We’ve learnt a lot from 2020, and it’s safe to say we’ve all adapted and had to acquire a whole new set of skills that will carry us well into 2021 and beyond.
Johannesburg, South Africa (27 December 2020) – At this stage, most people are so tired of 2020 and so over the pandemic, they want to scream into their masks anytime anyone says ‘COVID’. It hasn’t all been a total disaster though.
As Euphoria CEO John Woollam points out: “We’ve learnt a lot from 2020, and it’s safe to say we’ve all adapted and had to acquire a whole new set of skills that will carry us well into 2021 and beyond.”
Below, we look at some of the serious and not so serious things we learnt in 2020:
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You’re on mute – If 2020 has a catchphrase – it’s ‘you’re on mute’. Surprisingly, some people still haven’t learnt that the default for a conference call is to be on mute until you have to speak. Most of us have gotten to grips with the functionality and etiquette of video conferencing apps this year though, and if that means we get to save time and energy with fewer face to face meetings in future – all the better. Fun tip – you can use the space bar on Zoom to unmute yourself.
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Everyone wants to go back to the office/no-one wants to go back to the office – Many people have loved working from home – no traffic, no need to change out of your pyjamas, no annoying colleagues in your ear all day. Others have hated it. They’re lonely, struggle to juggle working and parenting and/or need the vibe and interaction of the office. Whatever your preference, we’ve all learned whether we love or hate remote working, and companies have learned to manage it. This means remote working is likely to be a regular feature of office environments, even post-COVID.
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Working from home means always being at work – Work-life balance, something most of us haven’t really managed to get right, was thrown out the window this year as work came home, and home became work. That said, merging home and work means chores that used to pile up until you got home at the end of the day – like laundry, or dishes, or popping dinner on, can now be done in what used to be watercooler breaks at the office.
If we can take anything from 2020, it’s that remote working can actually work. That humans are much more resilient than we often give ourselves credit for. And that while it’s been an incredibly tough year, we’ve adapted and shifted and made it through.