The “New Normal” – Silver Lining or the Emperor’s New Clothes?
With the world now into its sixth month of lockdown many countries are at last starting to see signs of life returning to some kind of normal. Chief among the “new normal” changes is the intention to embrace much higher levels of remote and flexitime working. But is this the silver lining of the coronavirus cloud or just another case of the emperor’s new clothes?
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to “aggressively open up remote hiring”
- Twitter says employees “can work from home forever” if they wish (but would you want to?!)
- A major UK law firm is closing its London offices and “won’t ever go back to how we worked before COVID-19”
But are the benefits really that clear and worth making seismic shifts in working practice for? Let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of flexitime and more remote working.
Advantages and disadvantages of flexitime
Pros
Switch to a four-day week and maybe work a couple of those from home. Great for popping to the shops, fitting that overdue dental appointment in and doing a gym session while the kids are still at school. Flexitime certainly isn’t new, but it just might take off big time now.
Cons
There’s a real risk our work-life balance gets bent out of shape and we end up neither working well nor playing well, writing emails while we watch TV and catching up lost hours at the weekend. If you’re good at creating structure, all well and good. If not, proceed with caution.
Advantages and disadvantages of remote working
Pros
The average UK commuter spends 65 minutes getting to and from work each day. For the average European it’s 49 minutes. 3.7 million Brits commute for 2 hours or more every working day. Say goodbye to that pig of a commute. Save fuel, save the planet, save the train fare and give yourself an extra hour in bed.
Cons
How’s your home environment - an oasis of calm or chaos from morning till night? And how will it feel working solo day in and day out? Don’t underestimate the pressure of competing work-life demands and the feeling of isolation many homeworkers experience.
Is "the new normal" technically sound?
Pros
Getting online in the first place might be challenging, but it's worth the effort to experience a new way of conducting meetings. Dispersed groups of people can come together easily, and they aren't so quick to talk over one another. Introverts get to contribute more easily and, depending on the platform, you get to see everyone's reaction on one screen.
Cons
Where shall we start? For some home workers VPN issues, hardware issues, security issues, maintenance issues, lack of out-of-hours support, dopey users, grumpy tech staff can be a complete pain in the backside.
Managing and leading remote teams
Pros
There’s no question flexitime can increase options when it comes to covering shift patterns, weekend working and national holidays, but does it make it easier to lead a team? Not really. That said, it does mean leaders absolutely must build healthy one-to-one relationships with their direct reports to truly understand, support and develop them, so in that respect, it’s a winner.
Cons
It’s hard enough leading a team who are in the same office, never mind when they’re working different hours in different buildings or even different countries. Micromanaging will stifle initiative, empowerment and development. Managing too loose risks the team lacking common purpose, cohesion and collaboration. Balance, as ever, is everything.
Productivity while working from home
Pros
’Deep work’ that requires intense concentration in a distraction-free environment is especially suited to the quieter realm of a home environment. Simpler tasks, too, transfer very well into remote and flexi environments where people can crack on without interruptions.
Cons
Working from home is a productivity nightmare if you’re addicted to social media, X-Box or Netflix. What can also suffer is decision making. Sure, things often moved fast during lockdown, but the people who had to roll with that already knew one another well and were mostly executing plans that had been worked out long in advance of the crisis. The kind of creative, collaborative work that gives birth to new ideas, creates solutions out of problems and builds relationships out of acquaintances needs plenty of face to face contact. We’re people, after all, not machines.
Conclusion
It feels like we’ve all become a bit more human since COVID-19 struck. Every day is a dress-down and bad hair day. Dogs and children worldwide are invading meeting spaces without a thought or a care in the world. The sometimes rigid formality of the board room doesn’t translate well to virtual meetings held in living rooms, bedrooms and garden sheds, so there’s a softness about team get-togethers that wasn’t there before. We’re been reminded of our vulnerability and common humanity and that feels good. Will it continue when the virus disappears? We have to hope so.
