The imperative of any business leader is to evaluate the impact that each trend will impact on their organization’s operations and strategic goal. Post this era, some of the trends that we have adopted so as to cope with the harsh realities will become normal in our organizations. At our recently held Unthinkable Masterclass, Catherine Wekesa, CEO at International Talent Management Consulting Limited pointed out 9 trends that are likely to impact the future of work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

1. Increase in remote working – in the future, part of your team will be in a physical location and the rest might not be. For those who will be working from home, how will you make the work environment conducive enough for them in terms of the equipment needed such as laptops? Since these will be business properties, how do you ensure they are well protected and used only for intended purposes? How will you measure productivity? These are all pertinent questions that you must ask yourself as a leader.
2. Expanded data collection – how will you manage your teams performance if they are working from home? You will rely a lot on collection of data. Tracking shifts in output, complaints, behavior patterns etc will enable you to keep track of each employee’s needs and how to solve it for better performance.
3. Contingent worker expansion – at some point your employees will be contingent workers for someone else. This should not bother you as long as they are doing their work well.
4. Expanded employer role as social safety net – due to the new normal, employers are the ones constantly checking up on their employees. Besides them pushing for deadlines to be met they should also be checking on the well-being of their employees.
5. Separation of critical skills and roles – we are going to a gig economy, where employees do not only just work for one person. They have other skills that apply elsewhere. So the roles have to be defined and the deadlines too.
6. (DE)Humanization of employees – the covid period has seen many employees laid off.  How you conduct lay-offs as an employer is very important. It should be as human as possible giving the proper explanation and making the transition as smooth as possible. Keep in mind as business continues, you might need some of these people back.
7. Emergence of new top-tier employers – these are the employers who have adopted good practices when it comes to people management in the new normal. Your HR policies moving forward could be your competitive advantage.
8. Transition from designing for efficiency to designing for resilience – this is designing your team so that if someone leaves it does not shock your organization. The skills that that person has are still in the organization. Design your team in a way that the critical skills will never miss.
9. Increase in organizational complexity – how is the customer after Covid? What are their demands? Are your systems and people equipped for this new kind of customer?

Catherine Wekesa was a facilitator at Un.thinkable masterclass (our quarterly 10X Growth Leaders Workshop) in November 2020. Click here to apply for membership in Un.thinkable.