We’re going back to work, but not the way we used to
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When you go back to work Will you recognize it According to Deloitte, the future will make gig work, remote work and virtual teams from niche or second-class status to the new mainstream.
“We will not go back to what was once,” says Steve Hatfield, Global Future of Work Leader at Deloitte. “Most organizations have recognized that virtual and distributed work can take place,” he says of the “demonstration factor” that was imposed on them Shelter-in-place orders. “We won’t all have the office the same way again.”
Deloitte
Changes in the workplace, of course, vary widely depending on the job type, but all work categories must focus on the psychological perception of whether it is safe to return to the job. “The psychological aspect of safety focuses on trusting your employer, but it also applies to things like the subway or public transportation,” which employers don’t control, says Hatfield. Combine that with a Disease that is not yet fully understoodand it’s easy to imagine that many employees will choose to stay away even if the company reopens its offices.
This keeps these workers from a wider economy of restaurants, coffee shops, transit spending and downtown shopping, all supported by millions of physical workplaces.
Returning to work is also about preserving the corporate culture. This is one of the main reasons why we have offices at all. “It’s a real obstacle,” says Hatfield. “Organizations that think more about their culture will succeed.” Hatfield advocates a clean sheet review, from the way new hires are made to the division of the workday into sections with specific work modes: the mornings can be collaborative, while the afternoons are for individual work and status reviews as Bookends serve it all.
And gig work, far beyond Run over and GrubHub deliveries, can multiply, Hatfield predicts. Many companies may expand their workforce of highly skilled workers so that they have the right human resources at the right time and not always all the skills. This can challenge ideas of work stability and employee retention.
Steve Hatfield had a lot more to say about how the world’s largest business services company got us back to work. Hear all the insights he shared with Brian Cooley in the full video replay above.
