254 - Flexible is the New Normal
Episode: 254
Episode Title: Flexible is the New Normal
Flexible work has become a mainstay for workers struggling with mental health challenges. Here’s how employers can support them, coming up next on The Perna Syndicate.
Ep 254 show:
Greetings and welcome to The Perna Syndicate! All week we’ve been talking about the mental health challenges created by the pandemic. Now, as life returns to some semblance of normalcy for many of us, there’s one result of the pandemic that we don’t want to lose. And that’s a whole new level of flexibility at work.
Yes, life got a lot more stressful when everything shut down and the workforce went remote overnight. But these challenges have largely been navigated, and now that we’ve experienced the flexibility of working from home, it’s going to be hard to give up.
That’s why I urge companies of all sizes to stay as flexible as possible. It won’t help employees’ mental health to turn their routines upside down once again by reopening the office and expecting everyone to be there full time like nothing ever happened.
The fact is, pre-pandemic life and work are never coming back. Recreating the workplace that existed before the world shut down can’t be our goal.
As employers—and I include myself in this—we need to honor how our teams went above and beyond to perform their jobs, day in and day out during one of the most challenging periods in our recent history. In the process, they’ve grown, they’ve taken ownership—and I think they’ve earned a more flexible workplace.
As we transition out of pandemic mode, supporting employee autonomy is a boost for everyone’s mental health. Flexible is the new normal.
On tomorrow’s show, we’re going to talk about why employee autonomy after the pandemic is so crucial to a successful transition back to the office. We’ll see you back here then on The Perna Syndicate.