Last summer, I wrote why the business arena was never going back to “normal,” my arguments owed to the fact that the vast majority of enterprises across the world were now operating in a corporate landscape that encouraged flexibility, innovation, and new and strategic ways of getting work done.
That was in the summer, a time when most of us were just a few weeks removed from being fully-vaccinated and ready for some semblance of normalcy in our personal lives. Could we attend a sporting event in-person? Could our kids finally return to school full-time? Would we be able to have dinner with our older relatives?
We now know that the Delta variant of the coronavirus had much different plans. And, shortly on the heels of that surge, Omicron brought its own playbook.
So now we’re within the end of the winter months. Many of the cities and states that experienced horrible caseloads and hospitalizations around the 2021 holidays and into January are now seeing those waves start to subside. And, inevitably, as things gets better, that question makes its return:
When do things get back to normal?
I was struck by this article in The New York Times by Charles M. Blow this past weekend. Blow writes:
All of us, I believe, were simply waiting to see when our lives would reset, and what the new normal would look like. We still believed that if we did the right things — at least if enough of us did them — that the pandemic would pass and things would snap back to the way they were.
But, as each month passed, and then each year, it became more and more clear that COVID would most likely move from pandemic to endemic.
There are many reasons why our personal lives will never return to normal, given the tremendous change we’ve collectively experienced over the past two years. Blow’s article, “There Is No Post-COVID,” illustrates how “COVID has made us reconsider everything, the meaning of home and work, the value of public space, the magnitude and immediacy of death, what it truly means to be a member of a society. We are still finding the answers to those questions, but the America we knew ended in 2019.”
While business itself doesn’t straddle the line between life and death, a novel virus that has upended the lives of billions of people across the world was always likely to bring permanent change to the way we work, how we work, and, of course, why we work. There should not be a single business leader that could honestly ponder when we would return to the “normal” ways of getting work done.
Societal change has dictated that we invest in and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. Technological change has pushed us into new realms of digital transformation and automation. Leadership has transitioned into empathy-led business culture that pushes the “human” side of business into the forefront. Talent has undergone a revolution that has fundamentally altered the relationship between a business and its workforce, resulting in a “Great Resignation” that will forever transform the dynamics of talent engagement and talent acquisition.
We can see, however, how businesses would apply Blow’s quote above to their corporate world. Those early months of the pandemic, well, more like the first year (before the first vaccine campaigns), heavily-dictated just how much we in the business arena yearned for those halcyon days of 2019. No masks, no social distancing, no supply chain disruptions, no economic uncertainty. Instead, we faced layoffs, furloughs, and a veritable rollercoaster ride that seemingly had no end.
But the world has changed tremendously since then, both from personal and professional perspectives. Remote and hybrid workspaces are flourishing, while the power has shifted to the worker in today’s revolutionary war for talent. Businesses now know that the volatility of today’s market can be flipped to become competitive advantages. The economy is thriving. “Adaptation” has become a foundation for the future. Digitization has come full circle and is now driving innovation within the business stratosphere.
And, most important of all: the Future of Work has been realized.
