Navigating Work and Home Responsibilities during the Pandemic

Along with the terrible toll it has exacted in lives lost, as well as negative health and economic impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced dramatic changes in how families must navigate work both inside and outside of the home. This webinar brought together a team of experts who addressed issues that are being experienced in the home as a result of the pandemic and provided helpful tips on how to deal with these challenges.

July 14, 2020

Along with the terrible toll it has exacted in lives lost, as well as negative health and economic impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced dramatic changes in how families must navigate work both inside and outside of the home. Dual income couples are expected to juggle meetings and the demands of their job while educating their children and completing housework.  The home has traditionally been a space for relaxation and unwinding, but many have been forced to convert it into a workspace.

This webinar brought together a team of experts who addressed issues that are being experienced in the home as a result of the pandemic and provided helpful tips on how to deal with these challenges.  The discussion looked at establishing the context and the problem and then how the problem is addressed.

 

Program Moderator:

Dr, Julia Kagunda – Counseling Psychologist and Communication Specialist; Consultant at Elm Trust

 

Panelists:

Dr. Susan Gitau – Department Chair and Lecturer at Africa Nazarene University in Kenya

Dr. Aaron Wallen – Senior Lecturer in Human Capital Management at Columbia University School of Professional Studies

 

Webinar Highlights:

Dr. Susan Gitau – In March 13, the President of Kenya required all employers to release their employees to start working from home. Immediately, there were all these challenges because working from home would mean for some people that you must have a laptop or desktop at home, you must have Wi-Fi, and you must have lighting. Some places in Kenya don’t have lighting every day. There is a lot of radiation in lighting. It also means that you must also have comfortable furniture at home, and it also means for the employers to have effective monitoring and evaluation strategies. (Time frame from minute 05:39-06:24)

Dr. Susan Gitau – The employee who is working from home needed to re-engineer or reorganize his or her structure working from home. Because again, at the same time, all children, the ones who are in school from early childhood development all the way to university who are required to go home immediately. (Time frame from minute 06:31-06:54)

Dr. Susan Gitau – Some people had to go home on compulsory leave because now the employer says there’s no work for you because your work requires you to come work face-to-face. So we’re having people in this country right now who are jobless. We’re having others who are on compulsory leave without pay but not sure that they will ever go back. We are having other people with pay cuts at this particular moment. We are having others with delayed salaries. (Time frame from minute 07:07-07:36)

Dr. Susan Gitau – When we come to the psychological part of it, we are realizing in Kenya that we have increased cases of teenage pregnancy. We are having increased cases of sexual and gender-based violence. We are have an increased cases of criminal activities. We are also having a lot of anxiety generally. (Time frame from minute 07:41-08:04)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – Psychologically, it depends where you live in this country. I think those of us in the New York City area witnessed the makeshift morgues that were brought in next to the hospitals and knew directly either people who were affected by COVID, they had loved ones pass away, they were seriously ill, or their family works in the health care fields or other frontline workers. We know how devastating it was and I think people have been shocked into being a little more careful about how they conduct themselves. They are wearing masks a little more often. I think in this part of the country, they’re maintaining social distancing, our governors are opening up things much more slowly. In other parts of the country, it’s as if masks and any mitigation steps are a political statement. Therefore, there’s a lot of resistance to that. So I think psychologically, you’re seeing a lot of denial. Early on, you hear it’s just the flu, it’s a strong flue, it’s not such a big deal, and then you hear things like it only affects sick people (the elderly), so it’s not really my problem. You have an explosion among the sort of 20-year-old to 40-year-old population who are going out to bars and socializing.  (Time frame from minute 14:25-15:40)

Dr, Julia Kagunda – People are starting to all have been working at home. Of course, one of the questions we are asking ourselves today is how is that playing out during this global season where the boundary between home and office is no longer there. (Time frame from minute 16:47-17:04)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – I just want to say there are plenty of people who still don’t have the choice to work from home and are in critical positions where they’re still out there having to bear the brunt of exposure and having to deal with stressed out people. (Time frame from minute 17:18-17:32)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – Most of the schools were closed. Most of the child cares were closed. So you had to be an elementary school or high school instructor as well as whatever your primary job was. You have to entertain the children. When you’re not doing that, you have to do the work that your company and your bosses are expecting of you. You might be on a call at any time since they know you’re at home, you’re kind of always available in a lot of ways. So there’s always this possibility of being reached and having to kind of be on all the time. And then all the household work that still needs to get done, cleaning cooking, shopping for groceries, taking out the trash, repairing things, all of that is still going on as well and I think for most people you know there had been a movement towards more flexibility. (Time frame from minute 17:57-18:50)

Dr, Julia Kagunda – We’ve just been told as Dr. Murugi said that the President of Kenya yesterday made this announcement it’s been opened up. But as much as it’s been opened up, one of the things that came out clearly is that schools will not be opened until January. So the issue of navigating home and work still remains a challenge for many couples or for many families. (Time frame from minute 20:46-21:12)

Dr. Susan Gitau – We actually trying and dying for social physical connection. We are saying this social distancing is real. It’s not the physical one that’s 1-1.5 meters. One of the things I would like to say it is already very hard for parents in Kenya. One of the things I have realized is that parents need to learn or relearn how to correct their children. It is like children in this country listen to teachers more than they do their parents. They can attend to the zoom classes very well. They can do the assignments up to now very well. But listening to their parents is actually a big challenge. (Time frame from minute 21:30-22:15)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – We’ve all grown up in a culture where, I think most of the world is like this unfortunately, where there is a dichotomy between the stereotypes with respect to the genders. Now we’re in this situation that’s unfamiliar to us, what we’re going to do, what humans do, they fall back on the heuristics. They fall back on these quick decisions in times of stress, so they’re going to stereotype more readily. (Time frame from minute 35:55-36:18)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – I think the only thing that’s going to undo gender stereotypes is a redistribution into work roles, and that takes decades and years. (Time frame from minute 38:00-38:08)

Dr, Julia Kagunda – Gender stereotypes and all that may explain some of the violence we are seeing because there is what is expected of men, maybe they are expected to be out and they feel the pressure of being out. There is what is expected of women and all that kind of thing and possibly it may trigger even the violence we are talking about. (Time frame from minute 38:48-39:06)

Dr. Susan Gitau – The employer must think: If I want my employee to work from home, how do I ensure that I’m not making them suffer mentally because now they have to work from home? Do they have the resources? Do they have the internet connectivity? Do they have the computer or laptop? If it’s about communication, like if they are in administrative positions, do they have enough air time that they can easily monitor the people who are under them? We do have the employee assistant programs being transformed to actually meet the challenges of COVID-19. I If I talk about the family setting, the parents who are the leaders of any family setting, they now need to know that our parenting must conform to the challenges brought about by COVID-19 in the household setup. If it is about learning from home, the parent now needs to know that I am the key supervisor of my child. So how do you, as a parent, create an environment of learning at home that is going to help your child not to lose track of school life? (Time frame from minute 40:58-42:26)

Dr. Susan Gitau – Right now, there’s nothing that is going to work more effectively as having community-based mental health interventions. (Time frame from minute 42:42-42:51)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – I think things like communication would be the first on my list. Speaking about expectations with one another. (Time frame from minute 51:00-51:07)

Dr. Aaron Wallen – As we think about our mental wellness during this time, what is coming out clearly is that, at the family front, as we think about balancing all these things we are talking about, that communication is very important, our expectations need to be spelt out there, responsibilities and roles also need to be clearly defined. (Time frame from minute 55:17-55:38)