How COVID-19 is Affecting Workplace Practices

COVID-19 has put a lot of stress on businesses and individuals around the world. It has undoubtedly changed how billions of people around the world live. But at the same time, it has also changed how we work and is causing us to rethink “the future of work.”

From a business context, this global tragedy is forcing organizations to evolve their workplace practices quickly. Companies that perhaps didn’t believe in flexible work options or didn’t have remote work programs in place are now telling their employees they must work from home. And in order to stay productive and keep the business running, these organizations are being forced to quickly adopt workplace flexibility policies. That also means they are upgrading their technology to give employees the tools and resources to work remotely, such as internal collaboration tools, web conferencing capabilities, and security measures to share and protect information.

It’s been rather fascinating to see organizations accomplish in a few weeks what they have been trying to do for several years.

I put together a video which talks about this in more detail below.

Please check it out below and if you want more content like this you can subscribe to my Youtube channel.

The mass movement to remote work to protect employees is also forcing organizations to rethink their approach to leadership. Leaders still need to lead employees, even if they can’t see them or now oversee dispersed teams. In many cases, that means evolving how leaders engage with and motivate their teams.

In many ways, this horrible event is a wake-up call for organizational practices and policies that companies need to think of in terms of leadership, technology, workplace flexibility, security, and more.

1. Organizations that never had flexible work programs now do.
2. Leaders who didn’t believe in and practice things like emotional intelligence are now being forced to.
3. The idea of putting people before profits is becoming more widely adopted.
4. Employee experience is becoming more crucial than ever.
5. Organizations are upgrading the technologies that employees use to get work done.
6. Agility and The Mindset of the Explorer are becoming crucial.

Although it has come out of a terrible situation, COVID-19 is forcing us to redefine what it means to work and lead.

Through dark and tough times there is always the creation of something new. My big fear is that when we do get through this organizations around the world will simply get back to the old ways of doing things.

It’s going to be up to us as leaders and employees to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I’m filled with optimism and hope that we will finally focus on creating organizations around the world where people WANT not where they NEED to show up to work each day.

Let’s create the future of work we want to see!

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If you enjoyed the article and want more content like this here’s what you can do:

1. Subscribe to The Future of Work Podcast where I interview business leaders around the world each week.
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