Change in Workplace after COVID-19

Hi, I’m Paul Krismer. I’m your happiness expert and this week, I’m coming to you from a world of Zoom, like many of you who, through the pandemic, lived in. And you know, things get a little out of hand during the pandemic. My hair gets fuzzy, and you know, I’m not shaving the fur on my face as much as I used to. And you don’t even know if I’m wearing pajama bottoms or just what’s going on down there, do you? And probably, all of you have had kind of days like this too. There are silver linings to the pandemic that allowed us to kind of have a slightly more relaxed way of working, and I’m hoping that as we’re approaching post-pandemic times, that there’s going to be some aspects of the change in workplace that, frankly, we’re going to demand from whatever the new normal is going to be. And that’s what this video is about: getting your best bits out of the pandemic to bring forward into your new life as we move into the post-pandemic world. Stay tuned.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. So, there’s some very interesting data that’s come out just in the last part of the pandemic here, in the recent months. One thing from Monster.com said that 95% of people are contemplating looking for a new job, and something that a Microsoft Work Trends said that 25% to 45% of workers are actively considering quitting their current employment. And that really tells us something. It tells us that there’s something that people are wanting more from the workplace, which has probably always been true, but even more true today. These numbers have gotten much more frightening for employers who already had difficulty with retention and recruiting pre-pandemic, and now things are truly dire for them. And I think that what we’re seeing is a reflection of workers’ desire for there to be a different kind of work-life balance.

In the past, we were accustomed to just too much demanding work, too long of commutes, too much stress generally in the workplace, and we want some kind of new work-life balance. So, we got used to this kind of different lifestyle. Some of us were working from home, and even those of us who weren’t working from home but worked in a different environment with masks and social distancing, and you know, prioritization of essential workers and not, and all that kind of stuff. We all became aware of the importance of our relationship to our lives. The pandemic, like any emergency situation in our lives, changes the way we feel about how we want to be in the world. So, I’ve got four tips for you to keep you aligned with what’s important as you settle into whatever the new normal, post-pandemic is going to be with respect to work.

The first tip is this: be a little slothful. I know that sounds weird, but really, we should be taking advantage of something that was built into the workplace pre-pandemic, where there was a lot of socialization time. If you worked in an office or in a cubicle or something like that, you know how it is. Science shows this. The research shows us, people come along, and they have a one-minute work conversation, and a 10-minute conversation about T-ball with their kid, or whatever kind of social engagement we have with the workforce. Well, if you’re working from home, that kind of stuff wasn’t built in anymore. So, I’m encouraging people to take some time in their workdays to be a little slothful. Cuddle your dog, go stand in a sunbeam for a little bit, take a quick nap. That kind of thing is going to be essential, and we’re going to demand that from our employers in the future.

Second idea: go get some exercise during the workday. It is so good for us. A short walk during the lunch break, going for a bike ride, anything like that that clears our mind, gets us completely away from the work, gets our body moving and our heart rate up, is so profoundly good for us. And thirdly, I would suggest that we want to build in socialization, social activity into our workplace. And so, actually prioritize that when you go into a meeting. Maybe spend some time initially in the meeting just simply asking people, “Hey, what are you doing this weekend? How are the kids? Anybody got a favorite holiday destination that they’re doing research on?” or something like that. So that we bring our real lives into the workplace. And by the way, there’s a little side benefit of that: that we trust people and work much better with people when we know them at a personal level, not just at work, work, work all the time.

And fourthly, I would say this: build some selfish activity into the workplace, especially if you’re working from home. I would say, do things like moving the laundry forward, or get your dishwasher going, or maybe take a few minutes to do dinner planning. All those kind of things that help create this sense that there’s a relationship with my personal life and my work life, and there’s this balance that I’m building into the day. And I’m not suggesting that people be abusive and take advantage of their employers, not for a moment. But so many of us, we feel so driven and people-pleasing and guilt-ridden when we’re taking a few moments for ourselves. Well, we need that, because the workplace of old had some of that built into it. And especially for people who are now working from home, we need very carefully to think: how do we create more balance in our life? Got it? So, hey, I want you to like this video by clicking the ‘like’ button, and share it with whomever you think you need it. Maybe your HR director needs to watch this video. And thanks for watching. We’ll see you again next week.