Back to the Grindstone

In the UK, there is currently a Mexican Stand-off between the Government, and the teaching unions as to precisely what a safe return to work will look like. Some of the debate has been quite unsettling, as it has come across a bit like our education system is in fact one big giant creche, and only serves the purpose of getting our kids out of the way whilst we go and earn an honest living. Reading the vast digest of comments online, blogs attached to video evidence on Tik Tok et al, would suggest that home schooling has been far from the walk in the park many had hoped. Writing in the Telegraph this Saturday, Bryony Gordon asks whether she is a bad mother because she is yearning for her kids to return to school.

There is little doubt we are storing up problems for our children by keeping them cooped up with us. When you are growing up, you need that melting pot of hard knocks, exposure to bacteria and viruses, and general social interaction if you are going to make it to adulthood. The education and a few qualifications are a bonus, even if it all seems a bit pointless in the middle of a double maths period on quadratic equations. But what about when all that is behind you, and you are actually having to earn your crust?

Sure, there is a bit right at the start where you need to be in a not dissimilar melting pot to what you experienced at school. Being ‘at work’ is a learning in itself. And of course, there are vocations where for now at least, there has to be a degree of physical teams; Policing, healthcare, the armed forces, building stuff. But it isn’t beyond the realms of fantasy to see a future where there are more machines and fewer homo sapiens doing those jobs.

What if we have actually discovered something really special?

Most businesses seem to be hunkering down for the long game in respect of dealing with social distancing and minimising the risk of transmission of Coronavirus. In that same issue of The Telegraph, there is a lengthy article on how hotels are going to seek to function.If I can be brutally honest, It doesn’t sound a great lot of fun to me. I want to go for a swim when I feel like it, rather than have to book my own exclusive pool time! In much the same way, production lines and building sites will be much more clinical places for the foreseeable future.

But there is a whole tranche of the world that has adapted, improvised, and overcome the constraints that have been imposed on us. These are the people that have integrated their work with their domestic environment - and it is suiting them! Productivity is up, mental health is better because they used to find the workplace a trigger for anxiety, and they are markedly better off because they aren’t having to spend a ‘going to work’ budget, that includes a varied wardrobe, travel costs, lunches and posh coffee bought on a whim. They know when they will leave for work, and when they will leave work each day, and on the odd occasion they have to ‘pop back to the office’, its no big deal.

If we all need to be further apart, then we might just be looking at an open goal here? There will be those that ‘need’ the office to function, so if we take away those that are remaining productive whilst contributing remotely, doesn’t that go a long way to helping the distancing thing? Less people travelling, lower density in the office and on the train. Sounds like a win to me.

Of course, leaders will have to find more time to be ‘present’ in the lives of their employees. Some they might not physically see for weeks on end. But in the same way we’ve adapted to so many things, maybe this will be quick and easy to learn too. Even if the miracle of a vaccine by September comes about, as mooted by the Government, a split tier workforce allows future downsizing of office rental, and gives a ‘ready to go’ business continuity structure to the organisation whatever is thrown at it next.

Whatever is transpiring from this maelstrom, don’t miss any of the opportunities it is highlighting.

Derek Flint Cert.Ed., MCIPR