Work and Life Reimagined in a Post Pandemic World.

I have had a number of conversations with friends and colleagues about the future of work and life post Covid-19. From the start of the pandemic and the ensuing crisis, I have always maintained that we will be in a social distancing posture until there is a vaccine or advanced medical therapies for the majority of the population. In my estimation that is a 2022 event and we are starting to hear murmurings from the scientific community about the fact that this will not happen quickly. Our hopes about reconvening in ways that have always been our custom and reality are two different things. Sure, we can flatten the curve and slow the rate of infection so that the virus doesn't overwhelm our healthcare systems and more hastily damage an already crippled economy, but slowing the rate of infection doesn't mean that people wont get sick and die...they just won't do it as quickly.

Slowing the rate of infection doesn't mean that people wont get sick and die...they just won't do it as quickly.

As someone who worked in both technology and operations, I was one of the first to be able to test working from home. By 2008, I had a workstation in my house that mirrored my office at work, my office phone rang at my home and I had a standalone video conferencing screen that allowed me to video conference with internal colleagues. I only worked from home one day per week but I had everything I needed to do it though it was an expensive proposition. HR had introduced working from home agreements that were at the discretion of one's manager. Many of those managers were resistant insisting that productivity would suffer and that face-to face was absolutely mandatory for most jobs. Working from home became something that was reserved for returning mothers (especially as the stigma around paternity and fathers taking time like mothers was high) and people with medical or extenuating circumstances. Working from home for reasons of balance or will was a huge privilege that tended to be reserved for but a few and usually the most senior.

Fast forward to now. In the twelve years since the set-up that I had at home, technology has evolved in ways that enable most people who work in office environments to work from home. For reasons of necessity, it is now being done at a scale that even the most forward thinking about remote working would have ever imagined. Several years ago, to reduce the costs of real estate, HSBC in London (at least) went to a primarily hot desk model and built out great meeting spaces, break out spaces and conference rooms with almost no assigned desks. It was a bold move and one that means in this crisis staff would have experienced the emotional trauma that everyone else has suffered but not the sudden shift of having a tested remote model at scale. Most corporations with offices made the shift to almost entirely work from home models in weeks and for most it works just fine. It took a crisis to get here but there is no lag in productivity. Sure, it is an adjustment but the challenges that people and teams are facing are related to isolation and working every hour in the day not getting work done. Work and life boundaries have become even more blurred and for those who are homeschooling as well...time is merely a construct.

There is no going back to normal. Normal as we know it is over. It's time to focus on the new normal and figure out how to maintain social and economic normalcy in the environment in which we now find ourselves...permanently.

So, I'm going to share some of my predictions right or wrong. There is no going back to normal. Normal as we know it is over. It's time to focus on the new normal and figure out how to maintain social and economic normalcy in the environment in which we now find ourselves...permanently. While everyone will not work from home and the many who derive their energy from extraversion may suffer, I believe that many people will end up working from home - if not full time perhaps several days per week. As a result, I believe that construction will be particularly hard hit in the coming years. While I think there will be much work to do in terms of re-purposing spaces, the multitude of cranes across our respective cityscapes will decrease as corporations recognize that they just don't need the real estate that they thought they once did. All businesses are being forced to evolve. We are at the beginning of this crisis not the end. This is the first wave. Retailers who will survive will quickly pivot to models including curbside pick-up and online ordering as their primary offering as we are already seeing. Services like Uber and Lyft will need to shift their business models very publicly and quickly with huge marketing campaigns - ride sharing will not be the thing for awhile if ever. The businesses that arrived so quickly and changed our operating landscape are in danger of disappearing as quickly as they arrived if they can't pivot. The Uber Eats model will help Uber in some ways but people are still skeptical about cooked delivered food until such time that more is known about the way this virus works. That story is evolving daily. Those businesses that will thrive are the ones that make their safety protocols central to their messaging. People need to know and understand in explicit detail how you are keeping their food safe.

The gig economy in the western world will shift to being based on a delivery culture and there will be no shortage of work in that space. People who risk themselves so that others can stay at home should be given more than hazard pay or extra tips. This requires a fundamental shift in paying the roles that are the most critical to our society and economy. If this crisis doesn't do it, I don't know what will. Service industries as a whole including teachers and healthcare workers are the critical functions in our societies. The question is whether our ultra capitalist lens and model will shift to align pay with actual value in any meaningful way. That question will ultimately define us. In the global south the concern is that famine will take hold in ways that the world has never experienced. The difference this time is that if action isn't taken, this will not be something that can be relegated to some far flung place that you see on the news. This will happen on our own doorsteps and no one will be immune to the reverberation of its impact. The solutions for poverty and famine are difficult but not impossible. Will those that can...do? Will we make the adjustments required or will local, regional and global disparities continue to widen at our peril?

We are being forced to re-evaluate our lives against a moral code that has felt long since forgotten.

If any good thing has come out of this conundrum it is that those who are blessed enough to have families are spending time together in ways that some have never experienced before. We are being reminded about what is important. The earth is visibly repairing herself and we are focused on our households and families - for many that is a good thing - for households that are challenged by domestic violence and other triggers - it is challenging and even life threatening. We are being forced to re-evaluate our lives against a moral code that has felt long since forgotten. Our ability to emerge a more thoughtful workforce that values the roles of the people who drive our economies and keep us safe is a huge lesson that we have to learn and apply. Focusing on our families and seeing the shift in our children because they have our time and the stability that provides is paramount. They are watching us for the cues. Taking this time to consider who we want to be and what we want our world to look like when we are being forced to redefine all of the outdated models for work and life real time is a gift that will allow us to test and change at the same time. Getting this right and making decisions that protect all of humanity is what making the world great again would look like. That is the world that I reimagine.

P.S. Special thanks to Sneha Shah, Gabrielle Glore and Kennedy Ihezie who helped me think this through and get clarity though unwittingly!