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Remote working, for all its widely touted benefits such as hikes in productivity and overall worker wellbeing, can be an extremely isolating situation. This is especially true when it’s necessitated by events such as the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the vast majority of the workforce to operate remotely this year.
Cigna’s 2019 Loneliness Index discovered that, as remote working has grown in execution across the globe, a direct correlation between working from home and feeling isolated and alone can be found. And whilst those who work remotely are on average more productive, isolation has been proven to demotivate and disengage staff who feel like they aren’t part of a company’s culture.
Yes, a certain amount of interaction can be gained within companies that understand how essential face-to-face comms are with the aid of digital-townhalls, video meetings and work instant messaging platforms, but none of the above accurately make up for the distinct change in environment from a bustling office space to a silent home office. However, some workers have discovered a way of clawing back some of that office atmosphere with an unusual work-from-home ‘hack’.
Some, such as UK-based Statistician, Paul Hewson, have found that simply ‘hearing’ the office can be a massive help. Hewson and others like him have discovered that numerous binaural ‘office’ artificial noise tracks – essentially long audio streams that replicate the noise of a typical office space with people having inaudible conversations, printers beeping, the well-known noise of various hands busily typing on keyboards and coffee machines. Such streams have attracted millions of hits in recent months.
