Work After Coronavirus Outbreak.

The coronavirus outbreak has forced companies around the world to start rethinking the way they do business. Since social distancing has become mandatory. Many companies turned digital for communicating and carrying out their business to keep some semblance of normality. But many are asking nowadays. Will this be the new normal for the long term?

For sure businesses, despite their industry. Need to start adopting a digital transformation strategy. To keep operating efficiently in the future. Keeping in mind. That is what you can expect when it comes to the future of work, post coronavirus outbreak.

Work From Home: Our New Reality

Many companies resisted allowing their employees to work from home in the past. The recent outbreak has forced businesses to adapt to the government-initiated lockdown and social distancing measures. According to a survey, only a third of employees in the US worked at home before the coronavirus outbreak. The number of employees working from home has significantly risen. Companies such as Twitter, JPMorgan, and Google. All of them start encouraging their staff to work from home.

After the post-pandemic many companies are facing a big challenge when it comes to the future of work. Mainly because working from home seems like a benefit for many employees. Also, many businesses lack the infrastructure to offer all capabilities needed for their employees. The coronavirus outbreak forces businesses to start rethinking their strategy. It’s leading many companies to put their digital transformation on the fast track to meet the needs of their clients and employees.

It’s expected that some companies could fall back on their previous in-office working routine in the months ahead. However, others start realizing the benefit of being able to work from home on their employees. Those companies will likely streamline the process to make it more efficient.
In the upcoming months. We can start expecting many companies to adopt new technologies to deal with their staff in their work from home requirements. Making work remotely easier for their employees. In case there’s another outbreak.

The Rise of Virtual Events

Due to the recent coronavirus outbreak. Many personal meetings and conferences were canceled. This start giving the rise to virtual events. We are seeing many conferences going digital in the past months. The Google Cloud Next 20 event turned into a global digital event. It was free for all to attend virtually. While some companies were quickly adapting to the new changes post-pandemic. We also saw others that struggled to cope with this new reality. One of these is the popular tech conference that’s held in the US, which was postponed until 2021.

Conferences had been a profitable enterprise for plenty of years. They are an efficient way of exchanging thoughts and building business connections. The coronavirus outbreak has pressured organizers to turn digital solutions into offering digital meetings instead. While it’s a far cry from the conventional personal conference experience, those digital events even though assure a way for companies and experts to reach out to build a rapport with different like-minded individuals.

With the success of these new virtual conferences, it is without a doubt that we are going to see more of these virtual events in the months to come, especially if we are still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

A Growing Suite of Digital Collaboration Tools

The rising tide raises all boats. The coronavirus outbreak has had an impact on all walks of life, including the way businesses are run. But it has given rise to a growing number of digital tools that businesses can use to streamline everyday business processes. From platforms such as Zoom that are making virtual conferencing easier, to Facebook and WhatsApp and many others throwing their hat in the ring by tweaking their own services for work from home professionals.

In the past week alone, we have seen WhatsApp, making a major announcement of its new features that it plans to introduce that targets the remote working professionals. Facebook has also rolled out its new feature that allows users to host meetings with up to 50 people at a time.

The popularity of Zoom, another video conferencing tool has grown significantly during the outbreak and allows users to host a meeting of 100 people at once, but has a time cap of 40 minutes. Microsoft is offering a free six-month trial of its Microsoft Teams for businesses, hospitals, and schools so that they can operate while adhering to social distancing regulations. Cisco has improved its WebEx tools to support businesses during the outbreak.

Seeing this growing trend of adoption of various digital tools, we should expect more remote working tools to be introduced in the coming months, which will be directed towards helping professionals and businesses streamline their processes.

Check our Traits of Strategic Leadership article: https://sustain-leadership.com/strategic-leadership-in-uncertain-times/