Humans and humanity in a post-COVID world

As crises tend to do, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out sharply contrasting sides of the human experience. Amid all the stories of personal hardship, there are myriad instances of neighborly kindness, community spirit, warmth and positivity. Even in a world that is widely being confined by social isolation, we find common inspiration in uplifting examples of human resilience and bravery, and comfort in the knowledge that we are truly all in this together.

There are also many stories of the corporate world showing its human face: landlords helping tenants, stores opening early for seniors, financial institutions and service providers working with customers in financial hardship, and restaurants donating food to frontline health care workers, to name a few.

This response to COVID-19 has largely been a natural reflex: our collective impulse to come together in a crisis. But I think other factors have been brought into focus by our collective experience of social distancing and self-isolation. I’m sure, for example, that many of us have noticed that working virtually and connecting with colleagues only online has had the effect of making us feel closer to each other on a human level. Videoconferencing from home pulls down the formal walls of the office meeting room and puts us all in our natural habitat; we see the furniture, the family pictures, the pets, and the children running around in the background that remind us that we all have full and meaningful lives beyond the workplace. Now that our workplace for most of us is also our home, it has created a new level of human connection in business that I believe is likely to outlive the pandemic.

This human connection is not confined to workplace colleagues. It extends to a new front-line: healthcare workers using telemedicine, retailers communicating with customers in a more personalized way, and to entertainers reaching out to fans via home-recorded videos. Business models are being reimagined and the human element is paramount everywhere.

Business models are being reimagined and the human element is paramount everywhere.

It’s clear that COVID-19 is going to be a catalyst for change; indeed, it is expected that many of the shifts thought to be years away – such as widespread remote working, virtual healthcare delivery, and the move from physical to online and hybrid retail – will be hastened by at least a decade. But if necessity is the mother of invention, organizations have much to gain from embracing change and reinventing themselves now, making “never again” choices and putting the human element at the center of their transformation will be a key ingredient of success.

It remains the case that advanced digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics and cloud transformation, will be the principal enabler of business reinvention. Indeed, digital solutions are already a crucial tool for companies as they respond to and recover from COVID-19-related disruption, such as service providers that had to replace customer call centers with virtual centers staffed by representatives working from home as well as bots. Despite the rise of the machine, the imperative for the technology and human domains to work together will enhance value, and lead to better outcomes.

Social responsibility also becomes more important under a new business normal that accentuates human connections. Responsibility will be measured by an organization’s ability to connect on a human level with customers, employees and societal stakeholders not just during a crisis, but in their everyday actions. The human face enterprises have shown during the crisis cannot disappear along with the contagion threat; they will need to keep earning trust and demonstrating, through meaningful action, why they deserve it. I believe that our collective COVID-19 experience will transform what has been known as corporate social responsibility – socially beneficial actions that we all expect– into something that is more holistic and ingrained in an enterprise’s identity and strategy. At Deloitte, we call it ‘living with purpose’ – a must-have for every business. I have been energized to see Deloitte people give back during this difficult time, either through employee-led community action, or through business initiatives to help fight COVID-19 and future public-health threats. Actions such as these make an impact that matters, on both a human and a business level.

As the COVID-19 curve begins to flatten, businesses, public agencies and citizens are starting to look forward to what comes next. While it’s a picture that has yet to unfold, I do believe it’s one where human connection will matter, even more than ever. Trust will be a foundation and catalyst for post-COVID-19 recovery. And as we look ahead toward the Next Normal, I wish everyone success and, most importantly, good health.