P15

P15

MAINTAINING A RESILIENT WORKFORCE: ESTABLISHING BARRIERS AND FACILITATORS TO WORKING FROM HOME DURING COVID-19 FOR UK GOVERNMENT STAFF

C. E. Hall¹, N. Greenberg², S. K. Brooks², D. Weston³

¹King’s College London; UK Health Security Agency, London, UK

²King’s College London, UK

³UK Health Security Agency, Salisbury, UK

Background:

This project is concerned with frontline UK government employees who were asked to work from home whilst contributing to the UK COVID-19 response. Those working on the response often had extremely high job demands, and when pairing the potential negative impact of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to ensure the experiences of these individuals are explored and monitored so they can be adequately supported.

Methods: 

This poster will focus on the outputs of reviews collating common barriers and facilitators to effective homeworking in the general working population and establishing the relationship with mental health and productivity, and a cross-sectional survey reporting on advantages, disadvantages of working from home alongside barriers, and facilitators to effective homeworking from ~150 UK Government employees.

Results:

Multiple barriers and facilitators to effective homeworking have been established, both from the literature sources used and the survey. In general, barriers and facilitators seem to be context dependent (e.g., due to living circumstances). Isolation is a key barrier to overcome whilst homeworking, whereas flexibility is noted as a key advantage of work from home.

Implications:

The pandemic has highlighted a lack of understanding on the psychological consequences of prolonged and enforced homeworking for UK Government employees. The current project is part of wider PhD research which looks to ensure UK Government COVID-19 response workers’ experiences are understood and develop a series of recommendations, so that their mental health and wellbeing can be maintained in future applicable contexts.