Corona - things that I've learned so far during partial lock-down in Australia

We are in a period of unprecedented challenges with the COVID-19 crisis effectively closing down most of the world. I've been working remotely for about a week now and these are some of the things that I have learned and some of the emerging questions about the experience.

Remote work - Being a regular traveller I am well an truely used to working whereever I can get access to wi-fi and a mobile phone signal. Many people are not. Will remote work become more normalised for non-customer facing roles? One of the things that I have noticed that I have missed the most in the last week or so of remote working has been generally missing the journey to the office and being in the physical office environment.

Human contact - I am known around the place as wanting to have a cup of chai and / or somosas over a chat to try to get to the personal level with people. This has probably been the biggest adjustment required for me. I have used technologies to retain that personal level contact with my clients, making sure that both parties have their camera on.

Humans are hard wired as social beings. Being part of a social setting and a community is what has been around since humans evolved. This desire will not change. I am hanging out for this to be over so I can get back to the chai and samosas.

Resourcefulness - everything has changed at this point from our shopping habbits, meeting frequencies all the way to the methods used to maintain contact with clients. OK cool, everyone has gone crazy and bought all of the meat at the supermarket, I guess we'll have some lentils instead. I need to increase my frequency of communication with my offshore clients but want to do this in bulk, Zoom away.

Active listening - this is a really key point at the moment. What are your stakeholders saying? What questions are they asking you? Are you agile enough to keep up with your stakeholders emerging needs? (these things are changing practically daily at the moment). Listening and adjusting to these needs is beyond essential.

Australia and the world have changed - the ultimate question at the moment is "what is the new normal?". COVID-19 has changed Australia and the world, to what I cannot really tell you. A "new normal" will emerge when this is over.

I am the International Regional Manager (Subcontinent) at Education Centre of Australia. The views expressed in my articles are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organisation