After nearly two years of a forced experiment in work from home for many workers, we can see now that the experiment has been mostly successful and productivity has proven resilient. Plus, this experiment has cemented a demand for autonomy among workers that had been a growing desire for years.
We can surmise from that, that It is not going back to pre-pandemic office occupancy levels. When the pandemic ends, work from home is unlikely to stay as extreme as it is today. Therefore, we will see far more people working remotely, but, for some period of time, not as many as there are at this point in time.
Unfortunately, some business leaders have not onboarded the learning. Instead of looking at this forced experiment as a way to learn and innovate, they viewed it as temporary. That means that innovation was not nearly as robust as was possible. Innovation is needed to determine:
- How will we deal with “zoom fatigue”?
- What changes can we make to our meeting facilitation to take advantage of the tools available to us?
- How can we ensure that the culture of the organization does not atrophy in a virtual environment?
Someone will innovate around questions like these, and they will reap the early rewards in employee retention, recruiting, an engaged culture and productive meetings. Why not work to ensure that it is you?
Similarly, it is alarming how little focus has been put into how to take advantage of the secondary and tertiary effects of this trend. Things like:
- Opportunities brought about by empty/underutilized commercial real estate
- Opportunities brought about to serve people that work from home
- Opportunities brought about to employ people that would have been geographically out of reach for your business
There is a market opportunity for the innovators who exploit one or more of the opportunities created.
Just my opinion. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
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