COVID-19 has brought into the forefront the most challenging scenario, What Next? Into more than 6 months of the pandemic, no one perhaps has the answer at the moment. But one important lesson learnt....perhaps nothing (even life) cannot be taken for granted any longer. Thoughts like 'it never happened' is now out of the window. The infinite probabilistic intangible options are now all feasible events/doubts in human mind. This time of 6-18 months is a not a big time for the History of Human Race but the day-to-day challenges individuals face will have a long drawn effect on their minds. The greatest irony... Socialization, which has helped & nurtured growth of human civilization, has now a real time threat for Life.
Shocking
Amidst the effects, side effects of Covid-19 & the uncertainties of Life, the following news comes to me as a shock. It seems that only a Homo Sapien is a first order citizen of the planet.
Based on an assumption we are planning of almost completely eradicating a species for sake of Human Safety. Community transmission is happening in human society as well. Hope we are we are not thinking that way!!!
Though not an intrinsic animal lover but such Slaughter sounds Cruel-Kindness, leave aside the Ecological damage.
Possibilities, Opportunities Challenges & Uncertainties
As always Balance Sheets will decide the fate of Global Business Policies & eventually the scope & mode of employment. For a short time the Uncertainties will baffle the individual minds till things start falling into a shape.
Picture Courtesy : Bradley Hook @ www.pexels.com
Jobs which essentially require just a working space within a brick-mortar set-up & a robust IT set up might totally or in a large percentage go to a Work-From-Home Mode, so long as productivity remains unaltered. This would straightaway mean a 3-fold profit for the Flagships, perhaps lesser infrastructure spending (robust IT vs retail space), but certainly Eco-friendly paper less culture & reduced power consumption.
On a daily basis this would mean that electronic communication have to be more & more S.M.A.R.T. & the information flow (specially for manufacturing & construction industries) have to be Clear & Error free, possibly more with Diagrams & Figures than words. This system is already prevalent in off-shore business model & hence should not be an issue applying it within the local office correspondences in lieu of papers moving from table to another.
Hence, the challenges will be different & role of Team Leaders will get more critical as they have to adapt to the changing environment and at the same time encourage their Team to update themselves to the new skills.
In the long run such situations might create a new Wave of employment, where few individuals will be considered as Core Team Members while majority of the Work force have to work on Project Specific Contracts, contrary to current scenario. At the same time this Work Force will be available for any Flagship as Geographical Constraints might no longer be a barrier. So, uncertainty & opportunity both might grow & possibly sort of short term instability. Organizations will have a challenge too!!!
Or perhaps all the above will be redundant, a new possibility may come up, like extensive use of A.I. & Robots, so the new challenge might be to adapt to something new, out of the box. Skill sets might be needed to be reviewed & updated after every 4-5 years which might get difficult for normal persons after a particular age. Hence, the possibility of auto-development of redundant pool of skilled force looms large.
We really don't have an answer now.
Virtual Space vs Real Touch
Religion, Society, Nations, Organizations are basically ideas or concepts developed for human progression within specific norms. So, these are basically Virtual Entities yet Real Requirements of the World, much like the Virtual Money of Credits, Debits, Assets etc. The need of Globalization has allowed a cross movement of Humans from one Space/Concept to another & hence new Concepts have come up.
In this fast changing times the maximization of use of virtual space (clouds etc) is already the latest trend & will only go on increasing. But so far what was there, that Human Connect, is still there. One has to visit a school/college/institution to learn, go to a doctor for treatment, go to work to do a job for someone else. So, while someone was working for his/her requirement but indirectly he/she was working or providing service to someone else. A type of Symbiotic Requirement.
Time will tell whether that Human Touch will survive or not, I guess it will but in a different mode. Only the requirement of repeated formatting of the brain, to adapt to new approaches at a very fast pace, much faster than we can even think of now, might have a telling effect on the mental health. Hard to evaluate now, but what keeps me wondering is...in less than 20 years...use of Film Rolls (for photography & videography), audio cassettes, floppy-cd-dvd-hard-disc all have faded faster than we have acknowledged. Along these the associated skill (and perhaps some skilled force) became redundant too!!!
"Change is the only constant".
