The journey to a new way of working

Guest Speaker

Norman Dreger

Partner and CEO, Mercer Germany
Interviewer

Kate Bravery

Global Advisory Solutions & Insights Leader, Mercer

The New Shape of Work podcast is a series that addresses the challenges and uncertainty brought by the coronavirus and how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.

In our first podcast, we are bringing you a conversation between Kate Bravery, Global advisory solutions & insights leader, and Norman Dreger, Partner and multinational client group leader, covering:

How looking at the coronavirus into three phases – respond, return, and reinvent – helps plan for the unique challenges that businesses must address in each phase.
The role empathy and clear communication plays in maintaining a focused and engaged workforce through this crisis.
The opportunity to re-evaluate how we operate to incorporate the successful ways work shifted, and continues to shift, in response to COVID-19.

Interesting moments from the interview:

Social distance working

"The ongoing threat to public health really does require social distancing. So having teams of coworkers working together in close quarters in an office building with poor ventilation is obviously problematic. So companies are coming up with new approaches - staggered working, different cadences for things like cleaning and rotations, different ways of walking through the office to avoid contact."
New virtual workspace

"I think there's going to be lasting implications for virtual working and how offices are structured. But there are requirements to make this work. You need a robust technological infrastructure and you need digitised workflows. These are just essential to be successful. And the really good news is that these solutions are out there now and readily available."