The New Normal That The Pandemic Will Unleash on Business

Article

Published July 2020

TheNewNormal

The coronavirus pandemic has forced every large company to move knowledge work from their offices to their employees’ homes. Right now, everyone is wondering how long it will take for the virus to subside and for work – and the economy – to return to normal. But there’s another question that corporate leaders need to ask: What might not and should not return to normal? What new ways of operating in the time of the virus might be superior to the old routines?

Simply put, what might be the “new normal”?

This article presents seven fundamental changes that I believe are likely to happen post-pandemic:

1. Workforce well-being – physical and emotional – will become increasingly paramount

2. Remote work will become the rule for many jobs, not the exception

3. Firms will compete for customers based on the quality of remote worker support

4. Agile teams will operate in many geographies, rarely in the same room

5. Tracking products delivered to homes will become urgent

6. Digital business models will become the only viable models in many sectors

7. New leadership skills will be required to run increasingly virtual global companies