{"id":5389,"date":"2020-12-18T11:16:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T11:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2021-06-10T09:07:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T08:07:34","slug":"five-workplace-lessons-learnt-from-the-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/2020\/12\/18\/five-workplace-lessons-learnt-from-the-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Five workplace lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

SSPSSR’s Dr Heejung Chung<\/a>, an expert in flexible working and work-life balance, has reflected on the changes we have seen in workplace culture in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic causing many businesses to adapt to new ways of working.<\/p>\n

Dr Chung\u2019s five takeaway points are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Flexible working works<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Unlike what was thought\u00a0in previous time<\/a>s, we found out that\u00a0many jobs<\/a>\u00a0we once thought were impossible to be done at home, can actually be done from home quite well \u2013\u00a0if not better<\/a>\u00a0than from the office. Companies are already getting\u00a0rid of office spaces<\/a>, or re-thinking office spaces to make them fit for purpose in this new era of work. Offices will not disappear but they are likely to look very different to what they were before.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. People love flexible working<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What is more, an increasing number of people now\u00a0want to work from home<\/a>\u00a0and have other types of flexible working in the future. The right to request has been here since 2003, but this pandemic has really made a shift in gears in the demands for flexible working among all workers, and the flexible working genie is unlikely to go back to its bottle.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Meaningful work<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The rise of key worker status has made us rethink how we value \u2018work\u2019. Some jobs we considered as low-skilled jobs, such as supermarket cashiers, delivery drivers, and those working in the social care and health care sectors were the heroes of our society \u2013 especially during the first wave of the pandemic. Possibly we can rethink the way society provides financial renumeration for these roles now that we know that the very fabric of our societies, and our lives depend on these roles.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. The UK can have a proper unemployment benefit scheme<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          The UK has in a way successfully introduced an unemployment benefit scheme out of the blue, to save our society and the economy \u2013 through the furlough scheme. Will this be the moment when we start introducing a new insurance-based system into UK\u2019s welfare state?<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. People want to work less<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            The re-evaluation of work and how we spend our time has also shaped the way we think about our own work\/working hours. We see that many people have enjoyed spending more time with their children and partners over the pandemic period and are starting to re-evaluate their priorities \u2013\u00a0many wanting to work less<\/a>\u00a0going into the future. With this \u2013 we are increasingly seeing support rise for a\u00a04 day week<\/a>. Could this be the moment we have been waiting for to follow\u00a0John Mayer Keynes\u2019 prediction of 15 hour work weeks<\/a>?<\/p>\n

            \"\"<\/a>
            Dr Heejung Chung<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            SSPSSR’s Dr Heejung Chung, an expert in flexible working and work-life balance, has reflected on the changes we have seen in workplace culture in 2020 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38005,"featured_media":5390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124,70,25252],"tags":[237337],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5392,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389\/revisions\/5392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}