It was the great fire in London that gave rise to standardised firefighting for the rest of the world. The black plague medicalised the hospitals; before the plague, hospitals focused on hospitality by providing food and accommodation like motels and hotels and not enough medical treatment. In the same way, the pandemic COVID – 19 will change the way we live and also change the way we work. Here are the three changes that we think are most likely to occur.

1. Change in the attitude regarding remote work

As of March 6, 2020, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have all encouraged employees to work remotely, especially in areas where the virus has erupted more. Offering remote work was an easy option for such large corporations since they already had work from home policies and procedures in place.

Small and medium businesses that lack work from home policies seemed to struggle a bit. Regardless of that fact, they had to bring a complete transition into the workforce. In today’s workplace, according to a report, 85% of employees desire to work remotely. Allowing employees to work remotely will make your workplace efficient and productive and will also allow you to attract top talent.

To increase a business’s capacity to offer remote work, it should have good online communication tools. To enable this, distributing home monitors, laptops and Bluetooth headphones for conference calls, etc., could be an investment you need to make.

Working remotely is not only limited to providing tools and technology but rather about changing the mindset. According to the BBC, many employees report feeling scrutinised for staying home to work, even while they are sick. Instead of being treated with care and compassion, they are made to feel guilty and as if they are doing something wrong.

COVID-19 has forced us to accept remote working. In future, this will come down to having a high-trust team, wherein open communication and stating clear expectations will be the norm. Employees will feel trusted and responsible, they will have a better work-life balance and will have greater job satisfaction.

Employers will also have a shift in their attitude; they will adapt to focusing on the outcome rather than the journey. Establishments will see that remote working is also a cost-effective approach.

2. Change in the attitude towards ill employees

Harvard Health Publishing says that mild to moderate symptoms of the coronavirus may last anywhere from a few days to a week after a person has been cured. In some extreme cases, it can take several months to recover fully. This shady virus, according to the CDC, has an incubation period of approximately fourteen days, meaning that if an employee becomes ill or has come in contact with someone who is, they will need to stay quarantined for that period of time.

Data suggests that, before the coronavirus outbreak, almost every employee had reported coming to work while sick. Furthermore, it is also reported that these sick employees are reported to be 60 percent more productive and engaged than other healthy employees. This also does not give them enough time to heal, thus prolonging their duration of illness, and infecting others remains a danger as well.

After COVID-19, the attitude of employers and HR managers regarding sick leaves will change.

Businesses shall update the sick leave policies to accommodate the health needs of their employees, whether affected by corona or not. Corporate giants like Netflix and LinkedIn are already offering unlimited time off or unlimited sick days to employees in need. If that feels too extreme for you, create a workplace compliance policy that decides the duration of sick leave based on the severity.

3. Change in Business travel and meetings

Millions of people make business trips across the world in a day. It was only this global travel that poured the virus into many parts of the world. After the coronavirus, travel will be done with caution since there is a direct impact of travel on global health, we will see that the workforce may not rely very heavily on travel as it does now in the future.

Incidents like this inspire decision-makers to be innovative and to create new technology for businesses to rely upon, the technology that will make the world a closer community without having to come together physically.

It is advised that businesses consider alternatives, such as artificial intelligence, to solve issues of sending employees abroad. Invest more in telecommunication and video conferencing is also needed. Virtual training shall replace on-site training.

Companies are just one of many institutions that are not creating an environment that supports their employees in taking space to heal when they face illness. What has been unfolding around the world with this coronavirus is nothing to consider lightly.

Moving forward, businesses must take into consideration how to best prepare themselves for success, as well as the health of the world.

Naval Ravikant, an Indian American entrepreneur, investor in Uber, Twitter, etc. and the co-founder, Chairman and former CEO of AngelList, says he never believes in making business trips, that what is that which cannot be done over email, phone or video. He considers business travel a waste of time and money, blatantly put.

Sentrient, to do its part in helping businesses amidst this pandemic, has created a series of online interactive courses. These courses are designed to empower and help businesses in areas like — effectively transitioning the traditional working model to remote working, training employees to be productive while working remotely, ensuring the general well-being and health of employees during this crisis, and more.

This library of courses is free for all; we are constantly updating it with more courses.

Find links to start the courses below.

For any queries, call 1300 040 589 or email us at info@sentrient.com.au.