Episode Details

WLP294 What's Going On: Wellbeing and Emojis

This episode is a hybrid of What's Going On and Thinking Remote. Maya and Pilar revisit the chapter from Thinking Remote: Sick and Tired, Working and Not-Working on a Remote Team. They also discuss asynchronous communication and how it's being adopted in the workspace, they talk about the role of emojis and finally, they share a couple of social media discussions.

4.05 mins

In the past (before the pandemic), taking time off work meant you had one of two choices – both were difficult processes.

The first option was to go into work, even though you were ill - unless you were very ill, it was almost expected you would go into work, plus, we did not want to let our teammates down.

The second option was to stay at home, but even then you were not fully away from work, as you could still do some work online and lessen the workload for your colleagues to feel less guilty. In both cases there is a sense of fear of work piling up that is still prominent even in current times.

This has continued even in the pandemic. It takes a lot of self-discipline to step away and focus on resting and recovering.

When visible teamwork is implemented, it should make taking time off to recover an easier process. As we are able to communicate our progress and give access to our work. This can help people rest and recover.

Another part that is changing is our approach to mental health, as it is becoming acknowledged and more accepted to take a mental health leave in the workplace.

20.12 mins

Pilar and Maya talk about the new space created by Salesforce called Trailblazer Ranch. It is a holistic and nature driven space with the purpose of getting people to connect with their team. They also discuss the article Diving Deeper Five workforce trends to watch in 2021, which states that wellbeing is a part of how we are doing work, it is not a separate aspect of it. (Yes, it's a year old but it all still feels relevant.)

We can give people autonomy to make meaningful decisions about their contributions to the organisation to help prevent disconnection. This means we don't need expensive programmes to look after our employees' wellbeing.

25.47 mins

The Royal Society for Arts (RSA) has recently released Social security: The risks from automation and economic insecurity for England's social renters covering the state of the UK's social housing, used by those who cannot afford market rates. Part of this article states:

"When employed, people in social housing are less likely to benefit from good work practices that support their economic and personal security: only 38 percent of social renters are in work which offers them an annual incremental pay increase, and three quarters (74 percent) never worked from home, even in the height of the pandemic."

When we are considering why we are doing hybrid or remote work, the main aim is to achieve autonomy and flexibility , but we still need to prevent a two-tiered workforce being created. You therefore need to find ways to provide flexibility for those who cannot do their work remotely.

31.49 mins

Maya and Pilar shift to the topic of asynchronous communication, in the context of emojis. They discuss an article titled Do emojis represent the whole gamut of human emotion? The short answer is, yes they do.

For this experiment they took 74 different facial emojis and observed how much valence a