There has sadly been copious evidence of the toll remote working has had on women during the pandemic, with many taking on far more than their fair share of domestic duties alongside the challenges involved in shifting to a remote style of working.

Research from the University of Nevada finds that the various tools provided by employers to aid remote working have scarcely helped, and indeed, in many instances have actually made the stress and mental toll even worse.

The researchers quizzed several hundred employees who had been working remotely for ten weeks during the first wave of the pandemic.  The analysis found that stress levels rose considerably among women with children, with the authors arguing that this was likely due to the considerable blurring of their work/life balance.

More harm than good

Unfortunately, the various tools organizations provided to employees to help with remote working tended to exacerbate the problem as they simply increased stress levels yet further.  Not only do the video and text-based tools used to remote work often require more effort in order to communicate effectively, which can result in higher fatigue, but people have also reported working longer hours when doing so remotely.

The researchers believe that their findings cast a degree of doubt on the viability of remote work as a key part of working life in the post-pandemic world, especially if employers are concerned about the mental wellbeing of the workforce.

“We did find stress levels progressively increased for women with more children, which really points to the juggling act—you’re trying to keep track of multiple kids and the job,” the authors conclude. “The answer to alleviating stress might be supporting the use of asynchronous communication, like email, compared to synchronous forms, like video chats and texting, to create the flexibility needed to better balance work and home. When real-time communication is needed, phone calls may be better suited to allow for multi-tasking.”