Laura Stack* believes that many of the different ways of working forced on us during the pandemic are going to improve our productivity for years to come.
While we may be premature in assuming that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed with the Delta variant alive and well, it’s better than it was a year ago.
However, things will never be the same in its wake, even for those of us untouched by the disease itself.
Our new attitudes about social distancing, personal protection, and hygiene will remain for a long time, as will practices adopted in all aspects of our lives.
Among other things, we’re still weathering the worst recession since the Great Depression.
So many of us have been laid off, furloughed, or otherwise put out of work due to lockdowns.
Now that we’re piecing together the shuttered and shattered portions of our economy, we’re also putting into action various things we’ve learned in order to get anything done at all.
More than anything else, remote technology saved us from financial and business ruin.
During the last major pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920, our ancestors managed without it, because they still depended on simpler lifestyles.
In the intervening century, we’ve become dependent on high-tech and machines. Without them that we could barely function as coherent, centralised organisations during the pandemic.
Without telephony and its offshoots, we couldn’t have gotten much done.
The general consensus is that these and other new business methods of promise will revolutionise post-COVID productivity as things normalise.
Let’s take a look at a few things the business world has adopted that promise good things to come.
Less business travel
This was forced upon us as airlines and other carriers either shut down or drastically cut back.
Suddenly, it became near-impossible to have face-to-face meetings with clients or co-workers across the country or world.
Face-time — if needed — was usually possible using Skype, Zoom, and other software apps.
If not, good old phone-based tele-conferences sufficed.
We proved to ourselves we don’t need as much business travel. If we can hold to this lesson, we can’t help but become more productive and profitable.
Telework/remote work became more acceptable
Management and rank-and-file alike became more comfortable with it, because again, it was forced on us by circumstance.
No more Neanderthal thinking that if I can’t see you, you can’t be working.
Those who had never embraced remote work, as so many others already had, learned how useful it was and stopped worrying so much about workers skiving off just because they weren’t under the watchful eyes of their managers.
If everyone remains as comfortable as the technology advances, productivity will continue to rise based on what we’ve learned.
Digitisation, automation, and AI have become better and entrenched
Like most pundits, I don’t see this changing.
These aren’t the kinds of innovations that will replace people; they’ll make those people more productive.
They won’t need to worry so much about the day-to-day ‘housekeeping’ of their workplace, whether that means compiling daily reports or filing paperwork.
Workforces have been restructured more efficiently
Organisations were obliged by social distancing and remote working to create efficient, long-distance ways of doing things.
Sometimes this meant laying off or letting go their least productive workers.
As long as these improvements aren’t dropped as COVID-19 goes away, they’ll pay more productivity dividends down the line.
Hardships strengthened surviving businesses
To survive, most had no choice but to innovate.
Many of those innovations will continue to pay off in coming years.
At the very least, the situation caused them to create new contingency plans to cover everything, preparing them in more ways for the future.
One thing COVID-19 has required of us is the adoption and serious use of technology that futurists and science fiction writers expected us to adopt long ago.
Why this took so long isn’t entirely clear. Part of it was cultural inertia; when things work well enough, why change?
I suspect many people also avoided remote technology due to fear of a presumed dehumanising influence.
Fortunately, it didn’t turn out that way; once we overcame a few technical obstacles, it allowed us to work effectively and brought us closer together.
A glance at prime time television commercials reveals that new telework and remote digital products are still being rolled out and pushed heavily — and e-commerce is booming.
Bottom line: The business world’s response to COVID has helped personal productivity. We’ll see how it sticks.
*Laura Stack is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and authority on productivity and performance. She has authored eight books, including her newest work, Faster Together: Accelerating Your Team’s Productivity. She can be contacted at theproductivitypro.com.
This article first appeared at theproductivitypro.com.
