By Víctor Feingold, President of Contract Workplaces

We are social beings, gregarious by definition, but this social nature can be affected by our environment and our circumstances.

The mandatory quarantine has trapped our lives by confining us, not only in a physical space, but also virtual.

The Covid-19 pandemic has installed an unprecedented massive social experiment, and the explosion in the use of email, chats and video conferences on a large scale reveals what we have always known: “Virtual relationships can be extremely tough for the brain ”(1), the management of emotions and effective communication, ultimately impacting the productivity and well-being of people.

“Communication by chat and email often creates a grudge. And so misunderstandings arise everywhere derived from bad writing, a quick reading or a bad interpretation, which usually disappear or diminish when seeing the person face to face”(2).

Expressing ourselves more with emoticons than with gestures and words can be imprecise, confusing and limited. “We communicate even when we are quiet” (1).

During a communication in person, the brain focuses on the words that are said, but it also obtains additional information from a large number of non-verbal signals, such as the gaze, gestures and posture of the interlocutor, information that completes and clarifies the meaning of the message being conveyed.

“Since we have evolved as social animals, the perception of these signals comes naturally to most people and requires little conscious effort. However, a typical video call impairs these innate abilities and demands sustained and intense attention to words. The brain, then, is overwhelmed by the excess of unknown stimuli (which are enhanced in collective video calls) while concentrating on the search for non-verbal signals that it cannot find”(1).

When we work in the Home Office mode, this situation is repeated over and over again throughout the day and over several weeks.Then, the appearance of symptoms that manifest in grief, physical and mental fatigue, greater distance and a growing tendency to isolation, loneliness, stress and anxiety becomes almost inevitable.

And not to mention spontaneity! It is much more difficult for it to arise during a videoconference where technical problems, limited communication and a limited schedule with a start and end time often abound. Much less, when the possibility of expressing yourself is limited to a yellow cartoon face that hardly generates empathy or understanding.

Why is spontaneity important for organizations? Spontaneity is a great virtue that facilitates human relationships; spontaneous people generate a climate of security and sincerity, honesty and authenticity. It is often associated with a genuine, sparkling, and fresh personality that is of great importance to your success.

“A dose of spontaneity is necessary as a vital roadmap in search of the unknown” (2). From the unknown comes innovation, from innovation comes creation, and from creation emerge new business models that keep organizations competitive in a world where the only constant is change.

As Nico Matji, co-founder of the animation studio Lightbox, comments in a recent article in the Spanish newspaper El País: “I really miss the spontaneity when suddenly someone yelled ‘This is so good!‘ and a huddle formed around it. That illusion, that energy can be seen in a movie”. Spontaneity can hardly flourish within a team that works remotely.

Although work flexibility has many positive aspects (better work-social and family life balance, lower environmental impact, economy in transportation, clothing and food, among others), working exclusively from our homes without face-to-face contact with our colleagues, creates insurmountable barriers to creativity and innovation; “Narrows the margin to imagine and break the mold, becoming more predictable and conservative” (3).

Repeating the same habits and tasks (the film “Groundhog Day” is a frequent allusion these days) encloses us not only in the confines of our homes, but also in a zone of comfort and laziness – of false comfort – without challenge reinvention.

Words that are part of the ideology of corporations, such as teamwork, cooperation, solidarity, empathy, creativity, innovation, trust, leadership, sense of belonging, commitment and passion, among others, are the essential ingredients of the effective formula for face the symptoms of uncertainty, risk and the complexity of the markets in which we have to act.

Do you think that this is achieved by working each one from home? Clearly not.

Teleworking was installed in an untimely, improvised way, without planning, tools, training or adequate spaces. But we can certainly learn a lot from this experience. Several organizations that perceived remote work as a loss of control are understanding that it also has its beneficial side, and that after this exercise, employees will demand more flexibility when fulfilling their tasks.

But, as “holographic” and vivid as they are, technologies can hardly replace human relationships that are built through personal contact, with a handshake, with a hug or with a glance between banal conversations and “lost times”. These are the essential ingredients to generate the necessary trust and knowledge among the members of a team that must work towards a common goal.

“The new normal will therefore not be telematics or face-to-face, but a mixture of both” (4). 

So if the office is dead, long live the office!

References:

(1) “Zoom fatigue” is taxing the brain. National Geographic.

(2) Why is being spontaneous today vital? Ecoosfera.com.

(3) Spontaneity. Dr Luis M. Labath.

(4) And now, where is the office? El País newspaper, Spain.