WORK OF THE FUTURE

As we emerge from crisis to recovery, it’s time to reflect on what we want from our lives and our jobs. What will our new ‘work normal’ look like? Many will welcome the idea of becoming digital nomads or remote workers. Yet with new possibilities come new problems, such as longer hours, being contactable 24/7 and even being under surveillance.

Now that COVID-19 is subsiding, the world is dusting itself off and lockdowns are beginning to end. Yet we need to ask: will our work lives go back to normal? Or has the pandemic set where and how we work on a new trajectory? The career decisions we make now and the noise we make about what we hold important will influence how workplaces of the future evolve.

Many of those who worked in industries rocked by the pandemic – travel, entertainment, hospitality – have transitioned to other careers, launched businesses or returned to study. Others have survived on reduced hours in the hope things would return to normal.

Many of us have learned to get by on less … and what really matters has come into focus.

Those returning to jobs and workplaces may find they look different now, either because the world has changed, or they have. It may be the perfect time to reflect on how you want to shape your future.

PANDEMIC IMPACT

Cancelled travel plans aside, those of us able to ride out the worst of the pandemic in the relative safety of Australia or New Zealand were among the world’s most fortunate. But it hasn’t been easy on any of us, no matter how we look at it.

Being separated from loved ones overseas or, worse, losing them to COVID-19 has been heartbreaking. Our collective mental health has taken a nosedive under the strain of lockdowns, isolation or family conflict.

Many people faced financial hardship and uncertainty as businesses closed, people lost jobs and hours were slashed.

Whether you worked in healthcare, construction, beauty or logistics, every industry has endured waves of disruption as COVID-19 cases surged around the world.

However, there has been good news, too. Working from home gave us more time to spend with our families, we worked out more and pursued things we were interested in – cooking, an online course, painting. The rise in popularity of Facebook groups such as View From My Window reveals that many of us have taken a moment to take our attention off what we’re lacking and onto what we already have.

Belgian graphic designer Barbara Duriau launched View From My Window in March 2020 as a way for people to share what they were looking out at during the confinement of lockdown. The group quickly grew to more than 2 million people, and almost everyone who submitted a photo of their view also expressed gratitude for where they lived, no matter how humble or lavish.

Home is no longer just the place we relax, after all. For many of us, it has also become our place of work.

WORKPLACE 2.0

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, anyone who could work from home did so. Whether jostling for elbow room at the kitchen table, working from the back garden or in your own office, working remotely soon became the new norm.

Teams came together via video conferencing and shared more of their lives than they otherwise would as children interrupted meetings, cats strolled across keyboards and leisurewear replaced traditional work attire. University of NSW Professor of Economics Richard Holden says there have been pros and cons to working from home, for workers and their employers. “At a minimum, time saved from commuting and greater flexibility to multitask other elements of one’s life are positives from working from home; lack of social interaction and the inevitable distractions in most home environments are negatives,” Holden says. “The degree and extent of increased productivity from working at home remains to be seen.”

In a study of more than 3 million people across 16 countries, researchers at Harvard Business School and New York University found those working from home fit 13 per cent more meetings into their work days and worked almost an hour longer each day than they did when they worked in the office.

“TIME SAVED FROM COMMUTING AND GREATER FLEXIBILITY ARE POSITIVES FROM WORKING FROM HOME.” RICHARD HOLDEN

How productive we’ve been working from home is up for debate; so is the best way to approach work-from-home policies going forward. Wellington-based Paul Hume, who works as chief security officer for a New Zealand utility company, says: “I found that productivity increased for some of the

more transactional functions, but suffered for those functions that were creative or required collaborative thinking; I think the challenge will always be that it is difficult to manage your time effectively when you are working in an online world where you are instantly available.”

Sydney-based Leanne Bushby, who works for EP Australia managing recruitment and executive search for the creative industries, now interviews potential candidates via video conferencing. “I find I’m more focused working from home, and I still feel very connected to people because I spend most of my day chatting with people on video.”

While there are many positives to working from home, there is also something to be said for leaving the office and your work behind, she says. “Working from home, my hours have become longer; technology means you are contactable 24/7 and it can become all-encompassing if you don’t put some boundaries in place – otherwise all the positive benefits of working from home are quickly stripped away.”

On the plus side, Bushby says she can now go for a long walk with her dog in the morning in the time she used to spend getting ready and sitting in traffic getting to work.

Many of the people she has interviewed over the past 18 months say they’ve loved working from home, while others struggled and couldn’t wait to go back to work. With such divergent experiences, employers are finding it challenging to work out what the new normal should look like.

“Employers are concerned their workplace culture is changing, and that it’s much harder to keep everyone engaged and connected when some people are working from home,” says Bushby.

Entrepreneur educator Ashlea Wallington, who moved from Sydney to Copenhagen last year, is transitioning to a hybrid work model at the University of Copenhagen after working from home for more than a year. Wallington and her colleagues now have to take a COVID-19 test every three days and she is feeling the same pressure to go in as she did before the pandemic.

“I’m not feeling well today but I’m thinking it’s important for me to be present at work because we have a new starter … after all we’ve learnt

“I FIND I’M MORE FOCUSED WORKING FROM HOME ... AND I STILL FEEL VERY CONNECTED TO PEOPLE.”

LEANNE BUSHBY

about people not turning up to work when they’re sick, there are some behaviours we still revert to.”

For Wallington, an unexpected outcome of going back to the office has been missing the time she’s been able to spend with her partner, who works for an Australian company from their apartment.

“The time we’ve spent in isolation here has been the most time Andrew and I have spent together and we’ve become even more connected, so it was strange to go to work and leave him behind. It felt like we only had such a small amount of time when I got home at the end of the day to catch up.”

THE WHOLE HUMAN

Along with navigating hybrid work arrangements, employers are responding to changing workforce expectations. Australia-based futurist Carolyn Childs says that a rebalancing has occurred during the pandemic, and people are asking what work means in their lives.

“We’re all tired because of what we’ve been through,” she says.

“And when we’re tired there’s a part of us that wants everything to go back to the familiar, but the pandemic has also given us the opportunity to think more about what we need as human beings.”

Autonomy and job security will remain important, but people will most want to work for companies that allow them to live a life outside of work, Childs says. “The employers people will fight to work with are those who inspire them, who make them really passionate about what they’re doing, and who are doing good in the world.”

According to research and advisory company Gartner, attracting and retaining talent will come down to how well companies can deliver employees a life experience, not just an employee experience. Gartner HR vice president Carolina Valencia says employers need to see their employees as people. “More than half of employees feel it’s important for their employer to provide opportunities for personal growth,” Valencia says. “Progressive organisations are providing employees with objective career coaches who help them prioritise their personal goals and explore how to pursue them internally and externally.”

DIGITAL NOMADS

The switch to working from home triggered an exodus from cities into more affordable regional areas offering a better quality of life.

In New Zealand, property values in Gisborne, Napier and Palmerston jumped more than 30 per cent during 2020. Meanwhile, in Australia, tree-changers and sea-changers have been snapping up regional and coastal real estate at such a rate that locals are being priced out of the market. In Byron Bay, NSW, prices have shot up 37 per cent and continue to rise.

Real estate prices are also on the move in cities across the globe, making it less affordable than ever for people to break into the market.

As a result, some people are giving up on the idea of buying traditional real estate – at least for now – in favour of life on the road.

Posts on Instagram’s #vanlife have exceeded 10 million, tiny homes are having a moment, and Airbnb says demand for longer stays and accommodation in regional areas is off the charts.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says the lines between travelling and living are going to blur together in a world where people can not only work from home, but any home – anywhere. A quarter of Airbnb’s bookings are now for 28 days or more.

Once more of the world’s people are vaccinated and travel bounces back, a growing number of workers are likely to set up temporary bases across the globe for at least part of the year. How do we know this? Because it was already a trend before the pandemic. “The pandemic has turbocharged that by expanding the demand pool,” says Childs.

“People have realised there is more of their job they can do from anywhere than they realised, so the digital nomad experience is going to get larger and deeper.”

Businesses supporting remote workers abroad will resume their pre-pandemic growth and are likely to expand the age groups they cater to. Remote Year, for example, sets out to “enable people to live, work, and grow in the most inspiring locations on the planet”, while WiFi Tribe has a similar approach. Traditional business travel is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels, however. A growing awareness of the impact air travel has on the environment is part of the reason, but it will also become harder to justify flying across the planet for a meeting now that we know how well a similar meeting can be conducted via Zoom.

UNDER SURVEILLANCE

While technology has made it possible for us to work remotely, it has also enabled employers to keep closer tabs on workers. Coventry University Assistant Professor Evronia Azer says software can track workers’ keystrokes, mouse movements and websites employees visit when they’re on the clock. Managers can also use technology to take screenshots to check people are at their desk and activate webcam monitoring software to measure facial expressions, body language and eye movements.

“All this can be checked against a worker’s output to draw conclusions about their productivity,” Azer says.

Surveillance techniques like these may reassure employers that workers aren’t slacking off, but job satisfaction and morale among workers is an inevitable downside.

“There is evidence that such techniques can make people feel vulnerable, afraid and less creative,” Azer says. “Those already struggling with home-working, perhaps because they have to care for children at the same time, are particularly likely to feel that this surveillance is making their lives even harder.”