adapting to new work norms

COVID19 is giving new challenges on a daily basis these days for organisations, challenging its ability to capitalise human resources for its business objectives. It is even challenging the viability of certain existing human interaction models, which we were taking it granted all these days. Major changes will be needed in areas of recruitment, training, communication, performance criteria  and in coaching and supervision methods. New protocols for attendance, interacting with fellow colleagues. meetings and other group work interactions will need to be framed and existing ones modified to allow remote contributions/participation wherever feasible. Compensation practices need to get delinked from physical attributes at work place viz designation etc, if the work can be accomplished from a remote location of the employees choice. Job descriptions will need a complete overhaul and can impact valuations substantially as Job context and challenges might have drastically changed. At the same time where human interactions are vital in controlling/monitoring other physical assets especially in manufacturing, process industries , the same above mentioned regulations need to be reviewed to assess its continued need. Meetings need to be virtual. digital controls of operation will enter in place of pneumatic controls. Supervision will move away for minimalistic controls. Paperless workflow based services will be inevitable even in Govt offices in place of notings and files. All these will demand review of IT services, communication technology, remote operation gadgets, technology based surveillance controls, automation, AI based analytics and new data sources for decisions at higher levels along with new metrics for accountability.  Travel will be reduced. Home based working will gain acceptance with occasional office presence. Only direct man machine interactions will continue in old order, if absolutely essential. They will demand higher compensation rates, higher insurance cover, risk liabilities perhaps even more than equipment costs. Such jobs will provide shorter career life and will be less mobile. Demand for precision and accuracy will be more as decisions may need to be taken remotely, based on data and less through discussions and group reviews. Systems should be in place for audit trails, gauge risk levels, secure gates, secure networking environment.

Learnings from a pandemic

Currently the world is going through a pandemic, the worst of its kind since WWII. Millions have died and more lives are at stake. We have been playing too long chasing commercial profits for too long that we forgot to strengthen institutions values, practices,  for basic human care and survival. Even in this pandemic, many institutions are arguing against making payment of wages to people who work for those institutions at low rungs who need that money for survival. Institutions still haven't learnt the value of people , need to take care of them in these times, instead of hoarding cash as profits in reserves or for more investment in business for profits later. Even Learning institutions where such sensibilities are expected to prevail fail in taking right decisions in such instances. This highlights the total failure of business organisations to correlate its vision to an ethical context of community well being. Promoting such businesses , nurturing leaders for success of such businesses are counter productive to humanity in the basic sense. Schools of thought coming from educational institutions , whatever may their world standing, based on the learnings of such business organisations, is like a cancer, fuelling further negativism in society. They are tumours to vasudeva kudumbakam.