How the ‘world of work’​ is mutating?

In the initial days of the coronavirus pandemic, when governments across the world were contemplating lockdowns and organizations were implementing work-from-home, I thought all of it was an over-reaction. I was a skeptic and amongst those who countered corona related deaths with well-researched numbers on people dying of car accidents and other illnesses. But three weeks into forced lockdown and working from home has turned my initial skepticism to an acceptance of the new normal.

The change necessitated by the invisible micro-organism has already made us rethink and reconfigure the way we work. Reluctantly, I have come to believe that our traditional world of work has changed forever.

So here is my take on how the world of work is going to change:

1.Work-from-home: If now, why not always

If we find it possible to work from home during the lockdowns, then why not at other times as well? Many organizations will seriously be thinking of reducing overheads by asking employees to stay at home. It would be cheaper for them to give employees a high-end laptop and high-speed wi-fi connectivity.

2. Reduction in official travel

The daily peak hour commute to office may become a thing of the past. The same day fly-ins and fly-backs for important meetings, conferences, interviews, etc. will be replaced by e-presence through video-conferencing, meeting apps, etc. In addition to employee / client convenience, this will be cost-saving and eco-friendly.

 3. Reconfiguring offices

While tele-commuting and work-from-home will free up office space, what corporations will also look at would be smaller offices spread over a wider geography (with split teams) rather than huge buildings or complexes in a single location. In case of isolations or lockdowns in a particular area, this model will keep your operations sustainable.

4. Work sharing apps, cloud-hosting

There will be a sea change in the way we work. Instead of emails and attachments, there will be a surge in work sharing apps such MS-Teams, Slack, etc. Instead of secretly guarded servers in premises, more and more organizations will go for cloud-hosting and web-enabled services. On the hardware front, I foresee, more and more PCs will be ditched for laptops and tablets.

5. Changing work-life balance

Fixed workday of eight hours with weekly offs may become redundant. Employees may find it difficult to compartmentalize family time and personal time from their work time. While the commute may reduce the travel-related stress, however there is genuine possibility of increasing stress if there is no clearly demarcated boundary between your work time and personal time.

6. Fewer managers

A possible side effect of work-from-home models and forced digital adoption may be lesser requirement of middle managers. With work sharing apps and remote meeting tools, there will be fewer requirement of administrative and supervisory support, which are typically provided by the line managers.

7. Increasing temporary jobs

The pandemic enforced lockdowns may force HR departments to relook at certain roles. Many full-time roles may be rechristened as part-time. Flexible timings and shorter shifts, and hence lesser wage bills, may become a norm even after the virus is contained.

8. Metrics will be outcome-focused

With an increase in employee empowerment and independence brought over by the work-from-home model, there will be a larger emphasis on results. More and more key performance indicators and metrics will be results-oriented and outcome-focused.

9. Training will embrace technology

Corporate training with face-to-face facilitation, free lunches and overnight stays will become a rarity. There will be more and more e-learning through digital courses, webinars, micro-learning, online tests and task-specific videos. Additionally, training which used to identified and delivered top-down, will be owned and personalized by employees. Aspirational employees will become responsible for their learning and development.

10. Recognizing forgotten but important jobs

Banks, supermarkets, etc. have realized the importance of customer-facing employees. Similarly, essential behind-the-scenes roles like truck drivers, sanitation workers, etc. have been conferred a new-found recognition. These job roles will experience a new-found valuing by their employees and customers.

11. Tele-consulting by doctors, lawyers, wealth managers

Consulting advice and service by doctors, lawyers, wealth managers and other kinds of advisors and consultants will be provided remotely through video-conferencing and other digital means. This will be huge saving of time and money for the providers and their clients.

12. Larger inventory

One of the surprising discoveries during the lockdowns have been that companies having lean inventory and a global supply chain found their business models being disrupted. In my opinion, going forward, manufacturers carrying larger inventories will no longer be seen as inefficient.

The pandemic has shown us how to operate more effectively. The traditional workplace is being reinvented in real time; the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back. As employees’ work lives have changed, so have the companies themselves. Family members, friends and non-work acquaintances will become active collaborators in work.

Over the years, changes in the workplace have been incremental. The coronavirus lockdown has been one of those instances, where change has been quick, imperative and in the most unimagined and unprecedented way.  As is often said, the most adaptive to change will survive and prosper; if you resist and hang on to the past you may soon be redundant. Indeed the virus has forced the ‘world of work’ to mutate.