Remote worker – human or avatar? Some thoughts on the risks of remote work and what workplaces need to be increasingly aware of
Andrea Nyberg is a co-editor to our Humanity Papers Project and founding member of Generazione Universo. She regularly contributes with her reflections to our blog.
The author of the article, while remotely working from Bangkok, Thailand November 2024.
Like for so many of us, the pandemic was for me the first time that I worked fully remotely, and over a long period of time. Having met physically before, the team was familiar and comfortable with each other and cheered each other up in various ways during an otherwise very isolating and alienating period, which luckily made things a bit lighter to bear. It wasn’t seamless, though; at the very beginning of the pandemic, I would have a slight feeling of intrusion having suddenly moved my office into my private home and basically invited my colleagues at a regular basis to peek into my living room. During the first week or so, I even remember an eerie dream of my Manger knocking on my bedroom door late at night. I interpret this as a shift of boundaries, an adjustment-related stress to a new situation. However, the bottom line is that we were all in this together – and the organization I worked for was particularly caring, adaptable, supportive and my colleagues had a healthy sense of humor - which really helped.
There were some strange and unexpected side-effects, however. After having worked for nearly two years only seeing my colleagues as pictures on the screen, it was a strange sensation to finally meet one of them again physically. It was at a train station, and when she appeared, I almost thought that this was a three-dimensional avatar of her, and that the real her was actually the picture I was used to look at on the screen. An unexpected psychological side-effect indeed, especially for someone like me who otherwise is relatively detached from technology, who doesn’t play videogames and dislikes that whole idea of disappearing into virtual spaces, such as through VR machines.
I reflect on these psychological side-effects and wonder how remote work affects the relation we have to each other, over the short or long term. In my team during the pandemic, we were lucky, because we already knew each other; but what psychological tricks, even subtle ones, can our mind play on us that may affect relations to colleagues who work remotely and who we perhaps have never met, and will never meet?
Already years ago, there were discussions about the psychology of so called ‘trolls’, i.e. persons on the internet that write derogatory or hateful things, often completely anonymously. I remember one of the points made during those discussions was that it is much easier for us humans to dehumanize each other and become aggressive from a comfortable, anonymous place behind a screen, where we do not actually have to confront the other person. There was a lot of talk, also, about certain social norms disappearing in online spaces, norms related to politeness and respect. On a related note, I read studies that showed that we tend to interpret written texts (especially short ones) with a negative bias; hence the invention of emojis to emphasize the tone in which we want our message to be received. Furthermore, I read that written communication, such as emails, can only ever convey up to 20% of what we are really trying to say.
From the left: 1. Young man working from cafe in Uppsala, Sweden, 2. Work, chat and coffee at cafe in Bangkok, Thailand, 3. Training done remotely, Stockholm, Sweden. All images were taken from Andrea Nyberg in Bangkok, Thailand November 2024.
Against this background, I think of the potential psychosocial minefield that remote work can represent to some of us, in some contexts. If we are more likely to be aggressive or to interpret something as negative when it comes in digital form, how do we protect relationships between colleagues, both from their own fears and projections and from actual aggression and dehumanization that could occur within remote work relationships? With other words, how do we prevent workplace bullying in a digital world, where digitalization itself poses certain new challenges and can trigger psychological aspects of people or groups that are yet to be fully understood? If a team member works remotely, power is also shifted to those who decide who should or should not attend meetings; whose voice is heard; who is given credit for what; and so on. It is also easy to use a remote worker as the team scapegoat – because they won’t be able to take part in the office gossip on what’s going on, by the coffee machine or in the corridor, at the office party of at an afterwork drink - and they won’t have a chance to defend themselves or their reputation on equal terms.
Maybe we need to get into the matter of bullying a bit more, so that we have a clearer picture. What is bullying in the workplace anyway? According to Harward Business Review (2022), almost 30% of the US workforce are bullied at work, while in India, the percentage is a chocking 55%. In Germany, 17% of the workforce reports bullying - it may seem low compared to the other two countries but is still significant. According to the UK National Health Service (NHS), bullying at work includes excluding and ignoring people and their contribution; overloading people with work; spreading malicious rumors and picking on someone regularly. From the many sources I come across on this topic, I read that bullying can have severe consequences, leading to sick leave, career disruptions, loss of self-esteem, loss of mental health or even suicide.
Given the severity of the issue, I strongly would like to argue in this piece that workplaces need to take much stronger measures, in practice, to prevent workplace bullying, which, in my analysis, remote workers are more vulnerable to. Add to that other types of mental health consequences remoteness itself can cause, precisely due to the feeling of not having a solid community, and the ticking bomb becomes evident. During a casual conversation over coffee with a friend of mine who works for the International Labor Organization, we touch on this matter. She opens up about her thoughts on mental health and remote work, and we both agree that the feeling of belonging is an important preventative factor against ill mental health. She also says that remote workers tend to miss informal opportunities to connect and network, and miss out on ‘safe spaces’ together with colleagues in which one can become truly personal and build trust with each other – because when communication takes place only online it acquires a formality around it which can prevent people from opening up, apart from it often being recorded in one way or another. She also adds something I haven’t thought of: that remote work will hamper your career opportunities, precisely since it will prevent you from forming those trusting bonds with your colleagues.
While aiming to examine some of the more problematic issues and also risks with remote work, I realize this article could be read as an argument against it. This was not my intention; remote work has given us space and sometimes agency over our work that we have never had before, and agency over our time. It has allowed some of us to live their dreams, whether it is combining family and work responsibilities in smoother ways or working from your preferred location, or, perhaps, for the first time in many years, be able to return to your home city and take your work with you. What I want to emphasize is that we need greater awareness of and better methods of preventing loneliness, exclusion, workplace bullying and similar issues that relate to the workplace environment that could lead to mental ill health among remote workers, in a time where remote work has become a natural part of the workplace. With other words, as the world transforms and work transforms with it, workplaces need to do more to take care of the human beings that are at the center of these transformations.
