The next working normal.

The new normal is about to change once again.

Gone are the days of 5-day working weeks in the office, being rushed off your feet for 9 hours, long exhausting commutes on packed trains and buses resulting in less than adequate family time. Not to mention that quarter of peoples wages are going towards that travel with all the aforementioned horror.

These parts of the old normal are not missed.

I do very much miss the socialising with my family and work colleagues, being able to leave my house off my own back and not the Governments. These are the parts I will cherish so much more than previously because I’ve never had to go without for so long.

Back to the office — or not — the next normal is clearly needing a new way of working, to put it very bluntly; I do not want to return to the old ways of working. Although the nature of my job will require to be on-site but what I would like is for my organisation to blend the new and old together. I would like the option to schedule office based tasks for one or two days a week if necessary with the rest being remote. I can be 100% certain that I will not be the only one who feels this way either.

My place of work has reported that productivity has gone up during the pandemic, that people are much happier and comfortable working from home. It shows that even when not in office, people do just get on with their work and don’t just see it as an excuse to do nothing.

Being able to close your laptop after the work day is over and walk straight over to family is a great way to spend the rest of your evening without the stress of getting the train and sitting next to a hundred mentally and physically drained people like yourself.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought so much misery around the world — which to me sometimes is still tough to comprehend but you cannot deny that this has paved the way forward for the future of office working, being more people oriented. The time has come for the nature of working to change for the better.