MAPPING THE NEW WAY OF WORK Lark 2020 Global Report

Introduction

The world is changing, in more ways than we can predict. With a once in a generation pandemic having swept through over 200 countries worldwide, we are faced with a global transition in terms of not just how we live, but also how we work.

Bringing companies into this next normal will be a defining moment for the current generation of business leaders.

To get you started, we at Lark have compiled insights from across the world to explore how different organisations and industries are coping and recovering from the change of COVID-19.

These insights include three key areas that every organization regardless of size and location should pay attention to in the following months through the use of examples from some of the largest organizations throughout Asia and Europe.

Here you will find highly effective 5 step action list that you as a business leader can implement today.

In addition, we deep dive into the ways that key global markets are addressing the challenges of COVID-19 to give you a comprehensive picture to plan your future in the new normal.

Adapting To Technology

For organizations primarily built of younger people, especially Millennials and Gen-Z's, the digital adaption to new technology can be vastly different than ones who are more of a melting pot with different generations of workers. Adapting to new technology is about finding the best teaching and training practices for individual cohorts. This could mean a different set of training programs for elder workers, like an in-house training program where instructors are hands-on, versus a simple video tutorial for younger workers who can learn it on their own at home.

Creating A New Mindset

Organizations need to understand the separation of responsibility and choice, which is best done by giving autonomy to its individual workers. The future of work lies in a symbiotic relationship between workers and employees, an intertwined partnership rather than a market driven relationship. Studies have shown that workers who have some sort of remote option score on average 25% higher when it comes to openness to feedback, collaboration, and are 27% more satisfied with their career progression. By giving individual workers more autonomy, they can embrace their responsibility more and choose the best working solution themselves.

Exercising Patience

Organizations who have successfully transformed their labor force into fully, or semi fully remote have mostly done so over time rather than abruptly. While profits and productivity are incredibly important measuring tools for success of any organization and its people, during times like these it is more important than ever to not take a myopic point of view and instead look for the horizon. Smart organizations like TCS in India understand that this transition will take time, as they set a 5 year to fully transform their staff into a 25/25 model, where only 25% of the workers are in a physical office 25% of the time.

Other organizations, who are instead choosing to go into the 100% remote route are exercising their transition with caution and patience as well, like True Digital in Thailand who started off moving only 50% of their staff, before bumping it up to 70% over the next month. This gave the HR department valuable time to properly attend the individual transition of its 1,000 people strong workforce.

Moving into the New Normal

In adapting to the challenges of COVID-19, may companies have had to hasten digital disruption agendas and move ahead with untested strategies that leverage technology to overcome hurdles.

No matter what stage an organization is in at the moment, below are a series of step by step practices any organization around the world can implement immediately to set itself up as a leader in the future of work.

1. Start With Safety

Implement fever checkpoints, have plenty of hand sanitizers around, enforce social distancing and make sure people are wearing masks regardless of what type of work your organization does. If anyone is even remotely feeling not well, let them go home — losing a day's worth of productivity is not worth jeopardizing everything's health and safety in the long run.

2. Coordinate a Gradual Transition

Unless there is an emergency, gradually transition your workforce to remote work for the optimal results. This can be team by team, or in age cohorts as older workers may need more hands on guidance than Millennials. Let HR work with individual business units to find the optimal solution. This may change based on your organization, and you might find out that throughout the transition other tweaks need to be made. Just keep in mind that this is a new process for everyone, so prioritizing empathy and patience should be top of mind.

3. Simplify The Digital Tools

The key advantage of using a tool like Lark is that it has all the tools you need under one roof, which means the transition between tools and their user interface is easier to adopt. Not only is jumping back and forth between Google Docs and Slack or Zoom time-consuming and annoying, but having to learn the different buttons and UI/UX designs can be challenging for older workers who are less agile. This allows them to invest more time in a singular app, which should make them feel more comfortable and willing to engage with the learning.

4. Create a Safety Net

This can be welfare fund dedicated to assist workers who were hit harder by the pandemic, or creating a support group for people adapting to working from home. Either way, make sure that your people feel safe and supported as everyone transitions during uncertain times. One possible solution to build trust and a communal mindset is by allowing internal colleagues to tithe to the safety net as well. This improves a sense of ownership and responsibility, and makes people feel like they're truly looking out for each other.

5. Adopt a 25/25 or a 50/50 Rule

Or simply find the best method for your team, but the 25/25 rule states only 25% of the organization needs to be physically at the office 25% of the time. Teams can adopt a shift type of schedule, with essential workers allowed in the office for system maintenance and upkeep. This adoption is as much of a mental change as it is a physical change in terms of who is or isn't at the office. To make this successful, leaders need to adopt a mindset that an empty office is okay — and no one is to blame because the organization is shifting the way it works, to a better future for everyone.

Country Specific Deep-Dive

One of the more unique properties of the recent pandemic is the timeline in which each region around the world was affected. Not only were people affected during different months, but organizations saw a time delay as well in terms of how the pandemic forced them to reconfigure for remote work. For global organizations who have offices in China or Korea, the early diagnosis gave them time to prepare their other offices through the Americas or Europe.

This domino effect presented a unique opportunity to look at how organizations handled the pandemic throughout different regions and what challenges each faced both independently but also collectively as a global unit. In this article, we take a look at how organizations in India, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan took steps to maintain a relatively smooth order of operations.