Bringing Employees Back to the Old Situation Will Prove Impossible

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A brave new world awaits after COVID-19, where we will work in new ways within new organizations featuring different cultures, leadership, and business models.

Currently, everything is different, and much will change permanently. Daan De Wever, CEO of the scale-up Dstny (pictured), which offers cloud applications with a focus on cloud communication, believes – along with many others – that there will be a world before and after COVID-19.

"I don’t think we will return to the pre-COVID era. It’s a cliché, but digital will become the new normal. Some things have changed forever, and digital will play a crucial role due to social distancing. For instance, we’ll likely use less cash and new technologies will be adopted faster. Hospitals, driven by technology and social distancing, are already considering remote digital diagnoses."

 

De Wever sees the biggest challenges not in the current situation, but in the world after COVID-19. “COVID-19 was the trigger that made organizations and business leaders at least consider different ways of working. As long as there is no vaccine, social distancing will always lead to confrontations and force organizations to rethink their working methods.”

"Two to three days of remote work will become the standard."

Many companies have now abruptly switched to remote working. Employees are working from home while partners and children are also at home. “This affects efficiency, but it works,” says De Wever. “They are experiencing both the positive and negative sides of remote work. People want social contact. They miss connecting with colleagues but are also considering alternatives like virtual coffee breaks…”

“I believe the post-COVID era will be a struggle to return employees to the old situation. But that will prove impossible. I am 100 percent convinced that 2 to 3 days of remote work will become standard. The demand for it will come from employees, not from the top.”

 

But are companies technically ready for this? “Corporate networks are typically closed. Now they must be open and everything must be accessible remotely for employees. But this has a significant impact on network security. The connection to applications and hardware must be in order. If companies want to sustain this structurally, they still face some challenges, with network security being the biggest.”

From his experience in transitioning organizations to remote work, De Wever knows that such migrations must be well-managed and that remote work needs to be implemented ‘softly’. It’s not just a technical issue; organizational culture must also enable remote work. A cultural shift is necessary. You need to find answers on how to manage your internal culture and what a good balance is between remote work and physical collaboration.

“Organizations need to find the right balance for themselves. This applies not only to remote work but also to self-managing teams. This is a very vague term, and each organization must define its own concrete approach,” says De Wever.

 

At the start of the outbreak, Dstny noticed that many clients had last-minute questions about remote work and how to ensure the quality and continuity of their operations. “There was a spike in March, also among our peers, but now it has quieted down: salespeople have no more appointments. It’s a pity because sales meetings can also be conducted online, but that’s not happening.”

“If your boss expects you to work 40 hours a week in the current situation, you might want to look for another job.”

For now, this situation will have to change if the crisis persists. “In March, it was about how business leaders could save their companies. But now we see that there has been too little progress in our market for years. We kept calling on the phone, while now we all use video calls. And we will likely continue doing so in the future. This is a significant evolution for us because when companies start doing sales via video, it will impact our portfolio. Thus, the world after COVID-19 will affect our business model and that of many other organizations.”

 

Remote work also impacts how leaders will exercise their leadership. Remote work emphasizes values like commitment. “People need to take responsibility because there’s no one behind them to check their work. But for employees to take responsibility, you need to give them space,” says De Wever. “On the other hand, you must also have the technology to monitor performance and efficiency. Monitoring remains important.”

In every context where responsibility and freedom are given, it’s crucial for leaders to clearly define the playing field. “Your people need to know if it’s okay to stop working at 4 PM to spend time with their kids and then work a few hours more at 7 PM. Especially now, expectations need to be very clear. And if you have a boss who expects you to work 40 hours a week in the current situation, I think you’d better look for another job.”

“CEOs in survival mode manage very operationally, and that involves a lot of control.”

De Wever acknowledges that focusing on leadership style is not a priority right now. “Companies that were looking forward to a great 2020 are now facing 50 percent losses instead of 20 percent profits. It’s understandable to panic. In such a situation, it’s very difficult to focus on leadership style,” he says. “I spoke with CEOs whose companies are now in survival mode. They manage very operationally and that involves a lot of control, which is complex because you don’t have your employees with you.”

“I personally don’t believe that you need to control everything as a leader, even now. But I’m not saying that it’s a wrong leadership style. Extending that control to remote work is possible, but is the employee happy if they have to send daily reports of what they did? It’s not a winning leadership style in the long run.”

According to De Wever, we will manage the current situation for a while longer. However, if it continues for too long, it will become both an economic and social problem. “Many companies will fail, even with government support. We are facing social dramas if we don’t quickly restart the economy. On an individual level, it depends from person to person. Some are struggling with balancing work and family life. That balance is not right. For leaders, the biggest challenge is staying connected with your people. This can only be done through even more communication. Empathy is very important now.”