Sir, – I read with interest Emmet Malone’s opinion piece regarding remote working (“‘If you don’t swipe in, you won’t be promoted.’ Remote working is still a battleground”, September 1st) .
Those graduating this year are, in the main, the cohort of students who were sent home from sixth year on March 12th, 2020, and spent the remainder of second level and almost the full first two years of college sitting in bedrooms staring at online lectures without ever meeting their fellow students. Some coped remarkably well; others did not.
That same group are now being recruited to graduate programmes and workplaces, where, for many of them, the required office presence is as little as one day per week or less. They will have little or no face to face interaction with their work colleagues and no opportunity to build friendships, learn how to deal with office politics or develop any of the many skills your first job teaches you.
I think we need to start a conversation around this – on the one hand we have excellent social commentators like Dr Harry Barry stressing the importance of personal connection, and on the other hand we are allowing institutions and workplaces to dictate these work practices for new recruits.
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I, for one, think we will reap the consequences of this in a few years with a deluge of mental health issues. – Yours, etc,
SIOBHAN LEAHY,
Ardnacrusha,
Co Clare.
