Why COVID 19 will change the way we live and work...forever

As the virus reaches 60,733 diagnosed cases and 7,097 deaths so far in the UK alone, and looking to the news to see far greater impacts across the globe, we are clearly facing an unprecedented situation likely to have serious impacts to our lives.

I spoke at a conference in London this week on the topic of ‘The Future of Us- in the Digital Revolution’ that should have seen 10,000 to 15,000 people in attendance, yet I’d say only 3,000 to 4,000 actually showed up. As we met colleagues and new contacts over the 2 days we swapped handshakes for elbow bumps or from habit forgot and shook hands anyway. The lack of attendance was expected and we talked about how we are likely to see the UK over the day and weeks ahead join other European countries and take more serious lock down measures in a bid to contain the spread.

For many businesses this is likely to have a sever effect on their ability to trading and the movement of their employees. As a result just keeping the lights on will massive challenge.

So what can we do? Well we’ve started already to reduce the travel and postpone or cancel some planned events and where possible, for those that can, we are working from home. As a home worker myself the travel restrictions wont really change things a great deal, my company provide robust remote working tools and we have tested our systems in the past by closing our head office for the day and encouraging everyone to work from home or a local coffee shop.

Many other businesses out there are the same and have a range of services from secure business use devices, secure web access and support for BYOD (bring your own device), however, this is usually limited to specific roles or groups of field force workers. Millions of others are still reliant on office based PC's and systems to get their jobs done.

So what do we need to consider. What system access do they need. What system access can you give. What hardware can you give them or what do they have at home already that they could use. Working from a kitchen table isn’t always ideal, but as a needs must, it’s amazing what you can get done and it’s a great time to review our remote working tools and chance to dust down the Disaster Recovery and Contingency plans, in a bid to keep our businesses ticking over.

But what happens if the schools close and millions more workers then need to work from home due to child care issues. How do you enable the workforce everywhere. Do we have a plan for this, if so have we ever been tested.

I type this as the radio announces further restriction to flights and border around the world and the situation is forecast to get worse and my prediction is that not only will this test businesses to the hilt it will also bring considerable transformation to the way we live and work forever.

So how will this situation change the world of work and in turn our lives.

So let's start with the technology. In a modern world of Data Clouds, many office based roles are that way because they've always been that way. For hundreds of years the UK workforce has got up early and gone to their places of work and put in a shift. It's what we do, how we do it and it works well. This pattern is also healthy in that it creates routines, social interaction and for many a sense of achievement and purpose. It also provides a clear divide between work and our leisure and downtime. Also, there is a cost and perceived risk when changing any IT system and if a business is reliant of their systems to survive, a big change to the status quo is not something business owners would knowingly rush into disrupting. Now, I'd argue the benefits of cloud are that its often cheaper, far more reliable and very secure in comparison and that transformation to cloud is happening at a pace and options to say on premise are reducing fast, as systems have to migrate for either support reasons or that suppliers are now only building software natively in the cloud and full transition to cloud is inevitable.

The other aspect of the technology is the services and solutions now available. We can now securely message and chat while collaborating on a document with a few or hundreds of colleagues at a time if required. Thanks to considerable improvements in both mobile and broadband services we can now run video calls reliably across the country and globe, greatly improving our remote business interactions.

The second factor to consider is our approach and attitudes to flexible working. Many of our office systems are already in the cloud, yet we still follow the pattern of locating our PC's and people in the office and following the old routine. So I ask the question Why? Now, again I stress that I appreciate a large number of roles do require people to interact in person, but I'll argue that millions more can be made remote and the current situation will force us to consider this in a new way.

Aside from the habits of 'it's always been that way' there is also the opinion that we need to see our work force to know they are really working. There are two schools of thought around this point and some considerations business owners need to consider for the future, let me expand.

Will Flexible working becomes the new normal

Firstly, I mentioned the benefits of flexible working to the individual, from doing the school run or doctor's appointment flexibility, which is great but let's also consider the benefits to the business. The key point is that we get more done. I'm contracted to work 38 hours a week but due to flexible working I'd say I've done that by Wednesday most weeks. As an early riser I can log on early and catch up on a few things, I don’t have the hour in rush hour traffic to contend with, nor do I have the water cooler chat about the weekend, or what was on TV last night. I also have a habit of replying to the odd email in the evening or at weekends, which I know isn't the best habit, but it affords me the opportunity to buy time back as and when I need it. Working from home for me is ultra-efficient and I'm 100% certain that I could not actually do my job in 38 hours office allocated environment. My company get far more from me as a result of flexible working and the benefits are mutual for me and my family, I couldn’t go back.

Now to balance this slightly, I'm not saying close the office completely but instead we can reduce the footprint and our costs massively as a result. It great to get together with colleagues and personal interaction is vital in maintaining morale or motivation, the question is how much is needed and what's the balance. Do we adopt a 4 days in 1 day at home option, or do we flip that the other way. Do we do a rota of roles working in the office on certain days of the week, or perhaps we go all out and turn the office into a Huddle type environment and invite people in when needed to share updates and news.. I'm sure there isn't a one fits all solution but some degree of change will be required to handle the consequence of the current situation and also a younger more tech savvy workforce who have grown up understanding the benefits of remote technology.

How do we know our people are working

The Second point to consider is, how do we know they are actually working. Sounds harsh, I know, but we all have that one colleague who doesn’t quite put in the same shift that you do and is often a source of much frustration, as you both pick up the same pay cheque at the end of the month. Currently the answer to this is simply down to professional managers doing what they do to manage tasks, people and projects and in the case of remote working it's down to regular contact and staying in touch with the remote teams to ensure projects stay on track, using technology as the tool to connect.

Well the good news for the worker out there and the bad news for the slackers, is that technology will change the way we manage our work in the future. We will see an array of new project and task solutions come to market that will track every single part of a project or task and bring Ai (Artificial Intelligence) into play. These solutions will breakdown every single project and role and make suggestions on the skills needed to complete a given task. It will tell you who is working on what, who contributed what to each project, from the time spent looking at a documents to phone calls made relating to the task. Ai will keep the project on track and remind people who are falling behind or rise a risk to the manager or project lead where more support or additional skills might be required. Sounds a bit big brother yes, agreed but ask yourself this. Would this be a problem for you? If you turn up and put the effort in like most of us do, it could be very good in terms of fair reward for your efforts and the little bit extra you give. Also the team slacker is likely to be having a few difficult conversations as a result. It will also fuel the Gig Economy as people with skills in high demand will offer their services to companies and use these solutions to securely support a project and means of invoicing for their services. I'd say regardless of our stance on this, it is going to happen. Technology advances in this field will make us massively more efficient overall and their adoption is inevitable. (Keeping checking back for an updated Blog of the future of Work, that will focus on both the Gig Economy and future reducing hours of work based on technology taking over some of our tasks in the near future)

The current coronavirus situation is going to get worse before it gets better. Business around the world are going to be tested as a result, inevitably many business will not survive this period and for those that do, your people may have some new expectations and attitudes to the office and way we work today. If we can be just as efficient, or more efficient, working from home why would the workforce go back…

Stay Safe

Ant