What good are the latest tech innovations if people are stressed out of their minds?
To truly navigate the kind of constant change and disruption that will define our future, companies need to pay as much attention to the human element as they do to advanced technologies to accomplish the “Great Reset.”
photo: MoMo Productions / Getty Images
The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything about the way we live and work. And as Felix Salmon reports for Axios, it’s also going to fundamentally change the foundation of our economy like no recession that has come before. “The pandemic is striking directly at the heart of what has historically made America stronger than almost any other global economy — our awesome productivity,” he writes. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom predicts productivity drops within companies of five and even 10%. “These falls are not surprising,” Bloom says, “but are absolutely massive.”
The reason it’s not surprising is because productivity is not just about technology. It’s also about people. And right now, people are stressed out of their minds. “People are living at work,” Deloitte’s Abby Levine says. “That has a physical, emotional, and mental impact.” In fact, a survey released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that over 40% of adults reported experiencing mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression.
This is why we need to widen the discussion about what life and work are going to look like after the pandemic. We know the old model isn’t coming back — it was already breaking down when the pandemic hit. But what that “new normal” will look like isn’t inevitable. We have the power to shape it ourselves, and build a new and better normal based on how humans really operate and what makes us thrive.
Steep productivity drops are not inevitable. Nor are burnout and mental health problems. But to avoid them, companies will need to do more than just put in place organizational strategies and efficiencies for collaborating remotely or sharing office space safely, with things like contact tracing, agile shift management dashboards, tech-infused elevator protocols and vibrating social distancing apps. Safety is obviously the priority. But to truly navigate the kind of constant change and disruption that will define our future, companies need to pay as much attention to the human element as they do to advanced technologies.
The World Economic Forum published a paper in July entitled “Digital Transformation: Powering the Great Reset.” But those who think that the “Great Reset” can be powered exclusively by digital transformation are missing the fact that there can be no “Great Reset” unless people are able to hit the reset button within themselves.