New Zealand / Life And Society

Little home comforts for some working remotely under lockdown

20:46 pm on 6 September 2021

Starting a new job can be stressful enough but imagine doing it during a Covid-19 lockdown.

Photo: 123RF

While many organisations have overcome the range of challenges presented by working from home, it can be a whole new ballpark for people fresh into their roles.

Jacob Davies was in the final days of his job in Wellington, before starting a job in Christchurch the next week, when the country was locked down last month.

He made a snap decision to head to his new home in the brief window it was allowed, getting himself on a ferry across the Cook Strait the first morning of lockdown.

It was "quite rushed" he said. Davies then found starting the new job "difficult".

Davies said it was "a couple of weeks" before a work laptop was able to be couriered to him so he "was trying to work off an iPad with an organisation whose systems wouldn't work with the iPad".

Calum Lewis has been in his new Auckland-based job for two weeks.

However, he was waiting for an alert level change to allow him to move up from Wellington, with Auckland currently at level 4.

He said it was "lucky" he had flexible arrangements to move out of his home in the capital and into a place in Auckland so he was not "out of pocket.

Even though Lewis moved into a similar role to his job in Wellington, he felt like he was learning the ropes slower than he should be.

"You pick up so much by just sitting next to someone and just asking them a quick question," he said.

"When you're not there you sort of just have to make a decision about whether or not it's worth picking up the phone to ask the question or leaving it."

Harry Bates was at his family's home in Hanmer Springs, on a holiday before starting his new job, when lockdown hit and he decided to stay instead of heading back to Wellington.

He said it was a "no brainer" to be "in a house in the mountains" because at the start of the pandemic he was "stuck in a small apartment with three others".

Bates' main issue was that he had limited clothing with him because he was originally just on holiday.

He laughed at the fact he only had one shirt with him.

"I wore that on the first day and then everyone was wearing T-shirts and caps."

Organisational psychologist John Eatwell said employers needed to recognise the extra challenges of lockdown.

He said research showed the first three months of a new job was "one of the most stressful life events, up with moving house or moving city".

"And of course, some people combine all three."

Eatwell said there were studies indicating working from home was not necessarily the way of the future people thought at the start of the pandemic.

He said peoples' output was being impacted by not physically working alongside colleagues as some things just did not work as well online.

It was something E tu union team leader Amy Hansen was aware of, having helped to place many people into a wide range of new jobs during the pandemic.

She said "working remotely can be quite scary", particularly "for people who'd never been in that space before ... people who might be in the later stages of their employable life and not really used technology in their jobs before".