The year 2020 brought with it a wave of changes that the human race was not prepared for. The pandemic presented a lot of changes – travel ban or rather any sort of movement has been banned, social distancing became the term everyone was abiding by. We were not prepared to be stuck at home or put on a mask, neither were we prepared for the drastic change in the way we work.
The term “face-to-face” has a whole new meaning in today’s age. We have shifted from the never-ending conference room meetings to short and to the point zoom calls. A new definition of what organizational culture has been created and what it stands for today, and by its looks, this will stay post covid as well. We are in the process of unlearning the old ways and customs of working and learning and training ourselves for this new change.
Organizational culture is intangible and thus, not easy to measure. Though it is still a powerful aspect of any organization, employees take a long time to imbibe the company culture. But with covid taking the center stage, everything else has been shifted to a work from the home situation now, and with employees not physically present in the office, it can be difficult to maintain the ongoing culture.
Hence, the need for change and adaption to the newer structure of working. Though there is still a long-standing debate going on about whether working from home is beneficial or not, however, currently we are still confined to our makeshift office, which is either our dining tables, study desk or simply our bed, and along with this comes the digital workplace. We are reimagining and reconstructing how work is done. The influx of using collaborative tools and video conferencing has given a whole new meaning to working from home. Be it sharing important proposals or presentations or having a team meeting, there is no need to book the conference room now, but it is all just a click away. The digital workplace is the new thing and is here to stay.
Research has shown that the pandemic has improved work culture in the past couple of months with employees twice as likely to communicate with each other. As work from home is the thing for the unforeseeable future, organizations are starting to understand and respect employee boundaries and are more transparent with communication. Employees are slowly opting for this. We at Nexapp made these work from home sessions a lot of fun by having virtual tournaments called “Nexapp Virtual League”, which included games, competitions and chill sessions which were a stress buster for the employees. Organizations now are redesigning the workplace, either voluntarily or involuntarily. While still in the process of defining what the new norm for the workplace is going to be, businesses are adopting a hybrid work model.
It’s fascinating to see how humankind gets into 5th gear and find collaborative and creative ways to deal with changes like these. The debate will continue to give us points of which is better, but for now, organizations are quickly and innovatively finding solutions and changing slowly eradicating the 9-5 slogan with better work-life balance for employees.
