Reshaping The Future Of Work For A Post-Pandemic World
It’s a new era in the workplace. Are you ready for this?
Remote working has enabled employers to increase employee productivity. New research by the University of Chicago and the University of Essex found that workers in remote areas increased their working hours by 30% but did not improve productivity – a disturbing development that highlights the urgent need to rewrite the boundary between work from home and elsewhere.
Before the COVID 19 pandemic, organizations were already experiencing a push to accelerate and forward the future of work to test their ability to combine people, technology, and dynamics in a business environment that many of us have never experienced before. Now that the pandemic has brought about profound social and organizational change, policymakers have the opportunity to return to work to shape that future and build on the lessons and practices that they have already implemented during the crisis.
Many places in India have already started work from office in full capacity and now even Maharashtra government has announced that all offices can perform work from office in full capacity which brings us to the most important question – what needs to change to cope up with the future work.
Some companies are planning to switch to more flexible work environments due to the positive experience of remote working during the pandemic. This in turn will reduce the overall administrative workload and bring fewer employees to the office every day. Many organizations, on the other hand, are making the most of the WFH approach, creating a ‘no walls’ experience by recruiting candidates from different parts of the nation and to some extent have also gone global for hiring talents for WFH.
When companies look beyond the pandemic, they have the opportunity to rethink work for their employees’ and jobs focusing on specific tasks and activities and not whole jobs. The aim is to prepare for changes in employees’ occupations and skills over the next decade to minimise disruption and long-term unemployment for as many people as possible, especially vulnerable groups that will take longer to recover from workplace inequality before COVID-19, not to mention gender and racial differences in employment.
Organisations that recognise the humanitarian crisis of the pandemic must prioritise the well-being of employees and people, prioritise employees and also work towards new technology adoption in different areas of work and department.
Let’s look at the top 5 shifts that are most likely to propel post-pandemic work culture in India and elsewhere:
COVID-19 may propel faster adoption of automation and AI, especially in work areas with high physical proximity. According to a Gartner study published in June 2020, employers should focus on the role of skills. Vocational education and training and examinations will be crucial, as it is no longer just a question of learning a profession.
Due to the expected staying power of teleconferencing and working from home, those who are able to use technology products will experience meteoric growth due to COVID, which will increase the already high demand for technically qualified employees. Hence, focusing on learning and development is of utmost importance.
1. Increase in remote working
Remote working isn’t going anywhere, in fact, it is here to stay for long and beyond.
Covid-19 has been a game-changer in bad ways as well as good ways. One never thought about shifting the entire workforce into a work from home mode, not seeing the employees daily and transforming entire work on a cloud? Remember those days when even two or more employees used to opt for wfh and how difficult it would seem to manage and, one always hoped for the day to wind up soon so that the employee is back to the office. With over 16 months into it, we can say that remote working is the future.
As mentioned earlier, how companies are hiring talents from across the globe reduces the cost of infrastructure and at the same time hires the best of the talent pool. A lot of startups and small firms who had rented space in co-working space are finding this option more feasible.
Many big-name companies like Twitter and Facebook have already announced that some form of remote work will be an option. Even Deloitte had given any option of WFH or work from anywhere for a lifetime.
2. Reskilling and upskilling must be a collective priority
Companies’ nature of work has shifted and so have the changes in demand for work. With every day requiring something new from the companies to lead or even to stay put in the industry, employees are expected to perform better and adapt to new changes quickly. To tackle this companies will have to invest in reskilling their employees to polish their skills or even enroll them in learning and development for upskilling.
The introduction and the ease of digitization in the education and learning segment makes it easier for companies to plan and enroll their staff for different courses which can also be tracked or gamified to some extent to make it fun and interesting and ensuring that the employees are making most of it.
3. The focus shifts to task completion
With WFH we focused more on the importance of work-life balance. Research shows that people achieve more when they focus on a task after a task and tend to perform better when not bounded by a timeline. This applies to the 9 to 5 time as well. A lot of companies are now focusing on task completion rather than completing the working hours. This allows flexibility to employees to finish their tasks at their own pace whenever they get time. Though managers have to make sure to communicate strict deadlines and team members have to be committed to adhering to them.
4. Remote team building
Whether it’s spending time playing games or trying to learn each other’s personalities, these types of activities will help your team get more out of their work and feel more comfortable participating and collaborating in your upcoming projects. Give your people fun and shared experiences and they will give you a more successful team. If you develop a team-building game for remote workers that is based on actual activity and not a mere chat, you will find that it helps everyone focus on getting involved.
Research shows that virtual activities and games can be fun and serve as an easy way to communicate with team members. Video conferencing tools used by many remote teams make it easy to host and connect to these virtual activities. Virtual team building activities such as games, challenges and exercises that you can perform as a remote employee can help build stronger bonds. Apart from this tool, research and invest in tools like employee engagement tools with features like gamification to promote team building as well as create healthy competition.
5. Don’t just provide the technology but ensure employees know how to use it
Spending on the latest technology is easy but ensuring that everyone is able to use it with less intervention is a priority.
If employees do not have easy access to current directives and process manuals, they will not know the right procedures. A good process to follow would be tested to ensure that employees understand the policies and the technology introduced for them. Staff training may be necessary to adapt. Perhaps you should also consider introducing a reward system for employees who are quickly adapting to the technical know-how.
Spend time and money in training the employees after the installation and keep a manual for reference for future anytime there is some problem or unclarity.
The above five points are not the only area pertaining to the future of work, but it is the most practical to move forward with and has been chosen by a lot of companies in the country. Taking all the steps together at a time may not be a smart idea as it will bring in the challenge and draw attention to some loopholes all together which might work the opposite to your intention and plan. We suggest you create a priority list, weigh the pros and cons, consider the timeline, plan the investment, research more about it and then slowly execute it one at a time.
The change may not bring the desired result in the beginning. Hence, give some time to it before thinking of it as a disaster. We also recommend involving more experts to ensure smooth functioning.
We at Buzzz are happy to assist you in reshaping the future of your company by showing your some best outcomes witnessed by the companies who adopted our world-class all-in-one platform Employee Engagement and Recognition platform. If you wish to know more about this, reach us at contactus@letsbuzzz.com for a brief demo.