Yes, I admit it. I’m a dog fan. Sadly we have no pooch to keep us company these days, but I remember fondly the days when we did – and very much enjoy how pets now feature regularly in video-conferences as part of a more general and radical change to the way we are working after the outset of COVID-19.

Working patterns are different. Dress codes have relaxed. People seem to be more comfortable with letting others into their home and their personal lives, partly because they may have no other choice.

I can’t help but think that our humanity now features more prominently at work.

In a weird way “not being around others is making work life more personal” – as Paula Hayes, Head of Reward, Benefits & Engagement at Network Rail, so brilliantly put it in a recent call we had.

All this change raises powerful questions about how we may be able to return to some semblance of normality. But perhaps there’s an even better question to explore out there. What if we thought about re-defining “normal” instead and think about the employee experience in this context?

One area where change is at hand is the very definition of roles. With a pressing need to re-shape businesses and fill capability gaps comes the need to develop and re-deploy skills, often at short notice. This is likely to accelerate a move away from job descriptions and towards skills’ inventories instead, allowing organisations to make better use of their existing talent pool and potentially change their approach to attracting talent too.

There’s also the potential for productivity and wellbeing to actually improve. The time that is being saved from avoiding the daily commute, not travelling to and from meetings, and keeping interactions down to the point can now be distributed between more productive tasks and more time for family and friends (at least virtually for now), exercise and pursuing other interests.

More generally, we have seen first-hand how remote working can work as long as access to people, information and tools can be facilitated; an adequate working environment can be arranged; and, a healthy balance of working hours and down time is maintained.

This, ideally, balanced with spaces for in-person interaction and shared learning opportunities.

Perhaps most importantly, some people have found that they actually prefer to work remotely. Now that many people have shown they can continue to contribute outside the workplace, they may have an expectation of having more flexibility in this space going forward.

These are of course just a few examples of opportunities for transformation that are upon us. The field of potential changes reaches far.

All this calls for a fundamental review of the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to effectively re-think the employee experience.

Organisations will need to be prepared to gain a better understanding of which attributes of work now are top of mind for candidates and employees, and consequently identify where they need to focus their efforts to deliver the employee experience that will get the right people through the door and enable employees to do their best work.

The QCG EVP effectiveness diagnostic can help to do just that.

As I read on a recent article by Bobbi Thomason and Heather Williams in the Harvard Business Review, “Now is a time for companies to step back and re-examine which traditional ways of working exist because of convention, not necessity.”

So, will you be thinking of how to get your organisation back to normal, or will you be re-defining what “normal” is?

Contact us if you would like us to have a conversation about this.

Juan Novoa, Lead Consultant at QCG – April 2020