WTF! WFH - the new norm!

Future generations will look back on 2020/21 as a major milestone in world history. It certainly is that and more. Apart from the catastrophic loss of lives and the terrible economic impact, this is the start of the Virtual Age!

Just as experts have been predicting a viral pandemic, so to have other experts been speculating about the transfer to remote working. We have been building towards it for decades with massive technological improvements in global communications, but this pandemic has given the whole world an unprecedented push forward. Companies everywhere are deciding not to reopen offices that have been closed during the lockdown; houses are being evaluated in terms of where the home-office will be; people are getting used to spending more time at home and less time commuting. I am not suggesting that we will all voluntarily remain in lockdown, stuck in the groundhog day of being socially distanced but I do believe that we will never go back to the ‘old’ ways of working with strict desk location every day of the week, and the requirement on travelling for face-to-face meetings.

Hot-desking, Zoom collaboration and working from anywhere for several days per week is now the new norm. It will no longer be unusual for a colleague to say, “I will be working from the South of France next week, so my family can swim whilst I work”, nor for companies to reduce their permanent office-space to a series of meeting rooms and a glorified café for staff and customers to meet occasionally.

In this new utopia, the Virtual Assistant will be commonplace, and if it sounds like something that you want to embrace, then drop me a line and we can explore the logistics of how I can help. Over Zoom of course!