Introduction
Much has been researched and written over the past three years about the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on society generally, and on the world of work specifically. The research projects have shared conclusions based on solid data, and was intended to contribute primarily to knowledge generally, and for the academic world. It acknowledged that business could use the information to generate development interventions and initiatives to combat the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, while government could use the research findings to inform current and future policy decisions.
Any analysis of Covid-19 and its impact will have found that there’s very little new knowledge discoveries that have been made. Every major past global disaster, such as the Bubonic Plague, the 1922 Flu Epidemic, the two World Wars, the Cold War, has raised the same fears, but has also been responsible for new and innovative ways to negotiate the future. In much the same way, Covid-19 has raised the old ghosts, but our past experiences have taught us to be more resilient and to be more confident about managing life into the future. The issue is simply where to look and whom to turn to for assistance in providing clarity, trust, confidence, and direction.
Enter the Knowledge and Management Industry
As the world emerged from the strictures of state-imposed Covid-19 interventions (the harshest of which has been strictly enforced lockdown measures) the world of work engaged with the myriad of research articles and expert opinions on how to transition back into the normal cycle of industry, or how to negotiate the “new normal” work environment.
Following closely on the heels of researched-based analyses, and expert opinion (including academic contributions), large numbers of consulting companies started putting forward suggested intervention programmes to assist business in managing the paradigm shift. Much like with the Y2K scare in 1999, many businesses felt ill-equipped to deal with the impact of Covid-19, and generally responded by introducing short-term interventions, either developed and delivered in-house, or by contracting external consultants for this purpose.
Most of the research and expert opinion revolved around the impact of remote work, workspace, organizational restructuring, workplace relations, and the need for technological interventions to ensure not only survival of the business, but to maintain and increase growth. The McKinsey Global Institute, Deloitte, PWC, and a host of others provided much food for thought about strategies to deal with the post-Covid world of work. Unfortunately, much of the nature of the challenge facing business has been mystified, leaving many unsure about their next steps.
Three years on, and many companies are still trying to come to grips with the lingering impact of Covid-19 on their business processes and systems, and more importantly, its people. Having survived Covid-19 with a predictable loss of growth (and profits), many companies find that, despite seeing a welcome growth in their bottom line, large sectors of their staff complement, including managers and executive leadership, are having difficulty adjusting to the paradigm shift caused by Covid-19.
The Post-Covid Paradigm of Work
There’s a great deal of consistency between the various research reports and expert opinions, which implies that the analytical process and observations arrived at are largely spot-on. Most of these identify the Covid-19/post-Covid-19 human condition as occupying the central spot in this paradigm, yet the advice and proposals suggested focus on corporate structures, systems, and processes. The human condition becomes an ancillary concern, and consequently, many are unable to make the required paradigm shift. This is especially true for many Human Capital / Human Resource managers.
It might be necessary, therefore, to deconstruct the high-level research findings to re-focus on the human condition. In this regard, I would list the following as areas requiring focus:
- The spectre of mortality: as South Africans, we are always deeply aware of our mortality, given the high rate of violent crime and the real possibility that we are one step removed from becoming victims of crime. Covid-19 has had an exacerbating impact on that sense of mortality, creating a general fear of the future.
- Loss of control: over the course of the lockdown in its various stages, we were provided with a few tools to safeguard ourselves: isolation, sanitisation, masking, and continuous information updates about the origin and causes of the virus, and efforts by the medical fraternity to contain and control it. These tools proved to be too little to provide assurances to a fearful nation. The lockdown removed control from us, and in effect told us that our survival could not be left entirely in our own hands.
- Inconsistent leadership: initially, it appeared that the majority of South Africans approved of the way our government and its medical advisors were handling the pandemic on home soil; however, with the errant behaviour of many government leaders, both local and international, as well as the reported dissension in the medical fraternity, we became concerned about whether our leaders really knew what they were doing. It didn’t help that prominent citizens, such as our Chief Justice, questioned both the morality and efficacy of the suggested vaccines that were proposed as a measure to counter the pandemic. This obviously increased anxiety levels among large sections of society and gave credence to rampant conspiracy theories.
- Loss of faith and trust: the longer the pandemic lasted, and as the number of fatalities across the world increased, the more people lost faith in a secure future, and in our collective leadership’s ability to deal with international crises such as Covid-19. The fact that the “developed world” and leading nations in the world (the USA, the UK, Germany, etc), seemed incapable of eliminating not only the virus, but its devastating levels of infection and fatalities, left people feeling lost and adrift. The organized religious sector was similarly unable to provide assurances to their flock(s), both through a practical inability to provide regular services because of the lockdown measures, but also an inability to manifest the power of God to eliminate the virus.
- Fake truth and conspiracy theory: from the onset of the virus, and its rapid growth into a pandemic, people were bombarded with conflicting information about the origin and cause of the virus, and the envisaged interventions to manage the virus and its impact. The Covid-19 denialists and cynics posited various conspiracy theories about the actual existence of the virus, and in fact began to claim that it was nothing but a false flag operation by powerful individuals and/or organizations to gain control of and manipulate society for various purposes of self-interest. The New World Order, China, Big Business, Big Pharma, including individuals like Bill Gates, etc. were all identified as key players in the conspiracy. While there was little evidence to support the conspiracy theories, the amount of fake news, misinformation, and manipulated evidence multiplied, creating a great deal of confusion, not to mention distrust in the recognised purveyors of news and information. Much of this distrust might also have found its way into the workplace.
- A question of value and equity: as the world drew closer to finding a mediating solution through the manufacturing of vaccines, it became clear that access to those vaccines would be determined by an informal vaccine apartheid, and the lack of capacity and inability of the South African state to either produce or procure enough of the vaccine for deployment to its own afflicted people. While it might not have been expressed as such, the majority of South Africans would have questioned their innate individual and collective value in society.
- Involuntary dependency: as we ceded control over our physical, psychological, and spiritual survival and wellbeing to the state and its apparatuses, business leaders and religious leaders, we found ourselves dependent on these same entities for the same reasons. While the poor, unemployed, and destitute had little choice in the matter, most of the employed were unaccustomed to this situation, something that increased their anxiety levels.
- The face of 4IR: As Business and Government tried to get a handle on Covid-19, technology asserted itself as a means of mediating some of its disruptive elements. Using technology, the health system could identify and track infected individuals and those they were in contact with and provide essential alerts and support in dealing with such incidences. Business found it necessary to deploy technology on a greater scale to not only provide continuous services (such as delivery of food), but also to organise its workforce through remote work modes. This situation continued to a greater or lesser extent even after the lockdown ended. Unfortunately, for many, these efforts also exposed the monster in the closet, as the reality of the 4th Industrial Revolution became apparent, even as many argue that South Africa is not yet ready for it. There exists a real fear that the increased deployment of technology and automation will result in wide-scale job losses and unemployment.
- Blurring work and family lines: for many, working from home was a blessing, as they got to spend more time with their families and getting to know each other all over again. For others, though, this was both a blessing and a curse. Township dwellers appreciated not spending almost 40% of their earnings on transport getting to and from the workplace but found it extremely difficult to create a workspace at home where the tight living quarters were already crowded with extended families. The potential for ongoing tension and conflict was always going to be high under these conditions.
- Dancing in the dark: the ever-present infighting, dissension, and instability within the ruling party, together with the harrowing reports of widespread corruption has created a dark cloud of insecurity over the future of the country. Add in the mix the return of rolling loadshedding throughout the country, and the spectre of water shortage in some parts, and South Africans can be forgiven for losing faith and trust in our government’s ability to drive the stability, development and growth that the country needs.
- Human Capital’s incomplete toolbox: it wouldn’t be unfair to assert that Human Resource/Capital management should have been able to deal with the fallout of Covid-19, given that there was a hiatus during the lockdown that strategies could have been developed for the post-Covid reality. In all fairness, though, despite all the research done during the 2019-2020 period, few could have predicted the exact nature of the impact of Covid-19 on the world of work, and particularly from the perspective of employees generally. Understandably, most Human Resources/Capital departments would have reverted to the tried and tested initiatives to address the expected employee and workplace concerns. It would appear though, that many either underestimated the severity of the problems facing it, or completely misunderstood the exact nature of the problem(s).
It is one thing to highlight the vagaries of Covid-19 on people; it is another to understand how they manifested in the workplace after the lockdown, when most people returned to their places of work. All of us would have been impacted by the pandemic in much the same way; given the time, we’d all very likely be able to pinpoint the various experiences we went through. Not many of us, though, would be able to explain how those experiences would affect our behaviour and our relationships with colleagues, managers, and executives at the workplace. Much of the research into the impact of Covid-19 has highlighted some of the psychological effects, such as the high levels of depression. Not many mentioned mania. If we were to break this down further, we would probably find that there might have been more incidences at the workplace of anger, sadness, substance abuse, aggression in its many forms, than prior to Covid-19. Unless HR/HC managers were attuned to the possibility of such anti-social behaviour post-covid, they would have been unprepared to deal with it, or to implement correct, but inappropriate measures to deal with it.
The pandemic was highly divisive in its impact on society, and elicited a continuum of attitudes: from believers, through agnostics and cynics, all the way to hardcore denialists. These attitudes found manifestations in all walks of life, and the world of work was not spared. The question is, how many business leaders and human resource/capital experts recognised these as a necessary condition to confront? We can expect that these attitudes would have translated into job insecurity, distrust and resentment of management, reduction in disposable income (due to the resumption of transport costs, among others), and generally challenging behaviour, such as questioning existing the management culture, work systems, practices and processes, and opportunities for upward mobility. The list is almost endless.
According to the Thomas Theorem, when people “… define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” If people believe something, irrespective of the facts, they will behave as if it was true. For example, if newly returned staff are confronted with the introduction of new technology to perform certain work processes, many of them will believe that it is intended to reduce staff – this will lead to a decline in morale, and increase in job insecurity, and possibly an increase in resignations.
While the knee-jerk reaction may be to look to organizational structure, systems, and processes for answers, it is more important to look at people: and if, as so many organizations proclaim, people are their most important assets, then any solutions to address the post-covid paradigm will have to be people-focussed.
Ronald B. Swartz
October 2022
Ronald.swartz@designedcoachingsolutions.com