After more than a year of remote
work your company is now asking you to come back into the workplace. They're
asking you to come back into the workplace not knowing if other coworkers are
being careful and cautious and observing and honoring the covid-19 Corona virus
protocols.
This is the time to start the
open communication to ask the leadership what the expected safety protocols and
policies that will be in place are
According to the American
psychological association, more than half of employees I'm not too keen about
going back into the workplace that they were in before this pandemic hit us.
First, I want to say that this
is not weakness your anxiety that is. It's wisdom. Wisdom to recognize your
fears about this invisible virus that we've been dealing with for over a year
and a half.
Dr Gail Saltz, associate
professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital Weil - Cornell School
of medicine and the author of The Power of Different: The Link Between Disorder
and Genius says it makes sense for us to feel uneasy and have a bit of anxiety
about returning to the office.
Dr Saltz also says, "the
changes that we were dealing with were reinforced by fear and the feeling that
we were making those changes to protect ourselves and those that we love."
So basically, kind of had to pivot on
a dime. It's more difficult than we think. Anything that it causes to change
back and forth especially something we know we really don't know much about can
really bring about some level of anxiety.
Again, I want to say this is
the time now before you go back into the office to have the conversation with
leadership about how you're feeling. Ask the leadership for a little more
flexibility and making sure that there are some strict safety measures put in
place.
Below in the post you'll see
images of ideas I have come up with to help me ease back into going back to the
office some of these are for the office and some are a few things for you at
home after leaving the office to help you cope.
First of all, I want to say
make sure that you are always informed. Start with small steps, start by
getting up as if you're going to be getting dressed, try your whole routine, get
dressed drive to the location where the office will be. You don't have to get
out yet but just take the journey and see how you feel getting dressed driving
in. Try it out for a few days to get a feel for it.
Have a strategy in place for how
are you going to deal with the various elements. Try to determine what you
think might give you the most anxiety. Will the leadership allow you to work a
few days from home till you get back in the swing of things, ask that question if you don't ask you never know right? Be specific about that thing that's
causing you to feel the anxiety. Have the conversation about it. This is your well-being,
and you want to do a really good job at work.
There's also the tried-and-true
technique, deep breathing and meditation that can help alleviate some of the
anxiety as well. You'll see some of the items in the post below that shows
things that you can do bring to your office to help you feel safer.
Find someone that you connect with that you can rely on and trust in the office to help you get through those tough times. Someone, that you can sit down and have a 5-minute conversation and that will hopefully help you toward a direction where you feel better.
Well like I said at the beginning of this post, I don't think you should overdo it at looking at the news and anything that's negative that's going to make you feel worse. Try looking at some feel good stories instead of the ones that are going to make you retreat. Life is hard for everybody. We all are dealing with some thing. If all else fails, try to seek counseling to help you ease back into the whole process. That's probably the best thing for most people if you're not feeling like you can truly deal with all that comes with going back to the office. However, it's always best to give yourself a break.
