Future of work and what it means for leaders?

The Pandemic sucked us into the future.

In March 2020, I was in our head office in Male'. Having physical meetings with senior leaders of the company, brainstorming and thinking of ways to navigate through the 'storm' of the COVID 19 pandemic, which had already started affecting the Tourism Industry in a gigantic way. As a company almost entirely focused on tourism, the survival of our Company and? the industry was at stake. It was a time where as leaders we had to put on a hat like the captain of a huge ship hit by a storm, whether there is nothing but uncertainty. It was a time we needed to collaborate with other leaders, it was a time we needed to meet physically to discuss extensively and make decisions to navigate through the storm and bring the ship to a safe harbor.? So it was unimaginable to go into a situation where we would not be able to physically meet on a daily basis.?

However the inevitable happened. One day suddenly the government decided to close the border of the country and announced a curfew in the capital city effective from a few hours of notice. The news was like, as the Maldivian old saying goes 'falling something heavy on a foot, which was in pain already'. We had no choice but to pack our stuff and laptops and rush home before curfew time.?

We were lucky that we have already had the IT backbone setup for remote working. We were on Microsoft 365 for a few years and a few months before, our IT had started shifting to virtual servers. Though our teams had not gotten used to tools like Microsoft Teams, we already had it. So I was confident that we could collaborate in a more engaging way than just a telephone call. We started working on MS Teams the very next day. We were compelled to learn it and other collaboration tools like Zoom.? Both Microsoft Teams and Zoom went through constant evolution at a very fast pace and we had to learn and use new features almost on a daily basis. This experience was like we got sucked into the future. And due to the nature of the COVID 19 pandemic and rapid pace things changed. It didn't leave anyone behind, it sucked the entire world population into the future like the past 3 years was a time machine. Surely we had never imagined that we could work entirely from home for more than 3 months without being able to go out even to buy groceries. But we did it. We evolved and we innovated, as the saying goes, Necessity is the mother of Innovations.?

What did leaders learn the hard way?

I am not sure if not for the pandemic and the pace it happened, whether I would have even thought of writing this article on a seaplane flight flying above the beautiful islands of Maldives, on a rainy day, though generally it's sunny. The pandemic really made a mindset shift in leaders and everyone. Most people's priorities changed. It had forced leaders to think of their people more than? their processes and procedures. It was a lesson to leaders to be more humble and make people at the center of all business processes. It made everyone to realize that we all are in one small bubble called earth ??. And no one can be safe and happy unless everyone is safe and happy. It forced leaders to prioritize the well-being of everyone in the organization over everything else. It forced the leaders to see Humans not as just a resource but as beings. It also made leaders realize the importance of adopting business processes and technology which will enable more autonomy and flexibility to the human beings working in the organization.?

What is the future like?

As found in Many surveys, workers priorities have changed after the pandemic. People want to put their health, well-being, and loved ones as top priority. Work is forced to follow. In the future leaders will be compelled to reverse their thinking about “work-life balance” to “life-work balance”, as that's what will be demanded by the human beings who survived the pandemic.?

Workplace of the future will be a hybrid model. People will like, want and will be compelled to be more flexible in where they work from. People will be more productive, when they can choose from when and where they work from, as their emotional well-being and taking care of themselves and their loved ones, before they can complete their work will be of utmost importance for them and their productivity.?

This demands from leaders, a new way of thinking, and redefine, what productivity is. Leaders need to adopt already available collaboration technologies. Leaders need to let go of the traditional way of control they want to have over people. People need to be empowered by? giving them more flexibility and autonomy, and equip them with tools and resources for them to be healthy physically and mentally, so that they can be more productive.?

The future of work should be like what I am experiencing today, writing part of this article from my mobile phone in a seaplane on flight mode and completing the balance quietly sitting by the writing table in an over-water villa of a 5 star resort overlooking the ocean, as I am stuck in the room due to heavy rain and being thankful for the google docs, which i can use across devices. Thanks to a very productive day and welcome to the future of work.?