employees have the power
working with the rapid transition alliance
Rapid Transition Alliance
print & digital
written by seb lansdowne
The past two years of yo-yoing in and out of lockdowns and different levels of restrictions can make it hard to decipher the days from the weeks and the good times from the bad; but there are a few silver linings to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a global population we have come together to fight the virus, and in doing so we experienced a decades worth of innovation in a matter of weeks. Working from home has changed the lives of so many – replacing the dread on Sunday evening with the stress of making sure the background of your zoom call looks tidy, unlike the rest of your room/office or wherever you’ve perched your laptop today.
Suddenly we all had a 10 step commute rather than an hour on the train, stuck in traffic or on the bus. This one change has allowed over half of employees (52%) to feel closer to their families and enjoy a better work life balance – it took this change to show nearly 40% of workers that they even had a poor work/life balance in the first place.
This huge shift to flexibility has changed the way employees and employers view work and how it has to be done. Justin Small, CEO and Founder of Future Strategy Club said “[Employers] need to be careful to accommodate their employees’ needs and concerns otherwise, talented individuals will be drawn towards going it alone or jumping ship, causing repercussions for businesses that may be on the edge of surviving and going under.”
The influx of changes has in some cases broken through productivity slumps of recent years – reducing burnout in workers by up to 22% and increasing overall productivity by 12%.
“it took this change to show
nearly 40% of workers that they even had a poor work/life balance in the first place”
Future Strategy Club
At bwa we have been helping to illustrate some of these lessons from lockdown. Alongside Rapid Transition, we have been looking at the silver linings from these generation defining years. We have explored how we learnt to be happy with what we have – a new found conscious consumption, the astronomical rise in people wanting to repair rather than throw away, and have helped to document the drastic change in our air pollution levels that lockdowns brought about.
In this ongoing project we are still researching the impacts sustainable travel can have and the problems with over consumption.
All figures taken from Future Strategy Club and Airtasker research.
