We can say with conviction: The future will feature more virtual work, not less. Some companies will go to one of the extremes—either minimizing remote work to get as close to the way things were before the pandemic, or shedding all vestiges of in-office work with the attendant commuting, business travel, and relocations. But most organizations will find themselves somewhere in the middle in a hybrid model. In this future, a key driver of organizational success will be how effective leaders are in leading at a distance.
对于高盛首席执行官David Solomon而言，未来不太了解“回到事物的样子”，而更多地是关于前进的进展。他说：“通过我们的办公室互动以及我们将运行的所有方式，关键信息是我们将在工作方式上具有更大的灵活性。”“以一种前瞻性的方式谈论这比试图使'恢复正常'要强大得多。”
在星巴克总部，在整个创新和敏捷性的心态下，该公司完全重新构想了员工在工作场所工作和运作的方式。当他们的乡亲在家工作时，开展了为期一年的建筑项目，以创建“一个中心的聚会场所，个人互动，建立关系，并传播一种联系文化”。
弄清楚您在这一虚拟工作中走得多快和有多远将在很大程度上是您工作的行业的函数，但其他因素也将发挥作用。让我们探索其中的一些。
一些部门更适合虚拟工作
A McKinseyfuture-of-workstudy confirms that remote work is likely to be more prevalent in industries such as technology, finance, insurance, and professional services. People whose work involves physically touching products will mostly continue to be on-site. As Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS acknowledged, most of her company’s 500,000+ workers are front-line employees delivering packages or working in sorting facilities around the world. While there will continue to be tremendous innovation in how essential workers do their jobs, they will remain out on the world’s roads or in the air delivering the packages—and in the process, helping many of us live and work from home. Many other companies also have essential functions that can’t be done remotely.
Despite advances in automation and robotics, most of those jobs are not going to be remote anytime soon. Nor will many of the healthcare professionals, cable and telecom engineers, or many energy or factory workers.
性别差距可能会增加
尽管在大流行期间退出劳动力的妇女人数数量，但我们希望前进的道路将带来更少的出口，并且随着事情恢复正常的某些外观，将会更少的出口和更重新进入。但是，这一转变最令人担忧的方面将是对工作中多样性和性别平等的长期影响。一篇文章in时间magazine talks about this disturbing trend: 885,000 women left the workforce over a few periods of several months in 2020, while only 216,000 men exited during that same period. In addition, one in four women are cutting back on hours or changing roles to ones that are less demanding. The long-term consequences of this are unknown, of course, but there is nothing good about them. Fewer women in the workforce increases gender pay gaps and the lack of diversity in senior executive roles.
LEADERS WILL BE MORE SELECTIVE WITH BUSINESS TRAVEL
What will business travel look like in the new normal? While answers to this question vary widely, it has become apparent to many senior leaders that travel is not always necessary and that they may be much more selective about when to travel in the future. AMcKinsey reportthat examined the future of business travel predicts that regional and domestic travel will likely return first, and that in-person sales or client meetings will take precedence over internal meetings. Projections by several airlines estimate that approximately a quarter of pre-pandemic business travel will be lost for the long-term, if not for good. Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly告诉CNBC该公司将重点关注休闲传单，因为可能需要10年的商务旅行回到大流行前的水平。
TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION WILL ACCELERATE VIRTUAL WORK
当Darleen在2010年撰写她的第一本书时，她采访了使用Telepresence的公司的高管，当时这是Cisco的创新（且昂贵）的视频会议平台。许多领导人感叹，虽然远程敏感很棒，但它不可广泛地访问，通常为高级管理人员保留。从那时起，技术的进步继续改变我们的工作方式。Zoom，Teams，Webex和Blue牛仔裤现在是常见的家喻户晓的名字，这些平台为数百万的远程工人和儿童提供了远距离学习的动力。Miro，壁画和概念等在线协作网站为远程员工增强了创新和信息共享。
What will technology look like in the next decade? Technology companies will continue to focus on enhancing the user experience with videoconferencing. While these tools facilitate how we work, they also can be cognitively draining. Will companies continue to build platforms that make it easier for people to drop into a virtual water cooler or café to have an informal discussion? Some technology companies are continuing to develop Virtual Reality software to mimic the office space environment. Organizations are experimenting with gamification to foster collaboration and fun, and to help deliver leadership development to a remote workforce.
对于某些人来说，远程工作将是不可持续的
写在大西洋2020年10月，阿曼达·穆尔（Amanda Mull）争辩说“家庭的一代工作可能永远不会恢复。”她认为，许多人喜欢办公室提供的结构，常规，重点和社会化。她观察到，有些人重视他们的工作和个人生活之间的严格界限。有些人更喜欢离开工作。其他人则有生活局势（小住所，嘈杂的室友或伴侣），这使得远程工作非常不便。大流行使所有这些问题脱颖而出，并且随着办公室的重新开放，有些人绝对想返回。如果他们在决定全身全身的公司工作，那么很可能会找到其他地方可以工作的地方。
混合模型将提出新的挑战
我们自己的研究清楚地证实了虚拟工作的增加。在偏远工作的部门中，一些组织，例如Facebook，Twitter，Zillow和Shopify，都集中在非常灵活的工作中。但是许多其他组织将实施混合模型。Verizon首席人力资源官Christy Pambianchi说明了未来国家的转变：“我们不会以同样的方式返回办公室；我们将返回地理枢纽。”然而，其他公司（例如Dropbox）对这种混合模型所带来的挑战敏感，并且已经通过使其劳动力获得了股份。虚拟首先。这意味着它的3,000名员工大部分时间都会遥不可及，但有时会进入办公室，他们称之为“ Dropbox Studios”。Dropbox选择放弃一种混合结构，该结构可能会在员工之间创造不均匀的比赛环境。Dropbox Studios用于合作和聚会，或者人们可以与同事互动的协作空间。
我们已经谈到了这种混合模型带来的独特挑战。随着越来越多的公司接受它，我们预计将会带来新的挑战。其中：
- There is a plethora of research on the importance of psychological safety at work, and we believe that creating this safety will become even more important as the hybrid approach grows. It may become harder to detect a loss of psychological safety in a virtual setting, and leaders need to be more deliberate about this when some employees are in the office and others are at home. Leaders need to focus on creating an equitable culture where people feel safe speaking up, voicing concerns, and feeling comfortable making mistakes.
- 物理办公室中形成的集团或子组，它们在全远莫特或混合文化中也将变得更加明显。为了避免这种问题可能造成的问题，领导者必须识别可能形成的子组，并采取步骤避免他们可以创造的信任侵蚀。在混合模型中，当团队成员开始将远程团队成员排除在讨论之外时，协作和信任就会受到影响。
- 员工对不在办公室的最大担忧之一是“看不见的是无视”。如果组织正在促进混合模型，那么必须确保领导者公平地对待人们。在办公室员工获得更多晋升或收到更多项目，因为他们对老板的“头脑”是“头脑中的”？如果领导者认真对待远程办公和混合模型，则应通过在家中工作来对此进行建模。
- 在不需要经常在办公室里的混合文化中，人们可能会担心会更频繁地进入的人会享有职业优势。正如NASA的简·达塔（Jane Datta）所阐明的那样：“风险是混合环境，您将失去在一起的真正好处，并在会议上创建一个两级系统，在屏幕上的人们并没有真正完全参与。”为了解决这些问题，人力资源领导者应跟踪晋升和职业发展的速度，以完全遥远，在办公室和混合模式中完全遥远。这将有助于确保均匀的竞争环境并减轻任何恐惧。
- 如果有些人经常工作，有些人将减少他们的参与度。除了跟踪促销率外，还可以随着时间的推移测量员工参与度以检查混合模型的差异。我们在Kincentric的Spencer Stuart同事建议定期脉搏调查，以监视参与度，并查看哪些工作正常以及可以改进的内容。
Kathleen Hogan, chief people officer at Microsoft, raised a critical point about what many leaders have learned from the remote work experience. “Once we’re in the promised land of being safe to come back to work,” she said, “I think this all will be better in that we’ll have navigated this incredible period, and we’ll cherish being in person together. But we will have figured out that it doesn’t have to be five days a week in the office, the way we used to.”
有关距离领先的更多信息，请查看此摘录在Inc.com。
从书中摘录Leading at a Distance.版权所有©2021撰写的Spencer Stuart International Ireland Limited。该书于2021年5月25日由John Wiley＆Sons出版。经许可转载。