Satya Nadella Says Work From Home Is ¡®Sleep At Work¡¯, As We Get Tired Easily

Work from home has become the new norm following the COVID-19 pandemic. The one major beneficiary of the trend has been the IT sector, which is capable of working on their tasks remotely thanks to the age of the Internet.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, however, thinks that all is not bells and whistles with work from home.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Image: Reuters)

At The Wall Street Journal CEO Council on Tuesday, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said. 'When you are working from home, it sometimes feels like you are sleeping at work."

Nadella noted that online video meetings can be exhausting and can make employees tired. Such meetings also make it difficult to transition from a work mindset to private life.

Nadella cited brain studies on the subject to prove his point. 'Thirty minutes into your first video meeting in the morning, because of the concentration one needs to have in video, you are fatigued,' he said.

Work from home isn't the same

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Image: Reuters)

There were several pointers that Nadella raised on how work from home cannot replace the office work life. He pointed out that working remotely misses out on some of the benefits of the office. 'Video meetings are more transactional,' he said, as quoted in a Bloomberg report. 'Work happens before meetings, after meetings.'

Highlighting his own learnings from the pandemic, Nadella laid stress on the importance of transitions between work and personal activities. ¡°I am learning more about transitions,' he said. 'So how do you transition? Do you have dinner with the family?' He further said that he has paid more attention to his schedule.

In addition, Nadella mentioned the issue of new hiring during the pandemic. 'You need to on-board them, on-board them successfully,' he said. 'Learning, re-skilling, upskilling is going to become a huge issue.'

Nadella has raised these points earlier as well. Back in May, the Microsoft chief said that if work from home became a permanent norm, it would just be replacing one dogma with another dogma and that it would take a toll on the employee's health.