Ep 193. Kristen Shockley: Impact of the Rapid Shift to Remote Work

Work and Life with Stew Friedman

Dr. Kristen Shockley is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia. She has been studying how companies adapted during the pandemic, or how they haven’t adjusted, to meet the needs of worker productivity and well-being. She’s also been looking at how couples forced to handle childcare, housework, and their day jobs have divided the responsibilities. Kristen has conducted research aimed at understanding organizational initiatives to help employees manage competing life demands (like flexible work arrangements); the relationship between work-family conflict and health outcomes, including eating behaviors and physiological indicators of health; and understanding how dual-earner couples balance work and family roles. She also studies career development, mentoring, definitions of career success, and the consequences of career compromise. She received her BS in Psychology from the University of Georgia and has an MS and PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of South Florida.

In this episode, Stew and Kristen talk about how the rapid shift to remote work caused by the pandemic has affected well-being and performance. Her research reveals critical factors that influence the success or failure of the adjustments that individuals, families, and organizations have had to make. They discuss some practical implications for how to manage Zoom fatigue (which is a bigger problem for women than for men, according to her findings), how couples should communicate to enable bounded and focused attention by both, and how to reduce the debilitating effects of social isolation.

Here then is an invitation, a challenge, for you, once you’ve listened to the conversation. Start your next Zoom call by asking each participant to write a word or phrase in response to this question: How are you feeling right now? Share your ideas about what you discover, and any reactions to this episode, by writing to Stew at [e-mail] or via LinkedIn.

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