Forever Changed
Probably like a lot of you, I’ve been thinking about what work will look like as we move through the COVID-19 situation. I’ve been reading articles from places like Forbes Insights, Harvard Business Review, Gallup and various economists take on what will be our new work ‘normal’. There are similarities in what they are saying which usually indicates that these insights might happen. For instance, most of them site that businesses feel that the workplace will be ‘forever changed’ because of the pandemic. And when you look at what they mean by forever changed it includes things like: greater spacing between employees; requiring employees to wear masks at work; providing hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies for employees; limiting the number of people that meet in-person; and looking for more and more low touch tech (like automatic doors, hands-free fixtures, etc.).
One of the big changes is with office space. Many businesses have found that working from home works just fine and now they are re-thinking if they actually need all the office space. This is an economic impact to communities as office space starts to go empty. Employers are seeing that they can break out of rigid job constraints and actually have the right talent doing various tasks and all in a remote environment. Companies like Allianz Global Investors and Cisco have set up internal project marketplaces that break down work into tasks and projects that can be matched with people from anywhere in the organization with relevant skills and availability. Whoa! That’s the gig economy that has been talked about for quite some time and now we see it happening because of the pandemic.
HR policies are changing as well to allow for work location flexibility, or work hour flexibility. Because when you work from home sometimes you are up till midnight working because during the day you were juggling children remotely learning, other ‘office mates’ needing the ‘office space’ (aka dining room table) for a call or just trying to keep up with all the Zoom meetings. But the work hour flexibility also changes things for employees to where they become more centered on getting a task done vs getting the hours in. So, will we see more businesses replacing full-time employees with contingent workers or more exempt status jobs because of this?
(De-) Humanization of employees is another emerging trend. Employees are looking at how they were treated with the pandemic. Were they pushed to work in conditions with high risk and little support or was the company transparent in how they were addressing worker safety? The actions businesses took, or will be taking, will impact if talent comes to work for them or not. People are seeking companies that care about their health and as such they will produce more, stay longer and be active team members when they know that their safety is foremost in the business leaders’ minds.
Through all of the changes the most successful businesses will be ones that change. Changing HR policies, changing employee safety measures, changing the way work will be done, changing how employees are supported and changing how technology is used for work are all examples of where successful businesses are headed. Where is your business headed with these changes? What’s missing from what they are doing? What’s your role in supporting and humanizing your workforce? Now is the time to reflect a bit and emerge with better tools for the new workplace.
Lisa, thanks for sharing this.
I completely agree with multiple aspects in your article! 1st and foremost: how employees were treated during the pandemic. Not just employees that were let go as part of a Reduction in Force, but those that were left behind to pick up the pieces. Reducing headcount to save on costs does not necessarily mean that the workload itself has decreased. Rather, it can cause an increase to the workload for the remaining team at large. Not always the case, but I would argue that I’ve seen this more often in my experiences. A second factor in the treatment of remaining teams/individuals that may have been affected by such an increase in their workloads is going to be whether or not they received a timely and equitable adjustment to their Total Rewards. Many companies held off or delayed promotions and pay increases, while simultaneously cutting costs through reducing additional in office perks (coffee, tea, snacks, etc.). Companies have also likely seen a reduction in costs related to office supplies (pens, printer ink and paper, etc.) but I would argue that while these costs may have been reduced, many employees are now footing the bill for home office supplied without any sort of reimbursement or stipend to offset costs.
Thanks, Lisa, for sharing thoughts about our potential work environments. This is a crazy time and I think back to our Workforce 2020 training project at the Melbourne Chamber twenty years ago. The one factor we didn’t predict/plan for was a pandemic!
Smart article, Lisa.