Working from home not unhealthy, but leads to loneliness

Working from home not unhealthy, but leads to loneliness
Working from home does virtually no harm to the health of working people. In fact, some physical complaints decrease. However, feelings of loneliness do lurk. The Inspectorate SZW is also busy with corona reports. Mandatory working from home has an impact.

By Henk Cornelisse, Clean Totaal editorial board member

The content of the letter that outgoing minister Wouter Koolmees sent to the House of Representatives on 3 February last shows that working from home causes virtually no damage to the health of working people. On the contrary, some physical complaints decreased. However, feelings of loneliness do lurk.

Almost 50% of employed people now work from home. So research shows. As many as thousands of violations regarding safe and healthy working are reported, according to the interim report of Inspectorate SZW. Treatment of reports belonging to working from home are also being prepared.

Home working figures

Figures (reference period 04.01.21-10.01.21) from RIVM show that 73 % of the employed who indicate they can -partly- work from home do so. Behavioural research shows that 66% of this target group actually do so. A small deviation, therefore.

The TNO monitor shows that 48% of all employed currently work partly or partially at home, or this concerns about 3.5 million employed people. Of these 48%, 34.5% work at home structurally and 13.5% partially.

The Mobility Knowledge Institute endorses the 48% rate. Its recent figures show that the October percentage (42%) indeed also rises to 48% (January). The remaining employed people have occupations/jobs where this does not appear to be possible. The above implies that 52%, or 3.9 million employed people, are still working on site.

No more stretching

91% of employed people say they cannot work more hours from home. In other words; there seems to be no further stretch in this area. But what about the health/wellbeing aspects of those working from home? This is what Koolmees writes to the House of Representatives about:

  • The overall perceived health of workers working from home in autumn 2020 did not worsen in November 2020 compared to a year earlier, even slightly improved.
  • For home workers, the proportion of workers with neck, arm and shoulder complaints decreased from a year earlier (from 42% to 38%).
  • For employees who worked from home, there was no significant difference in work-life imbalance compared to a year earlier (9%).
  • Among home workers, the proportion with burnout symptoms is stable compared to a year earlier.
  • Of home workers, 75% said they were (very) satisfied with life, (this percentage also applies to workers who worked at the work location, by the way)

Just rose scent? No negative effects? This seemed unlikely to us and yes, the next monkey came out of the bag:

  • In the autumn, 14% of employees working from home were highly lonely. This is therefore cause for concern.

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