FINAL WORD
“ However, balance is crucial. There are some drawbacks to extensive remote working, primarily around the lack of face-to-face contact between teams. Innovation and leadership are built from meetings where staff come together – sitting on a Zoom call on mute doesn’ t promote the same connections or ideas. For new employees especially, permanent remote working restricts mentorship and coaching that only truly succeeds in person. Therefore, a hybrid working model, where both time in the office and time at home are given priority, is unsurprisingly emerging as most people’ s preferred approach.”
“ Since the pandemic, flexibility has changed from a want to a need,” agrees Mark Wilson, Technology and Innovation Director at Node4.“ Employees who have experienced the benefits of flexible working arrangements are reluctant to return to a traditional office set-up full time. Those who enforce full time in-office working risk alienating parts of the workforce, losing talent and ultimately reducing diversity.
“ Undoubtedly the world has changed because of the pandemic, which forced organisations to rethink traditional work models. Whilst we’ ve seen some shifts back towards office-based work, the long-term trend remains one of flexibility, Digital Transformation and continuous innovation.”
Looking to the future
It’ s clear that many of the changes COVID brought are here to stay. Despite pushback on remote working, there are still plenty of business leaders – and plenty of employees – who value flexible work too highly for it to go anywhere any time soon. And digital tools adopted during the pandemic have had a lasting impact on businesses. Whilst they may have eventually been adopted anyway, lockdowns certainly sped up the process significantly, bringing benefits to many businesses. x
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