It’s inarguable that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone’s lives. You may have been personally affected by the disease or know someone who has. You may be a marketing manager whose target audience’s social media viewing time has increased almost exponentially. You may be one of the hundreds of millions of workers who have either lost employment or have had your working environment shift overnight. No matter where you fall in this, escaping the reach of this virus is almost impossible.
Radical Shifts in Business Operations
Almost every business has had its operations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and these impacts cascade to the workers. Many workers lost their jobs as restaurants, bars and other businesses reliant on in-person clientele closed up shop or significantly reduced operations. Many businesses whose workers could effectively work from home shifted as quickly as possible to an at-home workforce, which came with huge operational hurdles and security challenges. Other businesses that relied on in-person workforces faced shifting critical operating procedures that sometimes changed multiple times per day as new information drove changes in worker safety procedures. Eyal Gutentag, a well-known business leader, explains that a typical 8-hour workday may become an artifact of times past.
Novel At-Home Challenges
Families with children faced even more complex situations. Schools closed with almost no notice and then re-opened with online instruction. Children no longer left the house and childcare facilities were closed, which offered major barriers for parents that still had to work in person. Parents working from home many times had to become part-time teachers to young children who couldn’t navigate online learning on their own or faced recurring interruptions as older children tried to sort out requirements and assignments rapidly converted into online formats.
COVID-19 stormed onto the world stage and has affected everyone’s life. Though the world will likely come through this stronger, it goes without saying that its unlikely anyone will weather the current storm unchanged.
