Despite its many advantages, working remotely may destroy privacy and increase job pressure

The pandemic has created the perfect opportunity for employers to fully dominate the lives of their employees, as the home becomes the workplace, and the job becomes unprecedentedly taking up more time devoted to personal life.

In a report published by the British newspaper "the Guardian", writer John Harris says that the emergence of many modern technologies over the past years have blown up the barriers between working and rest times, and laptops and smartphones have contributed to violating employees' private lives, which led to an escalation of controversy about The "right to disconnect", which enables employees to separate their professional and personal lives.

According to the author, the amount of freedom and flexibility that employees enjoyed in the past period during remote work should not obscure the negatives of this model, especially since the current economic conditions may push employees to respond to unfair conditions imposed by employers, including:

Current economic conditions may push employees to respond to unfair conditions imposed by employers (Getty Images)

Increased working hours

In September of last year, researchers from New York University and Harvard Business School published an analytical study of emails and online meetings of about 3.1 million remote workers in cities such as Chicago, New York, London, Brussels, etc., in the early stages of the first closures in these countries. .

The researchers found that the average length of a workday increased by 8.2%, which is approximately 50 minutes.

This is largely due to employees having to work overtime to write emails and attend meetings after office hours.

The researchers suggest that the increase in working time is due to the employees' feeling of greater freedom in their daily work schedule and their inability to separate work and personal life, as it becomes easy to skip official work time due to the lack of clear boundaries between office and home.

This is what made some associate working from home with increased productivity, and the reason is that employees are working more time.

According to a report issued by the British think tank "Autonomous", remote work contributed to "the transformation of society from simultaneous work to asynchronous work, as the working hours extended throughout the day, and the weekly working days increased little by little."

And recent British reports indicated that more than a quarter of people who work from home sit on the couch or work in the bedroom, and that more than a third of them suffer from musculoskeletal problems.

According to the author, the negative effects of the remote work model include mechanisms to monitor the activity of employees working at home, tracking programs have become a common feature of remote work settings, and these applications monitor the number of hours the employee spends at work, measure productivity, and give detailed data on all activities. .

The pressures of domestic work have increased on the shoulders of working women, as they find themselves facing many responsibilities, such as taking care of children and following up on their studies in addition to work requirements (pixels)

Pressures on working women and the dedication of differences

The writer adds that the pressures of domestic work fall mainly on the shoulders of women, as they find themselves facing many responsibilities, such as taking care of children and ensuring that they follow their lessons and meet various demands at home, in addition to work requirements.

And an American study showed that working from home was more beneficial to men, as it boosted their productivity and career prospects.

In contrast, over the past year in the United States, about 3 million women have been fired.

The author believes that the spread of remote work has also led to the perpetuation of some manifestations of inequality between social groups, as some groups are allowed to work from home, and other groups are deprived of this option.

Also, the home environment differs from one employee to another, which means that differences are devoted to working conditions.

The effectiveness of remote work is linked to several factors, including the space allocated to work and the quietness of the place.

In fact, there is a big difference between working in a shared or single home and setting up an office in a confined space or in a spacious residence in the suburbs or countryside.

Also, working from home may affect the rights of employees, as it is easy for a full-time employee to turn into a part-time employee, and thus lose the professional rights that he previously enjoyed.

The writer expressed his fear that the current situation will pave the way to a darker future in the work environment, in which communications and meetings continue until late, and in which monitoring programs monitor all the details of our lives at home, and the employee does not have any time to enjoy his personal life.