Will the “next normal” look a lot like the direction the “old normal” was heading in? Even before the COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered the current work experience and normalized remote working, a change was impending. This change will now likely be cast as the next normal post-COVID.
With the pandemic forcing the issue, organizations are poised to make a monumental shift in how they approach business. Workers at every level are embracing the idea that they can work wherever and successfully accomplish their business goals.
While PGi’s Digital Communications: Early Adopter Study was fielded before the widespread outbreak of COVID-19, it revealed a clear trend: people want the freedom to work remotely.
Generational Similarities
In some ways, it seems like the pandemic is bringing into focus the differences between the working generations. However, from Boomers and Gen X to Millennials and now Gen Z, there are some unexpected similarities across the working generations, and this common ground is where organizations should focus their efforts.
Aside from their desk, more than half of those surveyed said the most productive place to work is home — a place that many workers are viewing in a new light in the current social distancing era. To drive personal productivity, workers cited quiet space, natural light and music — all of which workers have the power to control in their homes — as the top three necessities.
Just as necessary for team productivity are the right collaboration tools.
Online business apps, web conferencing, and messaging are the most-used business communications technologies. Workers between 25 and 34 years old heavily use video meetings, indicating it is likely to be the new normal.
Gen X and Boomers have an opportunity to forge a meaningful connection with their younger colleagues and extend an olive branch by using webcams to have face time. To further confirm this trend, our video conferencing platform, GlobalMeet, has seen webcam usage in meetings increase by 700% since February. People are working from home and using video more than ever before to make connections and combat feelings of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection while working remotely.
Not surprisingly, laptops and smartphones are the devices teams use most to support communication and collaboration.
Remote Engagement Differences
Workers between 25 and 34 years old engage most frequently with remotely-located people for business discussions, and the highest adoption and usage of digital communications and collaboration solutions is among workers who are 44 years old or younger.
Emailing, messaging with colleagues, and remote working are the most critical activities for workers across generations. However, workers between 25 and 34 years old are most interested in sharing calendars, managing project progress, and automating workflows.
Even if millennials are less interested in communicating via email, sharing calendars and automating processes, organizations must streamline tools — including collaboration, chat, and project management — to ensure efficiency and smooth teamwork.
Younger generations, including millennials and Gen Z, use various tools to be productive, while workers in other age groups are spending too much time orchestrating work. In short, it’s the younger generation that is getting it right at work. We should head in this direction and follow their lead.
Opportunities for Businesses Going Forward
While organizations are looking at how they can operationalize these tools for the immediate coronavirus crisis, they should be looking at how they can keep remote working momentum, communication, and productivity going even after the world returns to the new normal. Successful collaboration tools can be part of the solution.
The top opportunity revolves around communication. More than one in three (34%) survey respondents cite better communication, while another 15% cite easy and quick communication as an opportunity. Collaboration tools such as video conferencing tools and chat can help remote workers adapt.
Across generations, we’ll be using technology at work like we use it at home. Video has become more commonplace in the workplace and across generations, and it will become the forcing function behind generational differences fading as all workers from disparate age groups come together virtually as part of the post-COVID Generation V (virtual).
Team members will learn from one another, pull on their strengths, and bridge weaknesses to unite as they prepare to work from home more in the future.
