We can say that we have opened a new page in business life with the pandemic. Working from home has changed some of our habits. Our home has become our office, our office has become our home. The breakfast table has become a meeting table, the chairs in the living room have become office chairs (some have collapsed after sitting down). Unfortunately, these changing habits have brought difficulties in their wake, and they are still doing so…

First, problems with working hours began to appear. While working hours were 9-18 or 8-17, we would not be wrong if we said that the concept of working hours disappeared with the pandemic. Situations such as Zoom meetings that were “scheduled” or “set” for 9:00 p.m., and tasks that had to be delivered at 11:00 p.m. have emerged.

Before the pandemic, in other words, “in the past,” work or files would be delivered in the morning or meetings would be held during working hours. Due to the “comfort” of working from home, a 24-hour focus on work period has become desired. (At this point, I would like to state that there is a problem with focusing and procrastination has increased; I hear this a lot from participants and my clients in the trainings I provide.)

Shorter periods have begun to be given to complete a task. Many managers, who think that employees are already in a comfortable situation and the traffic problem is over, have started to set quite challenging deadlines for tasks.

We are in a period where the concept of “flexibility” is being questioned. Questions of flexibility, but how much flexibility, what is the limit, are on the agenda. Along with this, the issue of increased workload is also frequently mentioned.

Another important problem is unfortunately the increase in women’s workload due to social roles. We observe that the problems experienced by mothers in particular are increasing. For example, in a family consisting of a mother, father and child, the father can take the laptop and go straight to his meeting and close the door of the room. However, the mother has to prepare breakfast first and also attend the meeting. In fact, a client of mine recently put her children's toast in the machine for breakfast while she was in a meeting. She noticed that the toast was burnt during the meeting and started the day with a burnt smell and panic...

Different problems related to work come up every term. We all agree that this term is quite challenging. We hope that the pandemic will end soon and the problems related to work-life balance will also be resolved.