Operations Management in the “New Normal”

Many fundamentals have changed within the workplace since COVID first worked its way across Europe. Employees will expect greater flexibility and more choice of workplace, and the “special circumstances” approaches to manage work that were deployed in the crisis may not be sustainable. This shift in the fundamentals of where and how people work offers both challenges and opportunities for organisations and their staff.

A key component of the debate is a focus from employers on how to maintain or improve productivity in a remote working or hybrid (remote/office based) workplace.  How should organisations meet the challenges of control, oversight and performance management alongside ensuring staff wellbeing where they aren’t physically present in company premises?

Sending people home to work has already proved to be a reality check for many organisations on how the management processes really work. Senior leaders found just how much of their control relied on “line of sight” management and employee presenteeism with productivity and performance data being incomplete, inaccurate and horribly lagged.

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