The experts of the United Nations International Labor Organization presented a report in which they convincingly demonstrated that employees working remotely more often work overtime and at the same time free of charge, and often suffer from stress and insomnia.
The study analyzed data from 15 countries (Russia was not included in this list). Project participants were divided into three groups: fully distant work; mobile employees whose work is traveling or requires to perform official duties in different places; people who spend some time in the office, and some of the work is done at home. The obtained data was compared with the results of the survey of purely office workers.
ILO specialists noted that remote employees work more productively outside the office, but they have a longer working day, more intense workloads, and in addition they often encounter “home” interference. At the same time, 41% of mobile employees suffer from constant stress, while for office workers this figure is only 25%. Frequent cases of insomnia are reported by 42% of people who work completely remotely or from different places. Among those who work only in the office, only 29% suffer from insomnia.
Overall, the level stress and sleep disorders in all three groups of remote employees was higher than in people working only in the office. In addition, the “remote” increased the risk of the invasion of work in space and time, reserved for personal life. One of the co-authors of the project, John Messenger (Jon Messenger), even urged employers to provide part-time days to their out-of-office employees.