THE world is slowly inching towards restarting.
Barring any resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic, organisations are finding ways of conducting their business, and people are resuming with their work lives.
As people emerge, after almost 2 months of putting their careers or businesses on hold, everyone is figuring out how best to operate, while dealing with so many challenges.
For the most displaced members of our society, it is the basic needs that must be met. Underprivileged people are struggling with keeping their families fed and clothed.
Those of you who are more fortunate, may not have these fundamental issues to deal with, but nonetheless are faced with difficulties in terms of managing your careers, work modalities, and income streams.
In many ways, the pandemic has hastened the arrival of what many experts in the human resource and management fields predicted was going to happen sometime in the future.
Undeniably, there is an overall re-evaluation of the significance and nature of everyone's work.
The lockdown and ensuing troubles, has seen many of you working in a remote capacity, as well as dealing with increased technology and automation. And previously unglamorous jobs, in the health, education, transportation, sanitary sectors to name a few, have become significant.
It is also noticeable that just months ago, people who were freelancing and were part of the gig economy, were celebrated as proponents of work in modern times. But now, they visibly lack social protection.
Emotionally, it's not "business as usual" and most people can't get their heads around the "new normal."
In my experience of conducting online leadership coaching sessions over the past 6 weeks, I get confronted with bewildered clients, who are scrambling to keep their careers or businesses afloat.
I have repeatedly said to them that rather than succumbing to problems caused by uncertainty, it is more prudent to take positive actions and empower themselves with the way forward.
The clear opportunity that has come out of this period, is for you to press the "reset" button. And, I see a few areas where you can rebuild, by recalibrating your mindset.
The first thing that you need to do is to intensify up-skilling and re-skilling yourselves. And to be honest, as much as I enjoy developing a new hobby, this is not what I mean.
At core, the most significant lesson that I have learnt, is that everyone must be better prepared for disruptions in the future. The sudden and unpredictable nature of this crisis, and its effect on your work and enterprises, calls for a complete rethink of the way life is conducted.
It is quite clear that with the fallout from the pandemic, businesses have to accelerate digitisation and automation. No matter what your job is, this has become necessary for everyone. Your digital imprint must go beyond entertainment, and actually be work-related.
You have to improve your digital skills and consider alternatives to the way you go about your business or career. And, it requires personal investment of time, energy, and financial resources.
Have you reflected if the career that you have, or the business that you have built is going to cope with the changing dynamics of the post pandemic world?
That's a real crucial question for you.
How you care for people in your organisation, support your community and environment, manage new technologies, communicate effectively what your products or services are, have all changed, and will have to be reprioritised.
You must take proactive measures to ensure that you remain relevant in a fast-changing world.
The question is whether you will continue as before, or if you have to pivot to an alternative route.
It is also clearly apparent that in some places around the world, which have the resources and systems in place, active support is offered to workers and businesses.
But for the vast majority, the future lies with redeploying your work. You have to make qualified decisions to shift away from a low-demand role to one which is of high-demand, if you want to remain on the path of growth.
And remember, what constituted a high-demand, plum job may not be what the market has been saying for decades. Consumer preferences will dramatically change and be realigned. This is a future where uncertainty is the norm.
If you are doing a job which is not in demand or if your business is seen as not essential, you are certainly in for a troubled future. There is a real need for you to re-evaluate the quality of your job or business.
And finally, if not most significantly, you also need to learn to prioritise your health and mental well-being, through all of this.
If you find yourself not knowing what exactly to do under the current trying circumstances, it may well lead to a lot of emotional and mental instability. The job that you choose to do, has to take into account your personal well-being, too.
As you move back to a semblance of normalcy, do not ignore the value of the reset option in your life.
Shankar R. Santhiram is managing consultant and executive leadership coach at EQTD Consulting. He is also the author of the national bestseller "So, You Want To Get Promoted?"
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times