How Work Has Changed

Today in Australia, more office workers will return to work as restrictions are eased. For all the chaos and trauma caused by COVID-19, there will be a new normal to which we must adapt when the dust settles, and there will be many positives to be found.

Old and staid ways of operating and living have been shaken up and we have been forced to try new ways; ways which we might not have had permission to try by our own volition but were forced upon us to keep industry turning while the majority of Australian’s were instructed to Work From Home (WFH). 

The workplace will never be the same again as a result of COVID-19. For starters, we have an entirely new lexicon including WFH, WFA (Work From Anywhere) and “you’re on mute!”

The way we work is evolving before our eyes and the so-called ‘future of work’ is now here. Slack CEO and co-founder, Stewart Butterfield says this is “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine everything about how we do our jobs and how we run our companies.”[1] 

For years organisations have paid lip service to the notion of flexible working arrangements but, in practice, few have really supported it. 

I distinctly remember having to explain myself to a senior manager of a global consulting firm who asked me if I was going to take three days personal leave as I was heading to Gerroa to write content for a new program we had sold to a global construction company, and I wasn’t going to be physically in the office for three days. He was dumbfounded that I was leaving an open plan office to work without distraction and questioned why I needed to go away. Despite the organisation espousing work-life balance and flexible work policies, he just couldn’t get his fixed mindset around a new way of operating. 

This story is not unique. Recent research shows more than 80 per cent of Australian businesses say they provide the option of flexible working practices, but only 17 per cent embrace it.[2]

The COVID-19 global experiment has changed this. WFH instantly became, not just a luxury afforded to those in progressive workplaces, but a necessity for almost everyone. And WFA is driving up real estate prices outside Australia’s largest cities and driving a boom in regional and coastal towns. 

Companies who once feared that WFH meant skiving off or being less productive have been forced to acknowledge that not only can WFH work, people can actually be more productive. Behaviours now match the brochures and this is bound to transform the way we work long after vaccines are introduced and the effects of lockdown are a distant memory. In order to adapt to this new world and make it a productive, happy and safe one, I believe there are 8 distinct areas we need to look at as a society, a culture, and as individuals.

1.        Fluid hybrid of WFH and the Workplace

As the world eases into a new normal, for many people the average working week is going to be a blend of WFH and being in the workplace. In fact, new research suggests 60 per cent of workers want a hybrid model when their offices reopen.[3]

According to Swinburne University of Technology, the primary appeal of the hybrid model for workers are: No commute (89 %); greater flexibility (68%); financial savings (65%); more time with family and friends (48%); and increased productivity (42%).

UNISA Professor Carol Kulik, who is also a senior researcher within the Centre for Workplace Excellence, says the hybrid model is a good compromise for employers and employees alike.[4] “While the pandemic has afforded us the opportunity to prove we can work flexibly, employees must recognise that not all work tasks are conducive to remote execution. The solution, we believe, is somewhere in the middle, and through ‘job crafting,’ employees and managers can negotiate a better fit between the job role and the individual’s needs, skills and passions, with the result being both higher efficiency, engagement and loyalty. Organisations that proactively use this recovery time to re-evaluate their assumptions of flexible work are likely to be leaps and bounds ahead of their competitors. By crafting roles and performance criterion effectively, these organisations are more likely to retain their talent, attract new talent and thrive.”

Ensuring this new dynamic fits our lives and ways of working, rather than the other way around, is important for making the most of it and discovering your optimal working rhythm.

Uncertainty about floor plans, the number of people allowed on buses, trams and trains and even how long we’ll have to wait for a lift are all obstacles that will need to be addressed as we go back into offices. Real estate footprints will also invariably change, with a predicted down-sizing of CBD commercial property.

In a recent article in the Herald Sun and The Age, NAB CEO Ross McEwen commented “we all thrive on human interaction and coming together for things like work and collaboration, for sport events and another social activities. For NAB, this interaction is what brings the CBD to life and adds to the fantastic culture Melbourne is known for. I know many colleagues at NAB are looking forward to returning and supporting other local businesses in the city again. While we must continue to be safe and follow social distancing requirements, we’re looking to accommodate as many colleagues as we can in coming weeks as we start to return to our Melbourne buildings.”

 Like many large Australian organisations, NAB is building up to the maximum capacity limits that its buildings will allow with physical distancing, but this will be done gradually and managed with an abundance of caution. NAB is supporting employees to adopt a hybrid way of working, with time split between the home and the office each week. In some instances that may mean being in the office one or two days per week for some colleagues, while for other business-critical teams it may be more.

2.        Emerging Technology will Expand Possibilities

Take the monthly segment I do on ABC News Breakfast as an example. Normally this means almost a full day out of my schedule to record a 6 to 7- minute segment in the ABC studios in Melbourne. With new emerging technologies, this kind of time commitment could become obsolete. During COVID I have presented multiple segments from the recording studio we have created in my home office. 

COVID-19 has fast-tracked technology take-up, but the tech put in place to enable social distancing - Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangout meetings, just to name a few – are now embedded in our daily working lives.

These technologies have the potential to change the way we travel, meet and connect. Combined with the rollout of 5G, which should ramp up internet speeds, the possibilities for working remotely will grow. It will be easier than ever to work for a Sydney-based company, while living in a beautiful rural area, where cost of living is low and you have access to nature and community.

Interestingly, technology also has the potential to level the playing field so-to-speak. "Not only is it harder to engage in office politics, show-off, or manage up when you are in a Zoom call and everyone is watching, but the ability to capture, record, and analyse meetings data provides organisations with hard facts to evaluate DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion) in real-time,” write Becky Frankiewicz and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic in HBR.[5]

“It is a wonderful silver lining that technology and the global health crisis have sanitised a lot of the toxic politics and nepotism that corrupt the meritocratic ideal of talent-centric organisations: it is a lot harder to ‘pretend to work’ when nobody sees you or cares about where you are.”

3.        R.I.P the 9 to 5 Workday

Eight hours to work,

Eight hours to play,

Eight hours to sleep,

Eight bob a day.

A fair day’s work,

For a fair day’s pay. (A 19th century workers song) 

The first law in the United States that called for an eight-hour workday was passed in Illinois in 1867. In 1926 Henry Ford is believed to have influenced US labour unions and instituted an eight-hour work day for many of his manufacturing employees. 

Working conditions in Australia were tough for much of the 19th century with employees working from dawn to dusk for low pay and with few rights. In the 1850s, newly formed workers unions put forward the case for an 8-hour day with the slogan ‘Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest’.[6]

While building trades won the eight-hour day in 1856, it wasn’t until 1916 when the Eight Hours Act was passed in NSW and Victoria and then 1948 when the 40-hour-week was approved for all Australians.

The eight-hour workday was created primarily to protect workers who held jobs brought about by the industrial revolution. Now, however, due to a combination of technology, globalisation, and outsourcing, many manufacturing and industrial jobs either don’t exist anymore or have changed dramatically. 

Further technology and remote working changes brought about by COVID elevates the need to challenge the outdated notion of 9-to-5. Work has changed, and there’s little reason why you can’t shift your schedule to fit your personal chronobiology and businesses-specific needs, whether this means workers arriving at the office in staggered shifts or moving start and end times to suit your needs and life. Technological advances also mean work can now be done outside the office and structured around a schedule that suits you.

4.        Leadership is not a Title

Being a leader is no longer just a title on a business card or sign-off on the bottom of an email signature. The pandemic has been a great leadership study as not all leaders have shown they are capable leading through uncertain times. 

The pandemic has created job insecurity and it has resulted in people having to work remotely, so it is the leaders duty to rally the troops, to listen and to adapt. More than ever leaders need to lean in and really lead people, which requires a totally different set of skills. 

An executive recruiter I know recently commented to me “COVID has resulted in the great Australian leadership clean out, as leading via remote means you really do need to lead. The clean out has just started and 2021 will be all about realignment of talent and efficiency gains. Meaning, no more passengers or under-performers. Nearly every ‘C’ suite executive is telling me this.”

Modern leaders require empathy and emotional intelligence and the ability to collaborate - they need strong people skills, not just technical skills, the ability to analyse the bottom line or be the figurehead of the company.

“You’ll need managers and bosses with people skills. If you don’t, the employees won’t produce the goods and will get ill,” says Manchester Business School’s Sir Cary[7].

The pandemic has been especially revealing showing leaders, according to a McKinsey report, “who can make decisions and execute rapidly; who are able to take on new challenges and lead in the face of uncertainty; and who have the grit to persevere.”[8]

The report added: “The future requires leaders to act as visionaries instead of commanders—focused on inspiring their organisations with a clear vision of the future, and then empowering others to realise the vision. It will require leaders who build winning teams; they coach their players but let them make the decisions and execute. These leaders will need to bring energy and passion to catalyse innovation, change, and growth.”

As Charles Darwin wrote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

5.        Reinventing HQ 

With many people now working from home, the purpose of the office will change, becoming a place that facilitates the social elements of work that the home office cannot: deeper collaboration and complex problem solving; building connections and relationships; idea generation; creating a place for creativity, community and casual ‘watercooler’ conversations.[9]

Instead of a focus on individual productivity, many large organisation headquarters will likely focus on the social environment of the company. This will result in a changed layout and design of the office - smaller real estate footprints with workspaces made up of more conference rooms, meeting spaces and video studios in place of desks. Meanwhile hot desking is likely to become less popular as workers who do go into the office regularly may not want to risk sharing and instead want an allocated space of their own they can clean regularly.

Large organisations, including Deloitte and KPMG[10], are also exploring the hub and spoke model which comprises of a smaller central office space, instead of leasing an entire building or whole floor, and then several smaller offices or co-working spaces in local areas closer to where employees live. This is allowing companies to reduce office space by as much as 75 per cent and have a physical presence in places their employees need or would like to live.  

6.        Greater Gender Equality

COVID-19 has been a great equaliser and there is an opportunity to extend this to include greater gender equality in the workplace. While women make up half of the workforce in Australia, they hold only 31.5 per cent of key management positions.[11] One interesting possibility to emerge from the pandemic is the expedition of gender equality in the workplace. There are several reasons for this.  

Historically one of the obstacles preventing women from progressing up the leadership ladder has been a tendency to prioritise family over career.Research has suggested that flexible working arrangements and the ability to work from home allows them to better balance work and home so they don’t have to cede one or the other.

 Jean-Nicolas Reyt, an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at McGill University told the BBC[12]: “Data collected during the pandemic suggests that working from home may also make the father more involved. More couples share family responsibilities more equally now than they did before the pandemic, according to a survey of American couples.”

With fathers able to help more at home and mothers able to work in a way that aligns with their family’s rhythms, barriers to succeeding and achieving are lowered. Reyt added: “If organisations continued to offer remote work opportunities after the pandemic is over, more women will have a level playing field.”

 Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation agrees that the pandemic has given organisations a unique opportunity to address the inequity.

“I hope Covid-19 forces us to confront how unsustainable the current arrangement is – and how much we all miss out on when women’s responsibilities at home limit their ability to contribute beyond it,” she told the BBC. “The solutions lie with governments, employers and families committed to doing things more equitably.”

Post-pandemic, if we can create a system that fits “real workers, not just idealised ones”, says Bobbi Thomason of Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, in HBR[13], we have the opportunity to emerge from this crisis with healthier employees and better performing businesses.

7.        Leaders Play an Active Role in Mental Health

It is much harder to pick up changes in employees physical, psychological or cognitive capacity when we spend all day talking to people on a headset or via a video conference.

Not only do companies need to be aware of OH&S responsibilities and the physical side of working from home – is your desk set up to allow you to function this way long term? – they also need to start thinking about the mental and emotional wellbeing of employees in a way they may not have before.

Leaders need to realise they have an added responsibility to regular check in with their direct reports and ask questions deeper than, ‘are you ok?’ And they know that they need to follow through on supporting employees.

On the other hand, leaders also need to put their oxygen masks on first to ensure they have the capacity to focus on themselves, their teams and the wider business objective and goals. 

8.        Connection, Coaching and Culture

With increased physical distance and more personal responsibility for managing our time, work and motivation, it’s going to be vital to have access to appropriate avenues of connection to maintain a heathy working culture. 

This may mean regular virtual catchups, or it may mean something entirely different that hasn’t yet been thought of. The important thing is that we are thinking about the culture we are creating and making it into one that keeps us all healthy and connected.

Coaching and development is one area that will likely change dramatically. It will be increasingly important for people to have access to resources for self-driven improvement, and for leaders to support this process. 

[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201023-coronavirus-how-will-the-pandemic-change-the-way-we-work

[2] https://workplaceinfo.com.au/getmedia/c334ca64-8926-404e-9891-74caa07a643c/Citrix_state-of-flexibility_Concept_SPages_Final.pdf.aspx

[3] https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/bosses-and-employees-divided-over-working-from-home-rules-20201130-p56j3m.html

[4] https://www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/2020/flexible-work-likely-or-lip-service-beyond-pandemic/

[5] https://hbr.org/2020/10/the-post-pandemic-rules-of-talent-management

[6] https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/eight-hour-day#:~:text=The%20eight%2Dhour%20day%20had,recreation%2C%20eight%20hours%20rest'.&text=The%20union%20put%20forward%20three%20main%20arguments%20for%20a%20shorter%20working%20day.

[7] https://www.raconteur.net/hr/training/ceo-skills-covid/

[8] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/ready-set-go-reinventing-the-organization-for-speed-in-the-post-covid-19-era

[9] https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2020/05/07/6-ways-covid-19-will-change-the-workplace-forever/?sh=40d56971323e

[10] https://www.fastcompany.com/90545418/see-the-unusual-new-office-design-that-deloitte-and-kpmg-are-exploring

[11] https://www.wgea.gov.au/topics/women-in-leadership

[12] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201023-coronavirus-how-will-the-pandemic-change-the-way-we-work

[13] https://hbr.org/2020/04/what-will-work-life-balance-look-like-after-the-pandemic