“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”
Dave Hollis’s quote above has become something of an epitaph for lockdown. It has made us all think about how (often blindly) we accept the status quo, and what we’ve learned in these past few months. At isCompliant, we’re always asking questions about work – how to be more effective, how to be more productive, but perhaps most crucially, how to be happier at work. So, with Mr Hollis’s wisdom in mind, we created a poll on LinkedIn last week to find out how you, our followers, would prefer to work in the ‘new normal’ after lockdown.
The results were pretty clear – more than half of respondents wanted to continue working from home, while the remainder wanted the option of flexible hours. These responses told us that you want control back in your own hands. The days of working a nine-to-five in the office because that’s ‘how it’s always been done’ are long gone. Our lives need more leeway – we all want to work effectively but also want to be present, hands-on parents and/or family members who can work flexible hours at home when it suits us.
Lockdown’s quiet streets and clear skies also made many of us question why we spend so many interminable hours travelling to and from work, arriving exhausted before we’ve even logged on. In addition, many companies have discovered that their people achieve more and come up with better ideas when working remotely, as they’ve created a flexible environment in which they can thrive, and which delivers the ‘psychological safety’ people need to put forward new thinking. Perhaps we should all think twice before heading back into the rush hour and the office.
But there’s no denying that working flexibly, and working from home, bring their own challenges. If anything, we need to be even more disciplined – able to draw a line between ‘on’ and ‘off-duty’, as well as managing the expectations of others. It’s crucial to have the right tools to hand, both to keep you and colleagues on schedule, and to ensure that your comms and key company information are absolutely secure. We may be biased, but we think isCompliant is just such a tool, gathering your entire business life into one integrated, visual and proactive dashboard. It’s cloud-based too, so you can get to it wherever you are, securely. And if you want to go for ISO certification, we can help you get that done, too. Without the stress you might imagine.
As the UK returns to normal life after lockdown, there’s a sense that this is a time for a fresh start for all of us. What went before is history, and we can all come out of lockdown a little bit better than we went in. We’d love to help your business become stronger than it ever was, and make your working life happier, too. How about it?
