Heading back to the future?
Its interesting to observe how some organsiations are starting to define their ‘new normal’. We hear for example that some companies are not expecting their workforce to come back to their offices till at least the new year and when they do, it will be different. Employee are expected to have greater choice in their place of work and the workplace itself is likely to be used differently and configured differently to cater to physical distancing, contact tracing and cleaning requirements.
We hear that The Australian Public Service on the other hand, seems to be moving to have their workforce come back to their offices, possibly forgoing many of the potential benefits of flexible and remote working.
We also hear how many senior executives are longing to get back to their familiar, comfortable hierarchies after months of operating in more agile and flatter, dispersed team arrangements, to get back into former routines and to having their teams physically present and visible once again.
At a national level, we see a federal budget designed to get people into jobs yet is somewhat unclear about the kinds of jobs a vulnerable nation in a climate and pandemic threatened world would require or need into the future.
It will be interesting to see what COVID 19 driven change actually sticks and what reverts to the ‘good ole days’ pre COVID.
Andri Magnason, the Icelandic poet and celebrated writer describes how COVID 19 has brought a ‘great pause’ to the world and that we are all going through one of humanity’s biggest social experiments. He asks “are we just going to re-start everything and pretend nothing happened?”
It’s a really important question to ask and I suspect our answers, whatever they might be, will be revealing of who we are and what we think, or indeed don’t think, about our relationship with work, with each other and with our planet.
Leader and Coach at Royal Australian Air Force
4 年Thanks, Andrew. I hope one of the positive things to come from the pandemic is the next evolution in how we empower our employees to demonstrate how they will be most productive.
Non-executive director | Chair | Strategy, governance and risk advisor
4 年Well said Andrew Simon - the ‘return to office’ sentiment is a symptom of a bigger issue about not grabbing the opportunity to create a better future than the one we had pre-Covid. So much has changed and we’ve been confronted with so many things that didn’t serve us well. Its now or never!
Founder / Director Kaleidoscope Consulting, Executive Coach, Facilitator of programs empowering people and organisations to realise purpose and potential, Executive Coach Mentor and Coach Supervisor growing Coaches.
4 年Thanks Andrew, thought provoking, I suspect creating cultures based on trust, connection and empathy has been somewhat challenging to the normal hierarchical structures and relationships in organisations - it may be safer for some managers to return the office, to what they knew before Covid, perhaps the only real certainty that they can return to in a world of uncertainty. Stay safe and well.