COVID-19 disrupted industries across the world. In response towards the pandemic, businesses have struggled to implement practices that can assure success (or at least, survive) no matter what the current condition of global economy is. Most companies were forced to temporarily shut down the office operations and let the staffs shifted from office-based employees to home-based employees.
According to World Economic Forum on Future of Jobs Report 2020, Covid-19 pushed companies to scale remote work, to accelerate digitalization, and to accelerate automation. These three efforts are shaped to be the new business norm.
1. To Scale Remote Work
The trend of remote working emerged with the rise of digital nomads and freelancers. During the pandemic, it rapidly grew as a crucial execution strategy by companies in order to keep the work-efficiency in check. Remote working enables people to have a better work-life balance, a sense of freedom, and workplace flexibility. Some countries have been following the trend by providing ‘Digital Nomad Visas’, ‘Remote Work Visas’ or ‘Freelance Visas’ specifically to entice foreigners to come work and contribute to their economies[1].
Workplace flexibility will boost the bottom line of the business based on these five (5) categories[2]:
Productivity: an output increase of at least 4.4% on worker’s performance.
Performance: 40% fewer quality defects due to the stronger autonomy via location independence.
Engagement: 41% lower absenteeism as a result of higher productivity and performance combine to create stronger engagement.
Retention: 12% turnover reduction as the remote work being applied giving employees more flexibility in working.
Profitability: 21% higher profitability as companies save more operational cost.
Remote working has increasingly become a necessity as the world responding to Covid-19. Furthermore, this is the future of the evolving landscape of what a workplace will be and the progressive movement of global work culture. Companies should prioritize the ‘remote work revolution’ and support the remote workforce as part of strategies to enhance their top objectives in this new decade.
2. To Accelerate Digitalization
As innovation is at constant move, digitalization is on high demand and the key of what shaped the technology infrastructure. The pandemic was a reality check for businesses that have been reluctant to embrace digital transformation and now found themselves in a position of woefully unprepared. Companies should rethink and accelerate their digitalization strategy to increase resilience and optimize business processes at the same time[3].
Communication Technology and Inclusion will shape the future of work. Collaborative tech like Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype had already gained followers before the pandemic for their ability to facilitate virtual connections. Now, they are everyday tools for the world’s remote workforce in supporting the importance of ‘Work From Home (WFH)’ trend.
At speed of transformation, businesses now live in the cloud. The pandemic has also impacted the increase of digital economy and pushed the digital transformation where everything is needed to be quick, accessible and organized. All these may be achieved when companies focus on accelerating digitalization through infrastructure and online communication tools.
3. To Accelerate Automation
Covid-19 has illustrated just how extremely important technology is to our business. One solution became increasingly more feasible and necessary: automation. It reshaped how companies operate and created value to help simplifying workflows. This brings our attention on the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in practicing business process automation.
AI revolutionized the marketing effort by ensuring individualized content gets to the right consumers and product/service personalization becomes smoother[4]. This technology is also good at getting the marketing content to the target audience in real time, right when they’re making purchasing decisions.
With the ability to collect data, analyze it, apply it and then react to it, AI has become a powerful and significant tool in business due to its ability to make data-based decisions quickly and accurately.
The New Normal
It is inevitable that these practices will make its way to businesses of all kinds, putting technology forward to excel the business operations. The digital transformation is the key factor of business continuity. The future of work landscape is evolving. Covid-19 has greatly contributed to this transition and a wake-up call to businesses who hesitated in innovation. The question is, “how will the human-led workforce adapt to these ultimate changes?”.
[1] Karsten, M. (2020) 16 Countries with Digital Nomad Visas (For Remote Workers). Retrieved from https://expertvagabond.com/digital-nomad-work-visas/
[2] Farrer, L. (2020) 5 Proven Benefits of Remote Work for Companies. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2020/02/12/top-5-benefits-of-remote-work-for-companies/?sh=44e4f23f16c8
[3] Deloitte (2020) Increase Resilience through Digitalization. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/legal/covid-19/accelerate-digitization-increase-resilience.html
[4] Meade, J. (2019) Marketing Revolution: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/marketing-revolution-the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence-a155313da311
