Family, Bosses, Isolation: HSE Researchers Uncover Causes and Impact of Stress in Employees Working from Home

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Despite the fact that about 70% of employees see working from home as a positive experience, about 35% of those who switched to remote work during the pandemic noticed that their health had worsened. This is largely related to the conditions of remote work. In Russia, employers do not bear responsibility for the psychosocial risks faced by employees working from home. That is why remote employment needs additional legal regulation. These were the conclusions made by the HSE Faculty of Law project group ‘Regulatory framework to prevent remote work-related psychosocial risks’, which was created at the initiative of the HSE Institute of National and Comparative Legal Studies.

The results of the study were presented at an interdisciplinary online seminar organised by the project group. Group head Elena Serebryakova, Associate Professor at the School of Digital Law and Bio-Law, was the spokesperson for the project.

She said that the global rise in remote working is one of the biggest changes in the labour sphere in recent years. For many employees, the transition to this new form of employer-employee relations was out of necessity rather than preference, and their reactions to these changes have been mixed.

Remote employees are at risk of developing psychosocial health issues, and legal regulation of this form of work does not include any considerable labour protections on the employer’s part. The researchers’ goal was to determine ways to improve the regulation of social relations when implementing remote work in Russia, as well as to learn how to decrease the psychosocial risks faced by remote workers.

According to Elena Serebryakova, stress is a key aspect when discussing psychosocial risks and factors—up to 90% of human illnesses are in some way related to the aftereffects of stress. ‘Our hypothesis is that remote workers are susceptible to specific psychosocial factors and experience increased stress,’ she said. The study included a survey of 150 individuals aged 16–65, over half of whom were women. The respondents were asked about who they shared their household with, their conditions for working from home, and the impact of these factors on their level of psychological comfort.

The survey demonstrated that the more people there are in a remote worker’s household, the higher the level of stress experienced by the employee, since they have no opportunity to work in private.

The researchers also considered whether the respondents had young or teenage children. They found that many respondents with underage children experienced additional stress related to the need to divert their attention from work to care for their children, with 70% of them citing this factor as a stressor (an external environmental factor that causes stress). This was the case when schools and kindergartens were closed during the lockdown.

The researchers highlighted some other important psychosocial factors. These include difficulty maintaining a work/life balance, monitoring of employees’ work by their supervisors, professional isolation, increased work intensity, and growing screen time. The researchers particularly emphasised the factor that they called ‘social isolation,’ which is so serious that, according to the author, some countries (such as France) prohibited the permanent adoption of remote work.

The survey demonstrated that about 35% of respondents suffered from worsening health while working remotely. ‘This is an alarming figure, which proves the need to protect the health of remote employees,’ Elena Serebryakova believes.

The authors also wanted to showcase existing ways of regulating remote work. According to Elena Serebryakova, there are few international-level regulations that apply to Russia. One of them is the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Occupational Safety and Health Convention, which was ratified by Russia. This document stipulates that the term ‘health’ includes physical and mental factors that affect health. Many countries not only guarantee the right to mental health protection, but also regulate the management of psychosocial risks. ‘These countries have a system for assessing psychosocial risks and factors,’ she explained. Such assessments serve as a basis for implementing psychosocial risk policies. Unfortunately, Russia doesn’t have such practices.

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However, Elena Serebryakova believes that some progress is being made. On March 1, 2022, amendments to the Russian Labour Code will come into effect that considerably alter the labour protection system. Employers will be obliged to identify psychosocial factors to be classed as ‘dangerous’. It is a small step in the right direction, but ‘not enough to be happy about,’ she believes, explaining that these employer obligations do not cover employees working from home. This means that in cases of remote employment, employers are exempt from of a range of responsibilities related to labour protection. In particular, they don’t have to ensure that working conditions are in line with labour protection requirements or that legal limitations on working hours are enforced. Employers also don’t have to conduct professional risk and danger assessment and management, nor do they have to inform employees of work-related health risks.

At the same time, the term ‘professional risk’ still only covers physical risks. In Russia, the labour protection system remains oriented around physical kinds of professional risks. ‘Under a literal interpretation of Labour Code regulations, employers bear no responsibility for the management of psychosocial risks’ she said. She believes that to solve the problem, it is necessary to seriously change Russian laws related to remote work.

In response to a question about legal tools that could minimise the impact of psychosocial risk on remote employees, Elena Serebryakova answered that first of all, employers’ responsibilities in relation to labour protection for remote workers should be re-examined.

In addition, it is essential to revise approaches to professional risk management at large. She noted that unfortunately, whether or not such employee-friendly regulations will be implemented remains highly uncertain.