CAREER TRANSFORMATION

Every single day, we are learning ways to acclimatize to working from home as we social distance and self-quarantine in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the my country, Philippines, while many speculate on how long this shutdown will last and when we will return to normal work lives, the reality is that this crisis is permanently changing how we work and how we live. There is no going back as the workplace is being reinvented in real time.

The pandemic has shown more people they can easily work from home, relying on email, chats, and videoconferencing to quickly communicate with colleagues. Many employees won’t return to the office even after the pandemic is under control—and the need for physical work spaces and paper files will decrease. Instead, many more people will work from home, fully wired on mobile phones, laptops, and other devices.

Being online all the time will also change the typical workday—eight-hour workdays no longer exist. This requires employees to set clear boundaries, apportioning their family time, personal time, leisure time, and sleeping hours. Otherwise, they risk an unbearable day and decreased quality of life. 

In other ways, the new work-from-home reality will offer creative ways to form work communities and friendlier relationships with colleagues. Virtual happy hours, more comfortable one-on-one video meetings, and blurred work versus personal identities all increase employees’ ability to be authentic and also foster camaraderie. 

But as employees' work lives have changed, so have the companies themselves, as the pandemic has shown them how to operate more effectively. The pandemic has emphasized the importance of frontline employees, reversing trends of recent decades when businesses focused on decreasing the cost and compensation of their frontline workers. There comes a dramatic increase of temporary workers or freelancers. While these jobs will lack stability and benefits, they will nevertheless become more common even after the virus is contained. Companies scarred by the response to the pandemic will be reluctant to add full-time roles when they could add flexible roles instead.

COVID-19 is forcing companies to accelerate their transformation to be all-digital globally. Everyone should have access to the same information to do their jobs, which can eliminate a lot of presentations covering known information, enabling people to focus on resolving important issues in shorter, online meetings. There is no need for those long PowerPoint presentations, as agenda are more focused, enabling meeting times to be cut dramatically.

In the past two decades, focus on systems and processes to reduce costs of frontline workers has led to more layers of middle managers, analysts, and consultants. With their digital transformation, companies will need far fewer middle managers, project managers, and executive assistants. Managers’ jobs should be changed into team leadership roles where the managers produce and coach, as sales managers become sales leaders managing key accounts. With easy-to-use calendar tools and video conferencing systems, there is less need for administrative support. Instead of consultants that do management’s work, companies should give the challenges to their own employees who know the business far better than any consultant.

The pandemic has shown us we don’t need to fly to Shanghai or Zurich for business reviews. Using videoconferencing programs, like Zoom or Skype, meetings can be just as effective online. And not having to travel to meet in-person not only saves companies money, but it makes their leaders much more efficient, while reducing the stress of travel.

However things turned out, I am one of the millions whose career is truly hit. I was busy organizing events, making short films and the like, then this Pandemic. My job was agile and mobile, now, I just need to sit and work at the corner of my little room and face my laptop. This is where money gets in but truth is- I am missing the human touch. That kind of gesture when meeting a client and closing the deal. Now, I believe my career has turned from shaking hands to checking my Paypal. Sad but true and I need to adjust and accept the fact that this crisis has changed me-now I’m transformed.