Blog - The New Normal

The New Normal

We are now about a month into our lockdown. Our world changed almost overnight and our reality is markedly different from what it was when 2020 started. For many, on top of the health concerns and the tragic consequences of a global pandemic, there are economic impacts of the measures that are in place to combat the virus. We have all been touched by COVID-19 so far without most of us even getting sick. 

I know that within my family there are lost jobs, reduced hours, we are working from home and we are staying home. 
We are practising social distancing, we are not going out, we are not interacting with others. This is our role in combating this attack on our lives and it is how we will overcome it. 
The world will change from this. This is our next 9/11 which changes the way we live.

As usual, especially in Australia, we adapt and we learn new ways to cope, communicate and in general be together whilst being apart. Finally, video conferencing has taken off and we are using the technology we have had for a few years now to work from home on a scale never seen before. 

Whilst this may be the solution for office workers who's days usually involved sitting at their desk servicing customers or their business using technology, this doesn't solve the problem for the millions of Australians out of work. At the time of writing this, unemployment was about to hit 10%. We must get back to normal as soon as possible, and we will, but when it happens I predict that it will be a new normal.

It will be months before this is over, by then we will all be very used to working from home. Our employers will also be used to us working from home and I suspect that the productivity of office workers will be shown to have increased, not decreased, over time. 
My bet is sick days would have actually dropped for those working from home and for many, hours of work have probably increased. At the same time, those hours have changed from 9am - 5pm to more like 7am - 11pm with breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner and an hour or so with the family or gardening before lunch and a 2-hour movie and nap break around 3pm. A workday of 16 hours but broken up very differently than what we are used to. This is the reality of working from home. 

Is this something we or our employers will want us to give up? 
For those who work in restaurants, service industries, entertainment, sport and a large number of other affected industries, we will all look forward to the day we can go back to work. For those who have continued to work from home, my guess is many of us will ask to stay at home and our employers will say yes. 

This could signal a complete change in our cities, our way of life, the environment and certainly how the economy operates. Imagine your city with only 50% of the office space it uses today. Do we knock the buildings down, do we turn them into residential? Soon businesses will realise the advantages of having healthier, less stressed and more productive staff working from home whilst at the same time saving on the costs of rent, electricity, car parking (both employer and employee), furniture etc. So both employer and employee are happy staying at home and the 'Office' may become a thing of the past.

We are all getting used to doing all of our shopping online, working from home, meeting via video. 
Storefronts may close and make way for online, warehouse and delivery business such as Amazon to take over. It started years ago and this may now become the new way of doing things. At the very tail end of all of this, the commercial property market may be the next hit.

Retail salespeople may find they keep their job but move from face to face customer service to video service. Imagine going to buy a new ...whatever and the salesperson is on the other end of a video chat, sharing photos, product brochures and inspirational marketing materials with you while continuing to look you in the eye and share their best salesperson smile with you. You make the purchase, pay online and the product arrives at your door the next day or even later that same day. This is the shopping of the future and perhaps that future will be forced upon us sooner than we expected. We do similar now but without the personal interaction. I wonder who will be the first company to do the face to face video retail selling in big scale?

Takeaway food is as old as time, and delivery has been a big thing ever since Dominos started delivering Pizza in 1983. But fortunately, we all love to eat and drink together. Restaurants will reopen, pubs and clubs will boom and sport and entertainment will thrive when this is all over. Office work and perhaps retail will never be the same and in turn, commercial property will have to change and I believe our cities will change becoming more of a hub for people rather than the centre of business. 

2020 just like 2001 will be a year when the world changed.

The New Normal

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