Work Culture & Work Space Transformation - Effects of a Pandemic

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” - Socrates

The realistic workplace transformation created by the pandemic forced millions of employees to work from home. It has an enormous impact on work and family culture. Work from home, physical distancing, online classes and virtual platform meetings became the New Normal of Life and Living.

Physical distancing, changing informations, and a need to manage costs is accelerating.

The world is changing, and so is the Global Hospitality Spectrum. Due to the COVID-19, new safety culture is emerging that requires the hotel work brigade to engage with guests, management and each other digitally to honor social distancing mandates and help stop virus spread.

It's hard to think that we once had limited options for developing information distribution. Explaining to a Millennial that before the Internet and smartphones the only way to talk to someone was in person or by dialing a telephone. Today we have various options to retrieve information from one another, whether it's by text, zoom, social media post, applications, or live media streaming and dependency on these digital stations has grown exponentially amongst users, especially in this time of quarantine and social & mental unrest.

By tradition, hospitality has been a conservative industry in reference to technology, face-to-face interactions amongst staff and guests has been emphasised upon.

COVID-19 however, is changing all of that. Some of the Hotels being early adopters have digitally created access tools that are enabling travelers to completely bypass human connection or touch which is also having a certain negative impact.

Pandemic and lockdown have become synonymous and this unavoidable. Lockdown is bringing about certain negative vibes very distinct in one's life, be it professionally or personally.

Whether it is curating the most difficult four course meal, writing those few lines, exercising every day, or simply just hustling at work, without a gap – TOXIC PRODUCTIVITY does little for the quality of work and your life. It is a fatal obsession with work where more matters, even if the quality is not exactly good at all. And the worst part is, it can be so overwhelming, that we can only see our self-worth selfishly, little pleasure through sharing a coffee with colleagues... a small chit chat, windows of breathers, effecting the psychic health of every employee. People are losing onto the sheer SENSE OF CAMARADERIE which is the base of a Hospitality Excellence.

People who have been displaced from their workplaces, isolated from their loved ones due to non availability of transportation thus stagnated or juggling childcare and work, struggling more with mental ILL HEALTH financial worry, experiencing the passing of loved ones due to this horrific virus but unable to be present in their last rights... all these have created a tremendous negative impact on one's mind which have far-reaching effects of DILUTION, SELFISHNESS, PATIENCE and above all POSITIVE THINKING.

But there is a twist in the tale as well certain report claims that employees are reluctant to give up their new way of working after lockdown. Nearly half the workforce think flexible working will increase, with a third (33 per cent) of this group expecting to increase the amount they work from home by at least three days a week after lockdown and 81 percent expecting to work at least one day a week from home. This typical thought of work culture is adverse to any Industry and extremely deterrent to ours, the Hospitality...Work from home is possible being in a vacation as well that sense of thinking is destructive by all means critical analysis of such a mental set up brings the person's MENTAL HEALTH into question.

There are situations as well...WORK HOME INTERFERENCE and unreasonable refusal or failure to follow a reasonable management instruction can often lead to litigation which is also being encountered at times, refusing on the grounds of not having child care because of schools remaining closed, then disciplinary action would be precarious.

We human beings have always had to deal with crises. But crises have fueled the human story forward. In the long run, they have made us eventually stronger. A difficult period during the Middle Ages in Europe that was marked by famine, war and plague was followed by the Renaissance. The French Revolution embedded liberty, equality, and fraternity into our realisation of soul.

In the last century alone, we have had four crises globally. They came in pairs and dovetailed into each other. The First World War transformed many monarchies into electoral democracies and also helped create the first communist state in the world. This in turn, helped erode serfdom thinking and promoted people oriented ideals, first with Europe, and then across the world.

The Spanish Flu which covered the world with its dark adversity in 1918 led to the development of national health services in many countries. The Great Depression gave birth to the welfare state and the Second World War bought the end of empires, freeing majority of the human population from foreign enslavement.

Coronavirus is the first crisis of this century. And like the ideal 21st-century citizen, it is global and egalitarian. And because of cheap broadband, it is playing out right in front of our eyes.

In lieu of the terrible cost of this pandemic to mankind, we will move to a better place in our minds and in this planet. Gen-next will look back upon this moment as the one that made us more humane, a time when we lived up to our name — Homo sapiens, or ‘wise man’.

We have classified the aspects of the evolving future under different heads. They range from the ‘personal’ to the ‘collective’ in their nature and from ‘fastest’ to ‘slowest’ in their speed of adoption... two of the legs supporting the torso of civilization.

But I sincerely believe that the impact of this unprecedented situation would bypass and employees would regain their mental wisdom and impact of this LOCKDOWN HOLLOWNESS would be overpowered overwhelmingly and HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY will be proud of their SENSE OF CAMARADERIE which they so firmly believe in.

“No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That’s the only way to keep the roads clear.” - Greg Kincaid.