bright cheerful well-rested office personnel arriving at work to pit their wits against the workaday world offices have changed much over the years from the not entirely enlightened 1940s people like miss Dibble here plenty of old gray matter under this kids peroxide to the futurism of the 50s and 60s office culture and design has evolved or devolve depending on your perspective with each generation does it make your job less boring Oh exciting I really like it many now find themselves working in something like this or this and in recent years a new phenomenon for millions of
Canadians the move away from going into any office at all tonight our ongoing series on workplace stress examines working from home which many companies support even encouraged to save space and money but that freedom comes at a cost Diane Buckner explores the dangers of not punching the clock here I'm going to change to a completely different drum group right here Adam Simmons teaches a very 20:19 type of music class showing great school students how to remix popular songs and now let's see what this sounds like Simmons company which employs other teachers as well has a
contract with the Toronto School Board but when he started his business he did most of his work at home and hated it I think it's really damaging for your mental health it definitely was for mine I felt very very lonely I was starting to get depressed it's a huge issue it is a huge health issue and it's an issue for the workplace as a result this human resources consultant says her firm's research shows isolation is a problem for 41 percent of employees surveyed it impacts mental health and the risk of depression and impacts anxiety it
impacts people's personal well-being it also impacts her physical health but the trend towards working outside the office often alone has been growing steadily the most recent data from Statistics Canada 2.5 million Canadians more than 12% of the workforce work at home at least part of the time and as remote work has grown so have mental health costs now at 30% of all disability claims research hasn't yet connected those two trends directly but isolation is described as extreme most often by those who work at home when somebody is saying that something is extreme it's hard to
imagine that that's not seriously impacting their their lives and their well-being Rebecca Yaffa works for an event company that has no office whatsoever it's entirely online eventually it got to a point where I was a little bit lonely and I was really craving some social interaction she decided to rent a desk in a co-working space which hosts several social events each month I'm the only one in my team here it connects her with others who have similar working situations Adam Simmons has abandoned his home office as well he - now rents a space in a
co-working facility the most severe punishment we give a person if they've committed the most heinous crime and so we take them away from other people that's that's the worst punishment we have experts say the key to working alone and avoiding loneliness is staying connected how did that sound a reminder of the importance of maintaining a real social network Dianne Buckner CBC News Toronto
