Meeting Your Needs While Working From Home

Current research¹ has found that humans have three basic psychological needs that are universally important to help us develop and grow, maintain integrity, and be physically and psychologically healthy (Deci & Ryan, 2000). These three needs are the need for competence, the need to act with a sense of volition, and the need for relatedness. All three basic psychological needs are essential to be satisfied with healthy functioning^{1 2 3}(Boudrais et al., 2011; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Van der Broeck et al., 2008).

Workplaces have great potential for satisfying our needs by providing a source of challenge, achievement, and comradery. However, if you are working from home, workplaces may find it challenging to help employees meet these needs (or meeting your own needs if you are self-employed). Therefore, it's important for you, yourself, to be aware of these and help "craft" your job into one that does.

Need for Competence

Feeling competent is about feeling that you can master or control your work and feel effective in managing challenges and meeting goals.⁴ (Vandersteenkiste, Neyrinck, Niemiec, Soenens, De Witte, & Van den Broeck, 2007). That is, do you feel capable of managing or even mastering challenges?

Some of you may find that this need is actually met more working from home. You are able to be distraction-free from people "popping their heads in" or overhearing water cooler talk. You may also find that this is worse at home because you now have a dog's head in your lap or a child pulling at your sleeve.

Need for Volition

In the literature, this need is labeled with the misnomer of Autonomy. However, it does not pertain to individualism, independence, or separateness¹. It's about wanting to feel you "own" something or feel you can put your "stamp" on something and speak up and endorse your actions or beliefs¹. That is, do you feel you can provide input on decisions or choose how things are done?

When given the trust and flexibility to work from home, this need is likely to be met before others. However, if people are still working in an office, you may feel they forget to loop you into decisions.

Need for Relatedness

The need for relatedness is the desire for close and intimate relationships that are stable and enduring⁵ (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). That is, do you have support from colleagues and your leaders?

This is likely the hardest need to be met while working from home. You may feel isolated or left out. Even phone calls may not provide the visual cues and body language that can provide non-verbal support.

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How to Meet Your Needs

If you find one of these needs is not being met, take accountability for how you can rectify the situation. There may be ways you can adjust your job, so you feel more competent. For example, if you are an early bird, schedule your more complex tasks earlier in the day. If you have at-home distractions, set up boundaries, such as a "stop" and "go" sign on your door.

If you find you don't have a sense of volition, schedule more calls or meetings with teams and your leaders to stay in the loop. Ask your leader if you can dial-in to meetings that are ancillary to your job, but still related. See if there are any side projects you can "own."

Finally, to get your relatedness needs met, try doing more video calls. Utilize more social media, like Slack, to keep connected throughout the day. And if you work in a completely different time zone or for yourself, build your business network (or have or be a mentor) to have times to chat and meet with people throughout your day.