some emails. Around midday, my neck started complaining, so I went outside to get some exercise. By the evening, I was totally dead.
Really I’m doing OK
When lockdown was announced, it meant a lot of extra work for us in Corporate Communications. In the weeks that followed, we would face extreme amounts of pressure and we were constantly asking each other how we were all doing. “I’m doing OK,” I’d reply. I was working hard, often late into the evening, but over time I developed rituals to cope with working from home: first thing in the morning I’d go to the bakery to make up for missing my usual commute. I’d go for a walk at lunchtime to get a change of scenery, and again in the evening to wind down after work. But I couldn’t shake off the fatigue. And going for walks like that reminded me of the polar bears in the zoo that I used to feel sorry for as a child.
Really I was doing quite well. And I became more aware of that when I spoke to colleagues who had to look after their children while working, or those who weren’t able to work from home. As well as that, hearing the news about the spread of the virus around the world, and about short-time working and failing businesses in Switzerland, reminded me of the privileged position I was in.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy
But what was hiding behind that “really”? I was trapped in my little world, spending every day at home with my partner. With Oliver there all the time, it was like having a mirror constantly held up to me – and when I looked back at myself, sometimes all I saw was a robot. All I was doing was working. I couldn’t do any of the things I normally do to get a break from it – meeting friends; going to the cinema, the theatre, the gym.
There are similar things that I miss at work: non-verbal communication, eye contact, seeing the body language of my colleagues. In Zoom meetings, everything has to be said out loud – everyone has to be addressed by name. And I miss the informal conversations before and after meetings, and the chance encounters in the corridors or in Polysnack. For me, these interactions are the glue that holds ETH together.
How ETH members are doing
So does my experience make me something of an exception, or did most ETH members have a similar lockdown experience? When lockdown started, Gudela Grote, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology, launched a survey with her group to find out how ETH employees were coping with working under such exceptional circumstances. There were 10 rounds of questions in total, with more than 2,100 ETH members taking part in multiple rounds over the course of 3 months. It will be some time before the detailed analysis is ready, but the key results are already available. They are presented in the form of aggregated data, but it is worth remembering that there are thousands of individual experiences behind them – just like the one above.
Separating professional and personal life
For all ETH members, separating work from their personal lives was a completely new challenge, and one of the biggest they faced during lockdown. “The dividing line became blurred, which offered certain benefits but also brought a number of disadvantages,” says Grote. The more closely employees’ work became intertwined with their personal lives, the less socially isolated they felt. However, at the same time they found their day-to-day lives more stressful. This particularly applied to staff who had to look after their children and take care of homeschooling alongside their work. Over time, however, this stress lessened – at least on average.
One of the pivotal questions was whether staff were able to draw a clear line between work and free time. At the beginning of the survey period, a good third of respondents reported that they were having to work outside of normal working hours. Towards the end of the period, a fifth still said that this was the case. “I think that’s an important point for managers to take on board,” says Grote. “Staff cannot be expected to be available all the time.”
In the last round of questions, participants were asked whether they felt that their managers trusted their teams to work as efficiently at home as they do on site – and managers themselves were asked directly whether they had this trust. Generally speaking, the answers were very positive, although employees suspected that managers were perhaps more trusting than they expressed. “This is where we have to start if we want to keep getting the best out of working from home,” Grote says.
Team spirit boosts motivation
On the whole, staff felt highly motivated when working from home. “Particularly at the beginning, many staff members were excited about the new challenge of teaching and collaborating virtually,” says Grote. Employees who stated at the beginning of the survey that they were happy working from home and that they could do so efficiently were especially motivated. Over time, however, their level of motivation grew closer to that of the respondents who were initially less enthusiastic. “They may well have realised that working from home day in, day out is quite different to doing it on a short-term basis,” says Grote.
According to the study, the respondents thought that communication was very good. The majority also felt well supported by colleagues, managers and ETH as a whole. For example, participants said that their colleagues had been very sympathetic with regard to the challenge of combining work and homeschooling. Teamwork was rated positively overall. According to Grote, these factors had a positive impact on motivation and became more and more important as time went on.
This was particularly evident in the case of employees whose work depends on input from other people. However, alongside the high level of motivation, the stress levels were also higher for these people and the line between work and personal life was more blurred.
Social isolation and conflicts
Despite team spirit being generally high, “from the frank answers given we know that social isolation was an issue for many employees,” says Grote. Over time, the feeling of social isolation lessened, “but that’s based on the average values – it doesn’t necessarily reflect how an individual might feel,” she stresses.
Women were more likely to report feeling socially isolated, and the declining trend was less pronounced in their case. In the descriptions they gave, for example, some women said they felt that they were being written off in their research groups because they had to look after small children at home. Others said that colleagues had set up a Slack group that they didn’t have access to. “Managers have a clear responsibility to identify issues like that and tackle them immediately,” says Grote.
Findings to be incorporated into rETHink
So what do these results mean for our university? “In a nutshell, they give me and the Executive Board as a whole a reason to redouble our efforts with regard to the rETHink project,” says ETH President Joël Mesot.
In a crisis situation, people often pull together and, as a result, get to know each other better. We can see this on a personal level, but it’s true in an institution too. The study results are a clear indication of how we interact with each other at ETH and the kind of culture we are fostering at our university. “The results demonstrate the strong sense of team spirit that we have at ETH and the extraordinary lengths that our members are going to every day – that’s something that I can definitely see in my day-to-day work,” says Joël Mesot. He is particularly pleased with the feedback, both positive and negative, that has been received. “It shows that we encourage open communication and discussion at ETH.”
With regard to the pressure that some employees are experiencing, Mesot is clear that something needs to be done: “We need to make sure that managers are discharging their duties correctly.” It’s not just a case of introducing new rules; the reasons behind these problems need to be analysed first. “We need to actively engage with the issue of leadership at ETH,” says Mesot. He is keen to point out that this was one of the reasons that rETHink was launched in the first place.
When asked about his own personal situation, he says: “Like others, I’m looking forward to seeing people in person again – the Executive Board, my team and all the other ETH members I have only spoken to virtually over the last few months, even if we’re still going to be living in a kind of dual world for some time yet.” At the same time, however, the President has discovered some benefits to remote working: “In between the virtual meetings, I’ve had some time to reflect more deeply on certain subjects. I’d like to keep that going and will be spending more days working from home in the future.” The ultimate aim, he believes, is to foster a culture of trust where all employees have more opportunities to work from home.
This article appeared in the current ETH magazine "life".