How Work Will Change Post-Corona

Life is beginning to look a bit more normal these days, at least in my corner of Europe. I went to a restaurant for the first time in three months last week and regional travel is looking more feasible. What will "normal" mean though as we come out of our shelters, blinking in the sunlight to see what the world looks like now? Certainly, a lot has changed. Some of those changes will stick. But an awful lot will remain the same. We will need wisdom to tell the difference.

The Obvious Stuff

Let me get the obvious ideas out of the way first. These are the things that everyone has been talking about as the first impacts of Corona on the workplace.

Working From Home Will Increase Substantially

The main surprise about the sudden move to work from home is how well it went. When I was an analyst, I spoke with many companies who kind of, sort of thought they should adopt a work from home (WFH) policy, but never really got around to it, citing how difficult it would be. If you looked hard enough, there was always a reason not to do it.

Well, it happened even if it was not always easy. Most managed pretty well; there was no choice. Necessity swept away all the usual discussions of policies. management styles and security concerns so people just got on with it.

Once employees get used to working from home, it will be hard to get them back into an office. Tech companies like Twitter have acknowledged this and proactively promised that employees can work from home forever if they choose. Organizations have been forced to change policies and develop processes that let people work from any location. Even if everyone does not stay at home forever, there will be many more taking advantage of WFH possibilities.

Business Travel Will Be Much More Rare

I live in Europe, but have always worked with clients in the US. When they wanted to do a longer meeting and I suggested doing it by video rather than sitting on a plane for 22 hours round trip, they usually reacted with surprise. "Are we not important enough to come see us?" I could sense them thinking. Sometimes they would say it out loud.

From now on it will usually be the opposite. Travel will not go away, but will be far less common.

Industry Events Will Be Hit Hard

In three months, events have gone from being an industry mainstay into something unthinkable. In February, I was mapping out which events I would be able to make it to this year. In June, it became hard to even contemplate boarding a plane to go spend a couple days in a hotel conference room with thousands of other people. I think events at the scale and prevalence we knew them will not come back.

No Handshaking, But Hand Sanitizer Everywhere

Maybe more people will use it now.

The Less Obvious Stuff

Looking a bit further out and a little deeper, some changes are not quite so apparent.

There Is No Such Thing as "Post-Corona"

Despite the title of this post, I don't think that it will make sense to talk about post-Corona anytime soon, if ever. The virus itself is not going away, although the rate of infection will go down with any luck. Even if researchers find a vaccine, the effects of the virus on how we live and work will not disappear. I will never look at a jammed concert hall or crowded economy class flight the same way I did before. Even if I decide to buy a ticket and put myself in those situations, there will always be a nagging disquiet in the back of my mind. An organization that assumes that they just have to wait for clients to come back could be in for an unpleasant surprise.

If you find yourself saying "After Corona is over, we can do XX," then you are doing it wrong.

Anyone putting off plans or implementing changes until after this "Corona business is over" is thinking in the wrong way. Even if governments ease social distancing and travel restrictions, the effects on how we travel, socialize and do business will not fade away. Instead of putting things off until we can get back to a normal that will never come, we need to redesign how we work. This post provides some ideas, but questioning assumptions about all of these interactions is a good way to start.

Digital Transformation Works

Companies that already had adopted digital technologies generally made it through this crisis much better than those which had not. Organizations which already made extensive use of the cloud, had renovated their applications, and used digital channels to communicate with clients, employees and suppliers were able to cope with the demands brought on by the virus much better than those which had not.

Those who relied on processes that involved moving a piece of paper from one desk to another to process orders or who managed by seeing who was at their desks at 8:30 every morning had a hard time. They were scrambling to modify their processes or get equipment issued to staff that would allow them to continue to work.

This should not be surprising. Better agility and resilience are among the most important benefits that digital transformation is supposed to deliver. Guess what? It does. There is no excuse to not go digital anymore.

People Will Be Harder to Find But Easier to Contact

The WFH imperative has made most people accustomed to more flexible ways of working, which means they cannot find each other physically they way they used to do. To accommodate working from wherever, effective teams have consciously or unconsciously developed a way to contact each other even if they cannot find each other.

I have worked from home since 1995, so no one can expect to wander down the hall to find me (except my wife). To make it worse, I split time between France and The Netherlands and speak with an American accent. Colleagues and clients would never know where I was, but know that they could contact me on IM, email, Whatsapp or my mobile phone. There is less need to find me if they can easily contact me.

Industry Events Need to Adapt

It is obvious that Corona damages the events industry severely. It is less obvious what event organizers can do about it. Many events have done an admirable job at quickly switching from in-person meetings to virtual conferences run over web conferencing. While this experience is usually... fine, no one has really cracked the code of making it great. It is OK in reaction to an emergency; for some occasions, it is fine. But sitting in front of a computer at my desk is no replacement for a good conference.

Good events are so much more than just hearing a speaker. I want to meet other people, gauge the reaction of the crowd, see which stand on the show floor is the most crowded. One of the main benefits is being able to get away from daily work for a couple days and really focus on a particular topic. Virtual events don't really provide any of this.

The business model is another barrier. We have come to expect that online events are free, which undermines the financing model for events. Unless you are a vendor pushing a product, it is hard to see how anyone could invest the resources needed to put on even a virtual event if no one will pay for it. Event organizers will have to experiment with new models that attendees might be willing to pay for, perhaps combining regional locations with a live feed from a central location, or enhanced technical experiences using AR/VR technologies.

So far, I am not impressed. One event I saw asks attendees to pay €99 to listen to a virtual panel discuss the future of work, while charging €249 if you want to ask questions or €399 if you also want a wine package and swag bag to enjoy at your desk. I am not sure what the right model is, but I doubt that this is it.