Home office e pandemia de covid-19: desafios enfrentados pelos trabalhadores remotos na busca do equilíbrio entre vida profissional e pessoal

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic shook the structures of society and labor associations had to adapt to this new scenario. The home office was the strategy adopted by several companies in the pandemic scenario faced today. Based on government strategies to curb the spread of the virus, with social distances and lockdowns, where only essential services can function fully, the home office was provided as a way for the organization to remain on the market and ensure employee safety. From the beginning, a concern with the psychological impacts caused to the worker by this modality and several studies contributed with analyzes about the impacts that the home office could cause on the employee and on his family. Concerns about the loss of structure, excess spending, excessive workload, family conflicts and appropriation of personal life by work were part of studies. The present research has as main objective to analyze the challenges for coping with stress when reconciling work and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve that goal, the research uses a descriptive approach, with a qualitative analysis and bibliographic research as a methodology. In this way, the relevance of the research is due to the contribution, which will make to university education studies and to the organizational environment, when considering one of the possible impacts that is arising from the pandemic period, where its effects are still being measured. Because, when verifying how the COVID-19 pandemic affected stress in the work and personal life interface, it will be possible to envision organizational, governmental and social strategies to mitigate its effects. Supported by the general objective of the work, it sought to understand the challenges in adapting the domestic environment for remote work, it is considered that the same was achieved, because based on the analysis of the interviews carried out, it was possible to perceive that most of the interviewees had to face abrupt structural changes and difficulties in adapting to work in the home environment, as the worker was affected by occupational stress from the change from work to the home environment. Other factors that the research showed as the main challenges reported by the interviewed employees were the increase in the cost of household expenses, the absence of remuneration policies, the suppression of rights already acquired, the increase in demands and workload, the lack of recognition and committed training / development. Another important result related to the individual's challenges in playing the professional and family roles in the domestic environment during working hours, as it perceived in the interviewees’ reports that many are the challenges and barriers faced by employees and family members in this process of transition of environments. In the meantime, the research has contributed to the academic society, as it provides a broader view of the current challenges faced and the barriers imposed on professionals who are working remotely in this very uncertain context of a pandemic. The effects of rigid social isolation are still being measured, so only the implications for implantation and permanence were analyzed.