A better normal

Welcome to Future Perfect! This is a bi-weekly (twice a month, I had to look it up ) newsletter for anyone who is struggling to keep up. The workplace is changing at such a rate we can barely figure out if we work from home, or live in the office. It's hard to work out what the future holds for any of us. What we do know is we want it to be better!

I've timed the launching of this newsletter intentionally, because it is almost 12 months to the day since I took my last business flight, as the world responded to the news about a deadly virus.

Within weeks, our vocabulary had permanently shifted as viral went back to its original meaning and stopped being about teenage Insta Influencers.

COVID19, global pandemic, economic depression, R rates, test and trace and unprecedented times, tripped from our lips and keyboards as if they had been around for ever.

A few months later, big chunks of the world were quarantining. Millions were furloughed. Offices were closed, kids were being home schooled. Bars, restaurants and other services shut their doors. Life as most of us knew it was over.

Women didn't know whether to shave their heads or their legs, and I developed a highly dysfunctional relationship with L'Oreal. Authenticity can be overrated.

Men who previously sported sharp business suits, now appeared on Zoom calls channeling "basement chic" with new-age survivalist beards and baseball caps. Our days became a blur of back-to-back online meetings and the most common phrase of 2020 was "can you hear me?" COVID brain and burnout are now "things" which everyone understands immediately without Stanford having to do the research. But here is their survey anyway.

Women turned the clock back 40 years with the amount of housework and child care they are undertaking. I started to drive around the block to fool myself I was going to a meeting.

And yet not only did we cope, many found moments of joy and elements we liked about this terrible situation. One thing we are all sure about is that we don't want our working lives to life to return to what they were pre-pandemic. We don't know if it's called a new normal or next normal or even a now normal.

We all want a better normal.

Work from anywhere model

One of the most exciting knock-ons from this dire situation that number of companies, especially in the tech sector are assessing their "presence culture" policies and adopting a “Work from Anywhere” model.

This will allow employees to choose whether they want to be in the office full-time, be at home full time, or a combination of the two. Some businesses are also offering increased flexibility around locations, so employees will be able to choose the place, town or even country where they work. Others such as Spotify are also going to provide co-working space memberships for employees who opt for remote working, but still want a dedicated workspace.

Zoom Town Brats

The landscape of the modern workplace is going to change completely. This has been a long time coming and it took a global pandemic to open up the minds of organisational leaders to new ideas.

The ramifications for this are huge and will impact whole ecosystems from towns and countries, to organisations at both a macro and micro level. The business real estate foot print will shift as we see a rise of what are being called Zoom Towns with groups of people leaving big cities which I call Zoom Town Brats. It's not a question of will you be impacted but when. Whether you are an HR professional, a leader or manager, a recruiter, career coach or job seeker; or simply someone who doesn't want to #WFH, we will all have to think ahead.

What changes are you anticipating?

Remote working visas

The idea of being a digital nomad working remotely from exotic locations has been around for a while, but the notion is definitely gaining momentum again. Another hidden bonus is that tourist destinations badly hit by the pandemic, now want to attract the new generation of remote working professionals.

This would not be the typical gap year person happy to sling Mai Tais in a Bali bar and do a few Tik Tok marketing videos and Vlogs on the side. This is a new wave of higher net worth, senior professionals whose companies are embracing the work from anywhere ethos, who could be interested in the opportunity of a year long visa for remote working. This includes high profile locations such as, Dubai, Bermuda and Greece which are promoting incentives, including tax breaks, for the next generation of digital migrants

Could that be you?

So have you figured out what you plan to do in the new normal to make it better?

If you or organisation need support getting to where you want to be working remotely, Get in touch NOW.