Tag: work

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Issue 11

To Have Loved and Lost

Trigger Warning: mentions of death, mental health issues

“Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”  

― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Death is inevitable. Ultimate. Irreversible. As the fundamental truth of life, we are bound to encounter death. Unfortunately, to grieve is a matter of privilege; to allow yourself the time to break down and build back up again is a luxury not many can afford. In the past, people have returned to the workplace after demises, pushing against the inner storm of despair. Barring the few designated days of mourning, grief never became a strong reason for seeking paid leave, thereby, forcing employees to resume work within days of such life-altering tragedies. 

New Zealand recently became the second country to implement miscarriage bereavement laws — granting women and men the right to paid leave after miscarriages and stillbirths. India already had a similar legislation in place that entitled women to a six-week paid leave under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, in such cases. These governments have recognised the soul-crushing pain experienced by parents by passing such legislation. Hence, these acts are symbols of our humanity; our understanding of life and loss. 

While they are certainly socially evolved and humane, given their intrinsic link to the labour market, these laws provoke questions about their economic impacts. The impact of grief on productivity and employment raises some important questions: What are the economic consequences of paid leaves? Is grief a good enough reason for granting days off work? 

Productivity Pause

Grief is more than just a fleeting emotional state — it is the source of psychological and physical stress that can range from depression to anxiety and hopelessness. In fact, a medical side effect of bereavement is an impaired immune system. Since mental and physical health are integral parts of human capital, when emotions and grief run wild, productivity takes a severe hit. 

Despite realising their inability to work, workers feel the pressures of presenteeism.  If you have ever been to work even though you did not feel up to it, you understand presenteeism. A recently studied phenomenon, it refers to employees still habitually working long hours/attending work even though they are not fully functioning well (mostly due to medical reasons and even other concerns) ultimately leading to lower productivity. Workers who are insecure about their jobs often display presenteeism.

Presenteeism is harming businesses as the illusion of efficiency prevents managers from planning better. When six  workers are on the job but two are working at reduced capacity, information asymmetry prevents the manager/owner from efficiently allocating the workload because presenteeism is not apparent. Hence, the quality of output suffers and average efficiency is dragged down. In contrast, if the unproductive workers were on leave, the reduction in team size and efficiency would be glaringly visible and the managers would be able to better plan the tasks knowing fully well that they are working with a smaller, but productive team. 

Given that long bereavement breaks are not normalised, and their medical impacts are not understood, many workers feel insecure about their job status while considering taking time off work. Hence, employees are ultimately faced with the unfair choice of either resuming work with a diminished ability to perform or quitting the labour force. 

Workers deciding to quit the labour force would imply forgoing a source of income. The absence of financial stability can further reinforce any depression or anxiety felt by the employees. They might also lose out on new skills by being out of work for long periods which, in turn, would reduce their human capital relative to the rest of the workforce. With lower human capital, their employment prospects would further decrease. These consequences for workers translate into bigger problems for the economy as unemployment leads to wastage of resources and lower economic output. 

In this lose-lose situation, data estimates the economic cost of bereavement in the UK workplaces to be nearly £23bn a year. This renders a loss in tax revenue estimated to be around £8bn a year. Behind these massive figures, the study indicates that “the majority of the economic cost arises from lost productivity in the workplace (presenteeism), rather than from time away from work.”

A viable solution? 

Neither declining productivity nor workers’ exits from the labour force are optimal cases for the economy. Therefore, a solution would include retaining workers or preventing productivity dips. By providing paid bereavement leaves, firms ensure that workers have the option of staying employed. In a way, paid leave lifts the pressure of ‘showing up’ at work and allows workers to recuperate emotionally without worrying about economic welfare and finances. Once workers do finally return to work, they are relatively more emotionally stable and will be able to perform better, preventing any problems caused by presenteeism. Paid leaves also foster a stronger attachment to the labour force with workers more committed to working and staying in employment. With a more dedicated and stronger labour force, the national output  is expected to increase. 

Understanding the merits of paid leaves, the miscarriage bereavement laws passed by the New Zealand government are a giant leap forward. They recognise the significant emotional implications of stillbirths and miscarriages — losing a child has been ‘classified as one of the most extreme stressors a human can face’ which causes the parents’ productivity to reduce to a quarter of what it was before. Most importantly, these laws standardise access to paid-leave and propagate equality. Given that all workers do not have the financial background to quit their jobs, the legislation ensures that despite varied working conditions, workers have the ability to avail the option of paid leaves. Hence, it fosters an environment of equality while prioritising workers’ welfare. 

At its core, such laws recognise that workers’ welfare need not be at odds with the economic well-being of the country. Workers are 13% more productive when they are happy. Hence, it is difficult to isolate economic growth from the emotional welfare of the workforce. By providing adequate time and opportunity for employees to process their loss, these paid leaves act as a safeguard for the interests of the workforce against the tragedies of miscarriages and stillbirths. 

Picture Perfect? 

Despite their merits, these laws come with strings attached. Paid leave is a controversial issue amongst employers since they are paying the employees for essentially no work. Some firms might prefer workers showing up at offices despite the recent deaths of loved ones. By availing paid leaves, a worker’s contribution to output is zero. By using the logic of ‘something is better than nothing,’ employers would still prefer to enforce their older methods. 

Paid leaves for parents after stillbirths or miscarriages are certainly a social issue. However, the effects of grief on productivity make it an economic issue in tandem. This gives the opportunity for inclusive legislation that can improve economic conditions and boost economic growth. The unpredictability of death makes it all the more important to recognise the various losses humankind shares and subsequently address them in legislation. Because let’s face it, for someone still reeling from the shocks of the death of their loved ones; for someone still braving that gush of grief blowing through the window in that frigid room; even a few days off work mean everything. 

Advaita Singh is a second-year student of Economics at Ashoka University. She is also the President of the Economics Society at Ashoka. 

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 9

What’s in Your Pocket – Your Office or Your Sanitizer?

“Kaske joota, kaske belt … kandhon pe zimmedari, haath mein file, mann mein dum, meelon meel chalenge hum …” (Wearing shoes and a tight belt … with responsibility on shoulders, with a file in hand and a courageous heart, we will walk miles and miles … the song continues) – was how one’s work life looked like in the pre-COVID era. The imagery produced through these lyrics remain relevant in the post-COVID world, except the song now stops at these four lines because you have reached your workstation – the table beside your bed.

The world of work, with all its stresses and gossips, shifted to homes as lockdowns began to be imposed in several countries with the outbreak of COVID-19, in early 2020. A year which has often been declared “cancelled” in our daily conversations, 2020 has come to be defined as a form of “disruption,” “an imbalance,”  as well as a “pause.” It is you and your socio-economic standing  that decides your position on this ideological spectrum. However, one aspect of our lives that cannot be concretely placed within this spectrum, and moves across it based on its fluctuations, remains ‘the professional.’ One’s economic, political and social behaviours surrounding the professions they were involved in came to be impacted due to such a drastic shift. Restrictions on travel and social contact became sole reasons that hindered work from an office desk and forced professionals to stay indoors and work-from-home.

The purpose of office spaces in the corporate world is social. Remote work has had a significant impact on workplace culture, besides dealing with the spread of the virus. “People find meaning in their daily rituals of getting ready to leave home, commuting, grabbing their cup of coffee, and filling their water bottle before sitting at their desk,” claims Thomas, a partner with the Strategy& Middle East, part of the PwC network. This process of meaning-making has transformed while working from home in a way that people find it convenient to attend office from their beds, without deliberate focus on these necessary rituals. A separate corner for the employee to organize official meetings and conferences is reserved within the four walls of one’s  house, often attended to in half-worn attire and a too-close-to-be-combed hair. The collaborative nature of tech-tools promoting remote work-culture has replaced the in-office coffee-machine gossips and hiccups. With dogs or family members walking in the background, remote work-culture on one hand offers relaxed workplace standards and is being lauded to have added “humanity to us.” On the other hand, a series of boxes and closets earlier criticised by an eminent American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, for preventing democracy and freedom, seems to have returned, though in an avatar enclosed within the four sides of our laptop screens.

This dependency on online mode of work highlights the discrimination that has operated through socio-economic hierarchies, with factors such as class, caste, gender impacting one’s access to certain privileges – be it technological or social. Access to stable internet connection? – a plethora of opportunities waiting for you out there; while a family engaging in unhealthy arguments all the time? – a full stop to important participation on the workscreen. This scenario threatens workplace democracy and freedom by considering one’s ability either to sail or fail – advocating for means that only benefit a specific population of employees. 

Moreover, the boundaries between two spheres crucial to the life of an employee – work and home, got blurred with time. While multiple online sources guide one to a productive and healthy work-life balance during the lockdown, a year into it, conversations are shifting to that of an eager return to the workplace. Opinions on the way “this is the end of the office as we know it” along with changes that could be observed in a post-pandemic world of work have been put forward by many organizations. Emphasis on the need for technological tools such as access to video-conferencing softwares, skills to operate new-age computer programs, a stable internet connectivity etc. to facilitate online work, have increased with time. However seamless and productivity-efficient it may sound, it has pushed employees into the never-ending loop of being “online,” resulting in time confetti. Time confetti, a term coined by Brigid Schulte, “amounts to little bits of seconds and minutes lost to unproductive multitasking.” A constant influx of work-related notifications, messages, emails, etc. from a co-employee or your boss has the possibility of disrupting one’s leisure time and preventing the user from engaging in physical face-to-face interactions even while at home. 

Although online communication between the employee and the employer provides flexibility and a certain degree of control over those interactions, it is often known to result in an autonomy paradox. A work-efficient mobile device is essential for one to ‘connect’ to the office. The term ‘work-efficient’ here would mean being accessible anytime and anywhere, adding to one’s personal autonomy. However, professionals seem to have channelised its usage to working “everywhere/all the time, thus diminishing their autonomy in practice.” An example of this dilemma would be – “if we are trying to be a committed parent while our work email goes off, we can’t help thinking we should be working on our next deadline. This conflict makes us feel like a bad parent and a bad employee.” During the pandemic-enforced remote work-culture, one could find similar scenarios evident of the work-home imbalance, promoting toxic-tasking more than ever. The guilt associated with not working from home and ‘wasting’ time on other unproductive and non-economic ventures, even for a second, overpowers our ability to arise out of this imbalance. 

Moreover, our means of leisure have shifted online – with free webinars, birthdays, weddings, get-togethers, graduations, funerals, all happening over our laptop screens. While some are looking for measures to avoid Zoom fatigue online, the talk about returning to the workplace is on the rise with recent unlocks being witnessed in different parts of the world. Several assumptions about how the workplace would look like in a post-pandemic world are being made – with ideas about AI-operated lifts and doors, segregated desks, increased use of dividers, floor signs, lesser number of employees working from office, assuring employees of their safety in the physical workplace. The world, now understanding the meaning of the phrase, “six-feet-away,” appears to be set to enter the physical workplace. Crucial safety measures being implemented in such spaces involve less coworking spaces, more private and personal spaces, regular sanitization of desks, chairs, common areas, and documentation to provide employees with the necessary information to protect themselves from associated risks. 

However, considering the merits associated with work-from-home narrative, there exists a decent push to create a balance that would allow willing employees to work from home and others from the office. As Rashmi Dhawani, Founder of the Art X Company puts it, these merits revolve around increase in trust and accountability between employees and the employers, fluid leadership possibilities due to new technologies being easily adapted by younger professionals as compared to experienced bosses, in addition to success in what companies were hesitant about earlier, that is, enhancing employee-productivity while at work from their homes. People have also cherished their ability to work in different environments and adapt new skills beneficial for their work. But, with employees connected through their mobile devices to the office while walking their dog in the park, the question, ‘what’s in your pocket – your office or your sanitizer?’ becomes necessary.

Ariba is a student of English and Media Studies at Ashoka University.

Picture Credits: BBC WORKLIFE

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).