COVID-19: Working from home can be stressful

With the mandatory lockdown following the COVID-19 pandemic early this year, many companies requested their employees to work from home.

Jackie Bahizi Kambabazi a wife and mother of four is one of the employees working from home.  In spite of being happy, Kambabazi a human resource manager of Uganda Electricity Generation Company says working from home is no walk in the park.

 "Working from home is hard because it comes with lots of distractions making it impossible to concentrate," she says.

"You have to balance between office work and house chores, which is such a challenge!"

Moreover, Kambabazi reveals that she sometimes has to work either with her baby strapped on the back or breast feeding. 

Besides exhaustion, Kambabazi says this leaves her no room for concentration.

At the end of the day, the company will need its work done. So, Kembabazi revealed that she had to set up time so that she can actually do the work.

With that in mind, Kambabazi mandated her family members not to interrupt her and also requested help with the baby.

Another thing that can make working at home hard is the unstable internet.

Kambabazi says that in order for a person to work comfortably at home, the company should offer adequate data and airtime to avoid any interruptions and delay of tasks to be handled via online.

Furthermore, for employees to work comfortably at home, Kambabazi says their employers need to provide them with counseling services in case they have any burdening issues, they can be solved.

One of the jobs of a counsellor  is to encourage the workers to overcome their burden and be able to resume their work smoothly.

Work from your bedroom

For those struggling to have a place in the house to work from, Halima Nakanwagi the Human Resource manager of Soroti Fruit Factory advises them to use their bed room for a while.

"A bedroom is okay because you can be able to ward off any interference from family members once they know you are there," she urges.

In order to optmise your time, Nakanwagi advises you to avoid any destructions that come from your mobile telephone. "Since people know you are at home," she says, "they will imagine you are not working." Nakwanagi advise you to put your mobile telephone in silence or put it in the call waiting mode in order to avoid any disturbances.

Watch your health

Just because you are working from home, it does not mean you forget to watch your health.  

Herbert Bitwire the Human Resource manager at Uganda Development Cooperation says   it is easy to work in a slouching style or lay on bed while working.

"But the best way to work home is to have a proper sitting posture in order to avoid backache," he says.

 He says there is also need for employers to train their workers to be deal with home destructions like visitors and constant home demands.

More so, Bitwire says workers should be trained to use virtual meeting like zoom so that they can be able to participate in company meetings if need be.

Working from home does not only call for cooperation and guidance from the employer but also family members need to be involved.

This will help the person working to fulfill their obligation at work thus helping the family to earn the much-needed income.