The New Normal

At 4.50 am on the night of 3rd September 1967 the people of Sweden were faced with a ‘new normal’. On ‘Dagen H’ – ‘H-Day’ - there was a ten-minute pause in traffic movement before the country restarted, now driving on the right rather than the left. Undoubtedly, several Volvo accidents followed over the next few days, but as can clearly be seen on the roads of Sweden in 2020 a new normal was successfully adopted. COVID-19 will create a whole array of ‘new normals’ for all of us. Some, like that overnight Scandinavian lane switch, have been quick to take effect, but many others will take much longer. We have adopted standing in a queue with two metre spaces in the carpark of our local supermarket as a new normal. We have, sadly, accepted a daily death toll from COVID-19 as a new normal and, indeed, are relieved – even glad - when it drops to just a few hundred a day! We have begun to hear distinct bird song in our gardens and parks, breathe city air that is a little fresher and take a daily walk just because we can. ‘Stay at Home’ has become a new normal for millions of workers, for the hundreds of thousands vulnerable and elderly. Surprisingly, many of us admit we “are quite enjoying” this new normal lifestyle. As a result, we may feel conflicted about COVID-19. Of course, we want the deaths and infections to end and with it the fear for our families, friends and colleagues, but we would like to hear the birds sing forever and keep breathing the new, fresher, air. These new normalities are also necessarily fragile. A second wave of COVID-19 could see an increasing daily death toll, or a return to a COVID-19 free world could bring the return of traffic, planes and pollution. Our challenge as a society is therefore to innovate, change our behaviours and manage all of the new normals so we can keep the good and eliminate the bad.

One day in mid-March, for many it was St Patrick’s Day, working from home became a new normal. Although thousands of office-work based commuters across the country have for years worked from home on a Friday, making Thursday night the “new Friday night”, this COVID-19 driven working from home is different. It feels transient and temporary, but has the prospect of becoming permanent for a growing number of workers. In the media remote working for millions provokes much debate. Should schools remain closed and with home/online teaching the norm? In some regions of England, and in the devolved nations, the answer is “yes”, in order to keep teachers and children alike ‘safe’. For others, including the former education and employment secretary David Blunkett, not opening schools is akin to teachers acting ‘against the interests of children’. Others yearn for that time with colleagues and friends in the office environment, the informal interchange that sparks an idea and the short break to grab a sandwich from the local ‘Pret’. In equal measure, there are many who despite the new phenomenon of ‘zoom tiredness’ rather like working from home in a t-shirt and shorts, liberated from the long commute and finding themselves more effective. I’ve had conversations with colleagues about the genuine surprise at how much can be achieved through the medium of Teams and Zoom. So perhaps we need a rethink?

The very term ‘remote working’, as used by many businesses, has implicit in it that there is a central place of work, akin to a Victorian factory, from where the remote worker is absent. If the normal place of work is home, then the concept of 'remote working' will fade with time. We will learn to deal with the new dimensions of our workplace, at home, and perhaps travel to an office (coincident with colleagues) just once-a-week. This once-weekly commute will create the opportunity for any necessary face-to-face meetings, lunch out with colleagues and for spontaneous innovative conversations in the corridor. Indeed, looking further ahead, in an environment, where most time at work is at home, architects will create at home workspaces in new builds, innovative house designers will find ways to adapt even the smallest flat to an effective work and living space.  Environmental planners will insist on community workspaces where neighbours, not necessarily colleagues, can meet, share work troubles or successes, complain about the Wifi strength and their bosses, and ultimately forge new professional networks built around locality. We might even see the emergence of the re-use of the empty village hall. For the employer, the savings in buildings should be spent on home working technology and employee support to prevent a sense of isolation that can lead to more serious mental health problems. But in return employers will benefit from a more effective workforce, maybe more working hours per day and fewer eye-watering city centre office building costs. On a societal level, London-centricity should begin to fade, contributing to ‘levelling-up’ and the home worker might choose to spend some of their spare time and energy in their local community, or on exercise, or with friends and family. Of course, a large segment of the workforce has no option but to work away from home, but even they will benefit from less busy roads, getting a seat on a train and enjoying the strength of their now thriving home community.

In the shorter term, there are other new normals that we could never have imagined and more will follow. A 30 minute queue, on our own, to go shopping once-a-week is now normal…R0 in the general conversation is now normal… saying hello to the neighbours and discussing how long it actually takes to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine are new normal. As we emerge from ‘lock-down’ the two-metre rule of social distancing will be everywhere, seeming strange at first, but then normal. Long, socially distant, queues in new locations such as elevators (how long might it take to get hundreds of workers, three at a time, to the upper floors of office blocks?), railway platforms, coffee shops, hair salons, stairwells, pubs (we hope!) and bus stops will all have to be normal to ‘keep R0 below 1’. Unfortunately, for a while, unemployment like the 1970s will be a new normal, favourite restaurants, cafes and pubs will not reopen and summer holidays will have to be at home (unless a week in the sun is really worth two weeks in quarantine). We will all need to deal with testing and tracking the consequence of which might be a call from a stranger with instructions to self-isolate because of the other stranger who stood next to you on the railway platform. We will all also continue to wait for signs of a vaccine and watch the slow descent into blame for the deaths in care homes, the lack of PPE and the decision to centralise testing when those who need to be tested are not. Unlike the Swedes in 1967, we have more time to adapt to COVID-19, discover and invent responses to this modern disease, but as for them, the changes are permanent and impactful both to us as individuals and to our society – it’s just a new normal.