Ms Joanne Mangan:

In terms of working from home and the blurring of the lines between home life and work life, it is definitely a factor that we have discussed previously. There is an onus on the employee and the employer to make sure this does not happen. Remote working is a different way of working and it does require a different way of thinking on the part of the employee. It requires people to be a little bit more self-motivated but also more disciplined in terms of structuring their own time. I have talked a lot about trust but with trust comes the need to be able to manage one's time effectively, take breaks and make sure one is adhering the time for work and making sure there is a separation between home life and work life. That can be a little bit more difficult in the home.

I have talked to friends about remote working and told them that I do not have someone to come and tell me that it is time to stop for lunch because I work from my home and I am on my own in my house during the day. Employees need to be careful about that. There are different steps people can take. Some of Mr. Hegarty's employees might do this and we have heard of other companies where people do a fake commute by going for a walk in the morning before they start working, they take a walk on their lunch break and are very disciplined about leaving their work space. Having a separate workspace is ideal, if one can do that, and then close the door on it at the end of the working day.

There are some things the employee can do but there is also a huge onus on the employer to make sure people are switching off. It can be a little bit more challenging for managers of a remote team because they do not always know that their employees are looking a little bit stressed because they do not see them all of the time, every day. Therefore, it is really important to have a lot of one-to-one time with them. In a remote setting, managers need to over-communicate. That does not necessarily mean back-to-back Zoom calls all day long but just checking in with employees on a regular basis. People managers need to check in every day with members of their team, even if that is just a voice message or WhatsApp note asking how they are or how they are getting on. Regular one-to-one communication is really important.