What changed as a result of the COVID pandemic?
Pretty much everything when it comes to the world of work that today’s high school and university grads are moving into.
The big question is whether COVID-19 is reshaping our work world forever.
The general consensus among those who research post-pandemic changes in the workplace seems to be that, yes, companies need to look at the pandemic as an opportunity to modernize how people work.
That should not only include a shift to having employees working from home, but also being open to alternative schedules, including four-day work weeks and six-hour work days.
That new world of work is even developing its own vocabulary, with terms like “quiet quitting.”
The term may be new, but the idea behind quiet quitting has long existed, says Anthony Klotz, associate professor at University College London School of Management. “Although this has come from a younger generation in new packaging, this trend has been studied under different names for decades: disengagement, neglect, withdrawal.”
Quiet quitting means not abruptly leaving a job but doing exactly what the job requires — no more and no less.
Quiet quitting’s underlying ambition is to draw clearer boundaries between work and life in a society that fetishizes endless hustle.
But unless it’s coupled with a broader understanding of why many people feel a compulsion to take an “I’ll do whatever it takes if it kills me” approach to the job, quiet quitting is clearly open to skepticism.
Klotz believes that the idea of quiet quitting is resonating post-COVID because of an increase in conversations about the lasting effects of the pandemic on mental health.
But there’s more to it than that. Indranil Roy, a partner in the Human Capital practice for Deloitte Consulting, points out that more of the global workforce is working remotely partly because the pandemic continues to threaten health.
According to Roy, businesses and organizations might be looking at a prolonged period of hybrid working – from home and office in different proportions.
Employers are learning, says Roy, that many tasks that were previously done “in-office” can be accomplished remotely without significant drop in productivity or quality. “Most employees appreciate flexibility,” he says — especially those with long commute times.
Not everyone agrees. Human resources experts point to a human cost to this changing workplace arrangement. Over time, they say, face-to-face interaction is required to facilitate collaboration, build relationships, solve complex challenges and generate ideas.
Continuous remote work extends the workday, blurs work-life boundaries and reduces mental wellbeing.
Erica Brescia, chief operating officer at GitHub — an Internet hosting service for software development — agrees. “First, the workplace is a social environment and business in any form is a social phenomenon. Without face-to-face engagement, work groups quickly lose focus, and the sense of belonging — and of commitment to the organization and its aims and objectives — is very quickly lost”.
One thing all these researchers into employment transformations agree about is that companies need to look at the pandemic as an opportunity to modernize how people work.
At the same time, employees must build resilience and actively preserve boundaries between home and the job, not only to boost performance, but to maintain personal well-being.
Experts say proactive and progressive companies will seize the opportunity to embrace the new workplace normal for all its idiosyncrasies and turn it into a competitive advantage, while simultaneously improving the lives and commitment of their workers.
For kids moving into the workplace “new normal” for the first time, and also for those struggling to accept change after years committed to old-school workplace practices, this poses a challenge.
But most importantly, the next generation of employees and more progressive employers both seem to understand the advice of author and businessman Stephen Covey that “most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
