How Coronavirus Is Shifting the Future of Work
Covid19 has impacted the world in ways we could never have predicted.
As well as the health, humanitarian and economic challenges, there are also many repercussions on our daily lives. Specific trends in the future of work, such as digitization, remote working, and automation, will be accelerated.
Some of these changes will be short-term, and some will be with us for the long-term. But what changes can we expect in the world of work and how will these affect us?
Has the concept of “the office” come to an end?
For many of us, Coronavirus has meant a huge shift in our working habits. The daily commute to the office has been replaced by walking ten paces to a makeshift cubicle in the corner of your living room.
With schools embracing e-learning, you might also be juggling work and family commitments, which involves mitigating potential distractions. Despite the challenges, 60% of Americans would prefer to continue working remotely, even after public health restrictions have been lifted according to research by Gallup.
If remote working is here to stay, then what does that mean for the office? Is this the end of physical premises? Experts think not. Whilst a portion of workers will continue working remotely, some will inevitably return to the workplace. However, the design and layout for offices will need to adapt to guard against the potential transmission of the virus.
Open-plan offices could become a thing of the past, as office designs move towards physical separation. Plexiglass barriers, built-in hand sanitizers, and adapted air filters are some of the many ideas being proposed to reconfigure the American office.
How will companies measure productivity for remote workers?
One of the benefits of working from home is flexibility. You can host zoom calls in your pajamas, take a break when you feel like it, and incorporate an online yoga class into your day, all without having to consult anyone.
Will this freedom and flexibility continue? Some firms have begun to use surveillance programs and apps to monitor their employees. This raises some questions about ethics and privacy. It’s natural that firms want to measure and track productivity, but is monitoring an employee’s every move a good idea?
With privacy a growing concern for many people, being monitored in your own home could be crossing a line. Companies could instead use performance metrics and regular check-ins to ensure that employees were hitting specific targets. This would go further to engendering trust, which is vital for morale and engagement.
9 to 5 could become a thing of the past
How much of the traditional 8-hour workday is spent doing actual work? Just over three hours, according to studies. The remaining five hours are squandered, doing a range of activities from surfing the web, chatting to co-workers, making coffees, eating snacks, and searching for new jobs. It may be that remote working could lead to us being more productive and firms moving towards measuring productivity instead of the number of hours.
Flexihours and remote working also offer more opportunities for working parents and may help address the balance for workplace gender inequality. According to the Pew Institute, “women who took time off at some point in their work life to care for a child or other family member were twice as likely as men who did the same to say that this hurt their career overall (35% vs. 17%)…According to many economists, family-related career interruptions can undermine women’s economic prospects in a variety of ways, by contributing to the gender wage gap and by narrowing the pipeline that feeds top-level jobs.”
A more flexible work culture would help create more equity to redress the balance of juggling family and work commitments.
Coronavirus is clearly not going away anytime soon, and the changes that we see in our society could be long-lasting. However, as with any challenge facing humanity, there will be opportunities and innovation that spring out of this period of adversity.
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