The covid-19 pandemic has impacted every aspect of our lives. This includes our professional lives as well. It has completely transformed the way in which we work and it might never be the same again.

Let us dive into the changes that we have witnessed in the workplace since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of covid-19 as a ‘pandemic’ and the consequences that came with these drastic changes:

1) Working Remotely

To contain the spread of the virus, most of us have been compelled to work remotely. This is a massive shift in the professional arena. We have made our computer screens our workplaces and the days when we used to get ready and commute daily to work have become a thing of the past. Now interaction with clients and colleagues are done via video-conferencing platforms platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Work-from-home has provided flexibility to the employees. Now they can work from the comfort of their homes without having to travel long distances. It has even proved profitable for the companies as the costs of functioning of offices have minimized to a great extent. It has some to a point that many people are now raising questions about the need of office buildings.

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However, despite of the many benefits of work-from-home, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that this has led to a greater interference of the digital tools into our lives and in some cases, employees also had to be trained in order to understand these digital mechanisms.

2) Impact on work-life balance

This shift in the professional setting has come with its own consequences. In many cases it has been found that because of the online functioning of the workplace, work has entered into the personal lives of people which has denied them the right to enjoy their lives. It dissolves the boundary between work and personal life and as a result affects the mental health of employees.

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3) Trusting employees

In the post covid-19 workplace scenario, there was an increased need for the employers to place their trust on the employees. And fortunately, employers have found this highly beneficial as doing so increased their profitability. This is because as employers started trusting their employees, the efficacy and productivity of employees saw a surge.

4) Tracking based on output

In the per-covid era, in most cases the productivity of an employee was assessed on the basis of the hours that employee spent in the office. The rigidity was such that a close check was kept on the timings when an employee arrived and left a workplace. And this often led to the shift in the focus from the things that really matter, that is the output that an employee was able to produce. With remote working, employers have started concentrating on the deliverables and track the productivity of employees on the basis of their output.

Many virtual platforms have also come into play that enable the employers to track their employees’ progress and productivity effectively.

5) A step towards ensuring gender equality

It has provided the apt opportunity to distribute household work equally among the males and females of the household and hence to break the conventional norm that overburdened women with all the chores as both men and women have started working from home and there is also a higher degree of flexibility. In this way, remote working has ensured gender equality in the domestic sphere.

With new variants of covid-19 emerging every now and then, it does not seem possible that we will return back to the pre-covid workplace scenario anytime soon. The future seems blurry and to gain economic profits by ensuring everyone’s well-being, it is necessary that we keep strengthening this new working system so that the performance and satisfaction of employees are enhanced while keeping in mind the betterment of their mental health. ___________________________________________________________________________

Author-Achal Chaurasia

A young businessman who has been in the line of entrepreneurship for quite a few years. He is an active learner and loves to know more about new technological developments coming up as well as how they can be put to great use to yield better results for society.