risky recovery for long-term teleworkers

The return to the office one day a week had been scheduled in June in Bastien’s company (the first name has been changed). After fifteen months of full teleworking linked to Covid-19, the news was a real shock for this advertising executive. Anguish seized him at the idea of ​​reconnecting with an “outside world” that he no longer frequented. The disease was quickly diagnosed: he was suffering from “cabin syndrome”, this difficulty in reintegrating the social environment from which one has, for a time, withdrawn. It was only with small steps and at the cost of painful efforts that he finally managed to come out of his isolation.

Three months later, things are better for Bastien. But many other employees are now living a similar trajectory. As most companies enter a phase of recovery and partial return to the office, anxiety is emerging within the workforce. If they are in the minority, these pathologies are perfectly identified by health professionals. “The return to the site raises questions, the subject is frequently broached during my medical visits”, thus indicates an occupational physician from Ile-de-France.

At the heart of the problem, for Olivier Coldefy, expert psychologist, “This return can be experienced as a regression. The periods of confinement were suffered, but they were able to bring secondary benefits: more transport, more promiscuity, a rediscovery of family life… ”. “The gains in sleeping time could also have been considerable”, notes the Ile-de-France health professional. So many advantages to which employees will have to, at least partially, renounce. “Some of them are also very anxious about the risk of an epidemic, continues the occupational physician. And others experience painfully the return to offices where they will again meet colleagues or managers they do not like. “

Collective rules

The return to “life before” therefore goes badly for some employees. Especially since they are now convinced that an alternative exists. “Until the crisis, many had not tasted the autonomy offered by teleworking, indicates Jérôme Chemin, Deputy Secretary General CFDT Cadres. However, they observed, during confinement, that they were able to work alone. “ The shock caused by returning to the office may therefore encourage some of them to seek to obtain full teleworking. “We receive this kind of request”, recognizes the occupational physician.

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