Stop assuming that the old ways will come back<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nIn fact, this isn\u2019t much of a problem. Most executives we have spoken to have been pleased at how well the sudden increase in remote working has gone. At the same time, there is some nostalgia for the \u201cgood old days,\u201d circa January 2020, when it was easy to bump into people at the coffee room. Those days are gone. There is also the risk, however, that companies will rely too much on remote working. In the United States, more than 70 percent of jobs can\u2019t be done offsite. Remote work isn\u2019t a panacea for today\u2019s workplace challenges, such as training, unemployment, and productivity loss.<\/p>\n
Start thinking through how to organize work for a distributed workforce<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nRemote working is about more than giving people a laptop. Some of the rhythms of office life can\u2019t be recreated. But the norms associated with traditional work\u2014for example, that once you left the office, the workday was basically done\u2014are important. As one CEO told us, \u201cIt\u2019s not so much working from home; rather, it\u2019s really sleeping at the office.\u201d<\/p>\n
For working from home to be sustainable, companies need to help their staff create those boundaries: the kind of interaction that used to take place in the hallway can be taken care of with a quick phone call, not a videoconference. It may also help to set \u201coffice hours\u201d for particular groups, share tips on how to track time, and announce that there is no expectation that emails will be answered after a certain hour.<\/p>\n
Accelerate best practices around collaboration, flexibility, inclusion, and accountability<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nCollaboration, flexibility, inclusion, and accountability are things organizations have been thinking about for years, with some progress. But the massive change associated with the coronavirus could and should accelerate changes that foster these values.<\/p>\n
Office life is well defined. The conference room is in use, or it isn\u2019t. The boss sits here; the tech people have a burrow down the hall. And there are also useful informal actions. Networks can form spontaneously (albeit these can also comprise closed circuits, keeping people out), and there is on-the-spot accountability when supervisors can keep an eye from across the room. It\u2019s worth trying to build similar informal interactions. TED Conferences, the conference organizer and webcaster, has established virtual spaces so that while people are separate, they aren\u2019t alone. A software company, Zapier, sets up random video pairings so that people who can\u2019t bump into each other in the hallway might nonetheless get to know each other.<\/p>\n
There is some evidence that data-based, at-a-distance personnel assessments bear a closer relation to employees\u2019 contributions than do traditional ones, which tend to favor visibility. Transitioning toward such systems could contribute to building a more diverse, more capable, and happier workforce. Remote working, for example, means no commuting, which can make work more accessible for people with disabilities; the flexibility associated with the practice can be particularly helpful for single parents and caregivers. Moreover, remote working means companies can draw on a much wider talent pool.<\/p>\n
Read the full report <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The future is not what we thought it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":26493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1069,46],"tags":[99,1385,3746,184,3745],"class_list":["post-26494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-choice","category-innovation-business","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-northam","tag-making-the-new-normal-work","tag-mckinsey","tag-new-normal-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26494"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27279,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26494\/revisions\/27279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}