Are We Returning to a Toxic Work Environment?

Before the pandemic, when I would take my dog for an early-morning or mid-evening walk, I would glance at the second-floor window of the office building across the street from the park. He would almost always be there, an employee wearing a pink or blue shirt and staring into a computer placed near his office window. Now, after an absence of almost a year and a half, he is back. His workday starts again around 6:30 a.m. and doesn’t end until after 8 p.m.

Is this nameless man a symbol of our return to a workplace, where the hours are too long and the time off too short? The pandemic home office was rarely a place of serenity and comfort, and the absence of long commutes and too many boring meetings was replaced by endless distraction from children, dogs, neighbors, and the sound of leaf blowers or beeping garbage trucks. But has, in some cases, mandatory return to the workplace put back in place the traditional stressors of the office? And should the newly returned worker simply assume that work equals anxiety, fatigue, frustration, and even physical discomfort? A woman who works for a major investment bank has not returned to her office yet. She told me that when she returns, there will be no office. They have been abolished and, according to what she was told, as long as she carries her laptop with her, she could work anywhere in the open spaces that used to contain cubicles and actual offices. “But I hate not having any privacy,” she told me. “How can I have a private conversation with a client or call my kids when they come home from school? It is like being a fish in an aquarium.”

An extreme example of workplace stress was described in a news article about an employee of a Swiss bank, UBS, who was suing the bank because the “punishing workload” he was subjected to damaged his mental health. And in a recent survey by a global staffing firm, Robert Half, almost half the 2,800 employees surveyed said they are “burned out” on their job today compared to a year ago. Fatigue, heavier workload, longer hours, and little time off are factors contributing to the exhaustion and stress experienced by those surveyed. Other surveys, such as one from a benefits provider, Spring Health, found that 76% of employees were experiencing worker burnout.

Wellness programs in the workplace have been around for decades and their objectives are to reduce medical issues among the employees by altering behavior. The worker is urged to lose weight if necessary, exercise, stop smoking, and make healthier food choices. But the problem with these programs is that it takes education and time to adopt these new behaviors. And the time issue, at least, runs up against the demand to work longer, harder, and with fewer distractions. Years ago I commented to a lawyer friend, a partner in a high-powered law firm, that an upscale gym was moving into the building where the law offices were located. “Well, I will never see it,” he told me. “The only people who will have time to use it are the non-lawyers in our offices.“

It is all very well to verbally wring one’s hands over the toll the toxic workplace takes on mental and physical health. But how can this improve if the culture of the workplace demands that work take priority over everything else? Some have suggested that the answer is a hybrid work schedule; part of the week allows work to be done remotely and the rest, at the worksite. Time-consuming activities such as meetings, seeing clients, giving presentations, and working with a team would occur in the workplace office, but other work that could be done alone could be reserved for the office at home.

However, there is a significant difference between the pandemic-generated remote work situation and its predecessor, working remotely. According to Alexandra Samuel, it is important to structure a remote work situation with care, and not fall into it as many did last year. Having a quiet private space not shared by children, grandparents, or an overweight dog is non-negotiable. But just as important, says Samuel, is to give yourself people breaks. She sought people to be with in a coffee shop, trips to the gym, and lunch meetings with colleagues so she wasn’t working in isolation. She doesn’t mention the time one gains by not commuting, but the effect of being home adds a couple of hours that can be used to walk the dog, do errands, or make dinner.

Taking a day off once a week—it is known as the Sabbath—is also a remedy for the ills of the toxic workplace. Sarah Hurwitz was the head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as for President Obama, and also Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign. Her work schedule was so encompassing that often her only time off was when she was sleeping, and often she went even without that. About five years ago, she decided to observe the Jewish Sabbath; this meant closing down every aspect of her work for an entire day and night. As she describes in her book Here All Along, it took a couple of hours to stop the buzzing in her head and the need to check her phone, email, messages, etc. each week when the Sabbath began at sundown on Friday night. But soon she stopped fretting over what was still undone. As she described it, time slowed and she felt renewed.

Each of us has to find our own solution to recovering from the demands of work, especially when we feel those demands affecting our health, our well-being. Or perhaps we may have to step away from that job altogether if that is a possibility. As we have learned from the pandemic, life is too uncertain to have it smothered by the excessive demands of work.