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As most organizations are getting back to the physical workspace many are not entirely considering the complex nature of this coming back. Alongside the concrete and needed health protection measures in order to be fully compliant with health authorities (e.g., alternating work shifts, increasing cleaning frequency, and re-designing workstations to allow for social distance), other more complex social and psychological layers of the problem must be addressed.

Work structures much of our daily practice. It gives us a social network, a stable salary and a predictable routine. Although it is a privilege to work from home, it is not exactly easy during a global pandemic like the one we are experiencing due to COVID-19.

We are living in unprecedented and critical times, due to the presence of COVID-19, which is forcing many immediate changes at the personal, social and economic level, consequently, affecting all organizations everywhere in the world. We can look at this challenge as with any crisis in two ways: as a problem or as an opportunity for profound learning and change.

Presently, organizations have been concerned with workplace architecture and have made many changes in recent years to their office spaces, aiming to create a more creative and healthy work environment.

According to UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, work–life integration is “an approach that creates more synergies between all areas that define ‘life‘: work, home/family, community, personal well-being, and health.” This approach emphasizes gentle pivots rather than hard boundaries between different areas of life.

Online questionnaires began being implemented in the 90s with the sole purpose of streamlining the process and reducing costs. Later, organizations realized that questionnaires were a bit long and applied over long intervals, these pains fostered the development of “pulse surveys” (Welbourne, 2016).