COVID-19 will permanently change the future of work, according to a report by management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

“Work practices across businesses around the world have been disrupted, more or less overnight, by an unexpected circumstance,” Abhishek Sharma, Public Sector Partner at Oliver Wyman Middle East said. “This offers a unique opportunity for organizations to recalibrate working practices that serve as the cultural foundations of long-term organizational success.”

The report, titled "Shaping the New Normal: Changing Working Practices for Good", said that companies might want to maintain the following five areas of working life that have been disrupted by COVID-19:

  • Moving to virtual forms of communication
  • Restructuring business meetings
  • Enforcing hygiene compliance in professional settings
  • Ensuring employee wellbeing
  • Displacing physical cash with digital alternatives

To maintain the new positive organizational behaviours that emerged in response to COVID-19, at least three components need to be in place according to Sharma.

“By instilling a cue trigger, implementing routine and rewards and ensuring the repetition of activities are embedded over a sustained period of time, organizations can benefit from beginning to execute this framework today, and continually updating their findings as their employees adapt over time,” Sharma said.

(Writing by Gerard Aoun; editing by Seban Scaria)

(gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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