How COVID Transformed The Future Of Work

Human Adaptation in the Fast Lane

The pandemic has impacted nearly every aspect of life on a global scale. According to Anne Massey, dean of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management, “We just lived the ‘age of acceleration’ to the nth degree.” Before the pandemic, she suggests, technological progress was moving faster than human adaptation, but the mass moves of employers to remote and virtual work, along with the adoption of Zoom and other video conferencing systems for social and family interactions, forced the human element to pick up the pace. “We leapfrogged over some steps, as far as individual and team users in organizations,” she says. “These technologies were put in the hands of people, maybe with minimal training, and everybody figured out how to get the work done. We’ve become more adaptable.” 

Trends show remote work, e-commerce, and automation growing exponentially as a result of the lifestyle adaptations forced upon millions by COVID-19 lockdowns and precautions. Companies that may have been resistant to remote work have changed heart after positive experiences and sustained productivity during the pandemic, leading to a planned shift to flexible workspaces. A survey from August 2020 reported that executives planned to reduce office space by 30 percent, confirming that remote work is here to stay. Telemedicine, a care modality previously viewed as non-essential, is now a booming industry. 

The pandemic propelled advances in automation most intensely in areas where physical proximity was challenged by safety protocols that prevented normal operations, such as warehouses, grocery stores, and manufacturing facilities. Dean Massey says, “When we think about the fourth industrial revolution, what we’re seeing today, for example, are situations where as a result of the pandemic, some companies are doing some things where they realize they didn’t need humans to do it and artificial intelligence and machine learning are replacing the need for the human worker in some spaces.” Post-pandemic, it’s unlikely that there will ever be a return to the old way of doing business, which means low-wage jobs are at high risk for a permanent elimination unless policymakers and corporations show the same agility in retooling the way they do business in the future as they did in the past year. 

The Evolution of Workforce Dynamics  

The pandemic has made it clear that low-wage workers—many of whom have been called “essential” during lockdowns—keep society and businesses running. Their adaptability during the crisis provides a model for organizations to follow as they plan for changing business needs and envision their future workforces. 

To facilitate a functional transition to new models, emotionally intelligent leadership must develop dedicated initiatives designed to implement inclusivity, to reskill workers displaced by automation, and to flexibly accommodate a growing preference for remote work. Dean Massey explains, “We’re already seeing that in a tight job market, people are saying, ‘I want some flex in my work schedule, and if you don’t give me that I’ll find a job somewhere else.’ I think a flexible work environment is going to be a recruiting tool benefit.”

The paradigm shift will be established by the next generation of leaders, many of whom will have graduated from programs that foster critical thinking, adaptability, and the agility required to navigate fluctuations in market forces and workforce demands with as little disruption as possible. 

Reframing the Mindset of Success

One of the most fundamental skills required to succeed in the future of work is also one of the most overlooked: intentional learning. While the constant forces of adaptation in the workforce make effective learning a requirement, many corporations struggle to create and maintain infrastructure to support it. 

In higher education, a growth mindset has long been embraced as a central tenet of many graduate programs. “When we think about how to be adaptive, we have to think about being agile. As we think about educating our students, and also the adaptability of our faculty, our instructors, our business organizations, it’s about being agile,” says Dean Massey. “That you’re willing and able to pick up new things, to play with new technologies, to think about technology and these technological innovations. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes they’ll work, sometimes they won’t work. That playfulness, that willingness to entertain the possibilities, and to think about how we can use these technological innovations to advance our organizations in positive ways, to have positive impacts. All those things are going to make our students and our graduates successful.”

For Dean Massey, framing intentional learning as the key to the future of work is as essential for corporations and organizations as it is for individuals. “As organizations—including schools like Isenberg and universities, but also business entities—we have to learn faster and learn smarter.”

Learn more about University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management.