Most changes to business practice are swiftly followed by a whole raft of brand new jargon. For example: electronic comms birthed email; the slow dilution of formalised corporate culture – think everyone doing nine-to-five, wearing suits and working in cubicles – preceded phrases like ‘work-life blend’ and ‘coffee shop meeting’; whilst the management consultancy-ification of work also bred a lot of words like streamline, restructure, operational efficiency. Someone pass me the dictionary!
Therefore, of course the overnight structural changes to almost all aspects of work that the pandemic forced through came with a change in lingo. In 2020, we all ‘pivoted’ to video, adapted to the ‘new normal’ and, if burnout figures are anything to go by, became overly present via the cameras and chat channels some work now occurred by (‘e-presenteeism’ is the word for this!)
Yet, all this new language – whether you’re a fan of new business vocab or not, it’s here to stay (at least for now) – whether you feel it is all useless jargon, or fairly useful for describing huge, fast pace evolutions, does indicate one undeniably and challenging truth: work has changed! And within this changed structure, HR has to overcome some fairly serious hurdles.
This is why we’ve dedicated September’s issue of HR Grapevine magazine to – apologies for those of you who are already sick of phrase! – the new normal of work. For this month’s cover feature we spoke to a FTSE 100 firm’s Global HRD about how HR can add value on this new landscape, looking at evolving the role the people function played during the pandemic. We also explore whether remote work is the panacea, the biggest changes employers have made and how to get buy-in for change.
As ever, stay safe and enjoy.
