The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the economy and has depressed rewards via furlough, pay freezes/cuts and low or no incentive payments. But what will be the longer-term and potentially much more positive impact?
What has already changed?
The way we work has changed in a way that would have been almost unthinkable two years ago. The Group HRD of a multi-national said to me a month into the first lockdown:
‘We were told our call centres working remotely was impossible, it had happened within weeks’
Hybrid working is now the buzzword, with employers thinking about how much expensive office space they need and how flexible they will be in allowing employees to work from home, the office or indeed from other countries. COVID-19 has also accelerated business transformation, specifically digital transformation, which already had a rapid growth path.
This is likely to mean some key changes to the way we work: some jobs will rapidly disappear to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation or Robotics. Other new jobs will appear and the demand for digital talent, which was already very high, will increase further.
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