Tag: remote working

Employment is no longer a simple exchange of money for skills. These days, not only employers but employees expect much more from this exchange of value, and here’s what organisations must do to attract and retain engaged talent in the future of work.

Few would have predicted that the first year of the third decade of the millennium would be turned on its head by a global pandemic. What was to be ‘twenty plenty’ became an anomaly with events that went beyond the realm of normal expectations and changed the way we work, live and play.

The national lockdown forced a large contingency of the South African workforce to work from home and as it is somewhat of a new notion, it had its fair share of challenges. Yet recent studies have shown the shift to remote working has led to improved productivity for 29% of organisations.

COVID-19 has made it infinitely more difficult for most companies to do business. Apart from the financial challenges created by the widespread lockdowns, the requirement for social distancing and remote working, relationships has made it very difficult for prospective parties in a business transaction to comprehensively assess the companies they intend doing business with, including the vital requirement to check on their creditworthiness.

While the past year has had many challenges, a positive outcome is that we have embraced technology and had our eyes opened to the possibilities of working outside a traditional office environment. For many people, daily commutes and in-person meetings have been relegated to the past – and this is just the beginning of a new era that builds on technology in novel and unanticipated ways.

The coronavirus pandemic will have long-term effects on offices as the habits and routines developed of a century of work have vanished overnight. While the office has an important future, the 2021 version is likely to be markedly different: materials, layouts and even how we interact with it will all evolve. 

If you are reading this, you are well on your way towards surviving one of the most cataclysmic events of our lifetime; one that is forever going to reshape the way we view the world and drive home the importance of prioritising sustainability and all it entails during the years ahead.

A recent World Economic Forum report has highlighted evolving trends in the workforce, globally and in South Africa, as the local labour market faces the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).

With as many as 30.1 percent of South Africans being left without work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was interesting to tap into the data to uncover the most needed and highest paying jobs, most searched-for terms on recruitment sites and how senior professionals can give back.

We know that through effective delegation, team members will grow in confidence and both they, and your business, will benefit in the long run. Most delegation interventions end with an agreement to follow up on the designated tasks.