Creating the Emotionally Intelligent Home-Office

This paper builds from a literature review on environmental psychology and neuroscience and discusses initial observations through reflective practice methods on the impact of pandemics on workplaces, in the UK and Australia. Working from home is now legitimate and new challenges and opportunities emerge. In the face of smart office innovation, automation and artificial intelligence, the human skill of managing emotions is more important than ever. Emotional intelligence remains the key skill that companies demand. It is the skill that is most likely to get you your job and the one skill that is most likely to cause you to lose your job. The pandemic has made it clear just how important human qualities are in modern-day organisations. Whilst mobile technologies have got us up and running from home, we know all too well that there’s something missing. As the days turn to weeks and months, a feeling of ‘emotional drift’ sets in – and with it a loss of motivation and staff engagement organisations are in need to emotionally protect their number one asset, their people and with that their ethos. The paper comprises of three sections: (1) instrumentality: the unsustainable home worker, (2) aesthetic: well-being and (3) symbolic: culture and identity.