Flexibility in the workplace, more important than ever

By Kim Vella and Anca Costin

Listen to Dr Kim Vella and Anca Costin, barrister, as they discuss the need for flexibility in the workplace, which is needed in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic now more than ever.

Working from home is not new. Nor is the technology that allows it to happen effectively and at scale. Global organisations have had remote workforces and teams that work across multiple time zones for decades. The seismic shift that occurred recently across public, private, and non-government sectors is not an IT transformation. It has not been a complete rethinking of how IT can serve new markets and ways of producing and delivering products and services. It has, instead, been a way to get people working from home at scale.

Now that we have proven the technology works at scale most workplaces have a threefold challenge:

1. follow through on the IT transformation and truly digitalise the economy and our businesses
2. commit to giving people a choice to work from home, in the office, or blend both options
3. address the persistent (non-IT related) problems that frustrate our workforce.

We work with people in our capacities as executive coach and barrister and this article is based on a deliberately deep dive into the perspectives on how the global pandemic has affected the general take on work, how it’s done and where it’s done.