The internet needs more voices from human resources practitioners now more than ever before. Gone are the days when HR practitioners were treated as cost-inducing factor in the balance sheets of businesses.

If business leaders are still not convinced yet that the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 was a testament to the value human resources practitioners bring to their organizations, it’s time to put things in perspective. While we may no longer be at the peak of the coronavirus, we are still at the peak of the post-global lockdown world of work and human resources is still leading the way in navigating change in the new world of work.

The New World of Work

Technology and the Late Adopters

The ‘new world of work’ is where people who were not comfortable with technology in the pre-COVID era have suddenly found themselves scrambling to learn the basics of online communication long before Zoom became a household name. For the tech-savvy (dare I say…older) readers – do you remember MSN Messenger? All those cute emojis, text/voice and video chatting we do on our smart phones today were already there since 1999, they’re just packaged and presented more nicely today and come in many different looks.

Dormant Leaders

The other group of people that have been pushed out of their comfort zones are what I call the ‘Dormant Leaders’ – yes, that’s a very polite term for leaders who were sleeping for too long in doing their jobs and in leading their people and organizations. Whether they wanted or not, what they got during the COVID-19 pandemic was a rude awakening and a kick in the backside to get on with showing true leadership and navigating their organizations through unprecedented crisis.

WFA – Working from Anywhere

Working from home (WFH) and remote jobs are now the norm. If you’re an organization that is still resistant to change and not open to the idea of making every job that is remotely doable as the new reality of doing work in your organization, you are unlikely to attract talent in 2021 and beyond. Leaders in such organizations with ‘bottom-line’ thinking where ‘profits before people’ is the number one policy will continue to pay the cost in lost intellectual capital with talent leaving to find workplaces that value their health and safety first while also meeting their flexible work needs. WFH and WFA are the new items that need to be added in the job adverts.

Have you taken a moment to reflect what you want in your job now after the year of the pandemic? How have the leaders in your workplace managed to lead the path through the coronavirus pandemic? Was it effective? What could be done differently should we find ourselves in another global lockdown again?

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