Massive organizational change on the horizon for businesses post-COVID-19

When restrictions lift and businesses start to reopen, organizations that allowed employees to work from home during the pandemic may find it difficult to deny staff that option going forward.

Rafael Chiuzi, an associate professor with U of T Mississauga’s Department of Management and an expert in organizational behaviour and HR management, says it will be tough for organizations to come back from forced remote work and return to the old normal.

Before the pandemic forced businesses to allow employees to work remotely wherever possible, working from home was a perk opposed to a policy, Chiuzi says. It was a perk that wasn’t open to all employees because employers were afraid of the consequences if they made a lot of exceptions, he explains.

Human resources will be in a tough spot because now that they’ve seen work can be accomplished remotely – in less than ideal circumstances, no less – they know for a fact working from home is viable. It becomes increasingly difficult to justify some policies, according to Chiuzi.

“The narrative implodes with the pandemic,” he says, adding that many jobs will have to undergo a redesign to determine if it’s possible the work can be done remotely while still attending to the business model.

There are, of course, downsides to working remotely. Working from home isn’t for everyone. Chiuzi says extroverts, for example, extract their energy by being around others, so working from home could make them miserable.

There is also a lot of informal learning and networking that takes place when someone is physically at their place of work, Chiuzi continues. Joining peers for coffee or lunch allows individuals to meet others and create connections and organizational shortcuts.

“Eliminating the informal learning space has big consequences,” he says.

Chiuzi notes it is inadvisable to work from home all the time and instead suggests a flexible arrangement would work best. But that, of course, depends on several variables, including the type of work, the necessity of human interactions for the position, building networks and personality traits.

Flexible work arrangements will be the new social contract in job negotiation, Chiuzi says, explaining that each year he asks his students what they want from their employer and the answer that has been increasingly showing up over the past two years is flexible working arrangements.

The question of remote work isn’t the only issue organizations will have to tackle. Chiuzi says there will be an “avalanche of organizations” trying to change a lot of things very rapidly after the pandemic. Organizations will have to comply with “a ton of regulations” and there will be significant changes to human resource policies related to protecting vulnerable work, remote work, human behaviour, benefits and more, according to Chiuzi. Not all organizations will have the capacity to embrace such massive change so quickly.

He explains large corporations either have built-in change management expertise or the money to source services, but small and medium-sized businesses will suffer the most because they don’t have “change management embedded in their business” and now they will have to adjust and compete. If there is no capacity to manage the change well, they will have disgruntled employees and a higher staff turn-over rate.

A lot, he notes, will depend on the resilience of these businesses. There will need to be deep thinking to tackle these issues, Chiuzi says.

Rafael Chiuzi will discuss change management during an interactive webinar on May 20 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. that is part of the U of T Alumni SHAKER professional series.