Working amidst Covid 19 Pandemic

We each face a similar situation in transitioning from centralized offices to remote work. COVID-19 has been devastating to people, families, and economies. Many jobs, and incomes, are tied to providing a service in a specific location – retail, hospitality, dining, etc. But, for those individuals and organizations who can complete tasks remotely, COVID-19 has forced a global social experiment in remote work. And, this experiment presents both challenge and opportunity.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a change in work habits that have been in motion for a while. Even before the coronavirus crisis, the number of people working from home had grown 140 percent in the past 15 years. Workers like the flexibility, employers like the savings and the potential boost in efficiency. People who are able to embrace work-from-home as a potential accelerant with a commitment to succeed are going to thrive. In contrast, those who don’t modify their approach to the new reality, or, worse, take a break, will not.

While nurses, police officers and other first responders (among others) understandably need to compartmentalize their work and private lives, for 21st-century knowledge workers it makes a lot more sense to talk about work/life integration instead of work/life balance. The former, unlike the latter, is not a zero-sum game and it’s possible, by structuring your day properly, scheduling in that ever necessary “me” time and through effective cooperation with the rest of your team, to both get more work done and enjoy more free time. Working remotely needn’t be synonymous with burnout.

Those who are able to optimize remote work look poised to thrive in ways that they weren’t before. Changing work structures amount to rearranging all the furniture in the room, and — increasingly — doing away with a physical room altogether. All this change means that different people have an opportunity to step forward and thrive. You can use that moving walkway to get where you are going faster, or take a break. Whereas we used to talk about striking a balance, a shift toward integrating work with your private life can create some new challenges for people. But it’s also a shift ripe with opportunity.