Corona Retro – Learning from the crisis II

Wonderful, encouraging experiences!

We have implemented our approach with different customers and in different industries.
Important elements here are:

• An internal team or a larger department
• An interview guide
• The desire to listen
• Curiosity to think ahead together

Procedure
An internal team of people who have the desire and can spare the time conducts interviews according to a common guide. The focus of the questions is on perceptions of differences between the pre-lockdown period and current times when things are becoming more open again. In doing so, 3 perspectives are highlighted:

• internal cooperation
• contacts with customers
• new trends, ideas, changes in the environment, in our society.

The results of the interviews are transparent for all, are sorted together, reflected and new things are tried out and reflected again.

Small things are often realized during the interview phase – such as collective online spaces without purpose, (campfire), as an alternative to the coffee kitchen.

Of course, the findings first concern the difference between home office versus “going into work”. It becomes clear that almost everywhere the new free time allocation in the home office is experienced as surprisingly positive, even if there was previous experience with home office.

The balance that everyone has to find for themselves, be it children and job, be it their own needs and job, is, when found, a great asset.

Praise be to those employers who give their home office employees this opportunity and rely on trust rather than control.

Thinking further, this means no longer thinking of work in terms of working hours and places “I go to work” versus “I stay at home,”but rather in terms of the qualities and necessities of individual activities.

So for what kind of work do I need what kind of environment?

• For which work steps do I need quiet to be able to concentrate?
• For which work steps do I need to exchange questions and conversation?

And cultivating a good sense of when it’s time to change locations.
The next insight space concerns the difference of virtual meetings versus in person meetings.
More on that in the next blog