Now That The Pandemic Is Winding-Up, Should We Go Back To Work? Or Forward?

Now that the pandemic has done its worst to the workplace environment, we are all gradually getting back but we’re still thinking if it’s better not to. To Keith Ferrazzi, coauthor of the new book Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest, the pandemic and work disruption is an inflection point to push to learn a bit further and step in to “go forward to work, not back”. We’re going back to work with nothing much changed in terms of collaboration and inclusion than before 2019. In fact, according to Ferrazzi, what really happened during the pandemic is that leaders stepped off their podium and became humble enough to say, “I don’t know.” That willingness to say “I don’t know” has left an open invitation to collaboration and co-creation with people. Leaders’ limits were somehow exposed during the pandemic revealing humble personalities. Based on these facts one should think of the post-pandemic era as an era of exploration rather than resignation. Companies should acknowledge the potency of asynchronous and non-meeting-based collaboration.

According to recent Mckinsey research, returning from the pandemic emphasizes hybrid models of remote work to likely persist, mostly for a highly educated, well-paid minority of the workforce. Agriculture, transportation and warehousing, accommodation and food, construction, and manufacturing are the most industries to include tasks that can not be performed remotely. Whereas, finance, insurance, management, professional, scientific, technical services, IT, telecommunication, and education include more tasks that can be performed remotely.

To succeed in hybrid culture, companies can start acting on five fronts that include embracing asynchronous communication, setting clear communication boundaries minimizing interruptions and maximizing concentration on work, championing documentation and artifacts by setting well-organized archives and online references that the whole company links to, finding ways to broadcasting communication like newsletters, blogs, and group posts, and finally providing the right tools like software and hardware that enable employees to have access to work from home.

Adam Ozimek, the Chief economist at Upwork, asserts that companies and employees have gained practice with remote work during the pandemic and rather than going back to work like before 2019, they are discovering new possibilities for leveraging flexible or open talent. For those companies that are succeeding in flexible and open talent, their models are driving exceptional results, but they require purposeful management.