how life changed (and will keep changing) after COVID-19
It has been a long and tough year. Our life completely changed in a few months and we all are wondering when this nightmare will be over, and normality will finally get back.
There are different forecasts: some believe we will get back to normal at the end of 2021, others argue that we will have to wait for an impressively high number of years still. Vaccinations are proceeding at different speeds and people are asked to hold on while trying to get used to masks, physical distance, and Zoom calls – just to mention a few.
But let’s have a look at some of the positive things we will inherit from the Covid-19 crisis.
Working from home
Quality of life has improved, especially in terms of work-life balance.
No office, no in-person meetings, no flights.
Workers from every industry are hoping smart working will become the usual, at least for two or three days per week.
Spotify has already announced it will give its staff the possibility to work from anywhere, assuming that “Work isn’t something you come to the office for, it’s something you do” and “giving people the freedom to choose where they work will boost effectiveness”.
A counterexample comes from the U.S. venture capital industry. Recently, a VC described how his job changed in terms of a higher number of signed deals. The pandemic has caused VCs to meet startup founders via Zoom and the process has sped up, but according to them, this doesn’t allow to create a deeper relationship based on trust and shake hands.
In fact, we have to be careful: working from home has led to a lack of human relations and contacts. That is why many managers try to engage their collaborators as much as possible through a – maybe exaggeratedly - high number of video calls. An IB Managing Director explained how important it is to get in touch and see each other during the week, joking about the fact she could have forgotten her analysts’ faces and not recognized them in the street. Nevertheless, we should be cautious with extended working hours. Workers often complain about the fact their bosses expect them to be available all day long, even late at night.
Digitalization
Due to lockdowns, everyone has finally approached technology for one reason or another. From online classes and meetings to online banking and medical consults via webcam. Covid-19 has been a booster for digitalization. This will be extremely helpful from now on and will help us save a lot of time. More than ever before, we can break down physical distances and borders and be closest as never in the past.
In these months, we have shifted our whole life online. Classes, courses, exams, social relations. We discovered resources like Coursera, Udemy, and so on, getting access to that prestigious school we always have dreamed about. But it’s not just that. We can do whatever we can imagine through our tech devices.
These are some cool and funny examples:
Climb the Everest via Google Views
Try a new make-up on Taaz.com
Try clothes on through H&M virtual fitting room
Test your hearing on onlinetonegenerator
Learn to detect body language and detect lies at Blifaloo
Learn any language in the world at Duolingo
Watch hundreds of documentaries at DocumentaryHeaven
Study magic tricks at GoodTRricks
We could compile a pretty long list of things we learned and inherited from this hard time. Probably our lives won’t be the same anymore, but it’s not necessarily bad news. Perhaps, we will see the world from a different perspective and approach challenges differently, stronger from our experience. However, we have definitely learned to value things that deserve to and that’s for sure a big step forward.