However, they have lost time for those casual conversations that come before and after a meeting or from just walking in the hallway or bumping into folks you might otherwise never know at work when you're grabbing coffee. I've seen teams reduce standing one-hour meetings to 45 or even 30 minutes, and their meetings have become far more efficient. The advent of Zoom fatigue has forced many teams to adjust their meeting mania to mitigate hours in front of a screen. For example, make a team schedule, so the days in the office are most meaningful and focused on connections, both scheduled and serendipitous. I suggest managers put some structure in place to ensure that time in the office is optimized for face time. I suspect many will enjoy occasional visits to the office for real-time connections with colleagues, but will prefer to maintain their at-home work lifestyle. As much as some employees will crave the return of in-person social connections in the office, they have become accustomed to the flexibility that comes with virtual work-from less time to commute to more time with family and pets.
Managers will have to accommodate changes to work patterns in the post-COVID era. So how can business leaders create a new work world that will keep employees both happy and productive post-COVID? Several HBS faculty members shared advice to help leaders prepare for the “next normal." Julia Austin: Prioritize face time at the office
Not only is remote work considered table stakes to employees, but the pandemic has challenged conventional thinking about work in other ways, too-perhaps permanently. They say the workplace as we used to know it, quite frankly, is dead. But will employees want to flock back to buildings even when it’s safe again? Should companies do away with Zoom and return the workplace to its pre-COVID ways?Īt least that’s not the future of work envisioned by several members of the Harvard Business School faculty-all of whom had to pivot last March to teaching and researching at a distance from the Boston campus. Now, with COVID cases subsiding and vaccinations rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines appears more possible. A year ago, COVID-19 forced many companies to send employees home-often with a laptop and a prayer.
0 kommentar(er)
