{"id":11107,"date":"2020-05-20T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T10:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.adrem.ro\/what-office-work-will-look-like-from-now-on-back-to-the-future-a-new-type-of-uberization-will-appear-on-the-post-pandemic-labor-market\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T13:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:47:25","slug":"what-office-work-will-look-like-from-now-on-back-to-the-future-a-new-type-of-uberization-will-appear-on-the-post-pandemic-labor-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/what-office-work-will-look-like-from-now-on-back-to-the-future-a-new-type-of-uberization-will-appear-on-the-post-pandemic-labor-market\/","title":{"rendered":"What “office” work will look like from now on. Back to the future: a new type of “uberization” will appear on the post-pandemic labor market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Article published on www.republica.ro<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Contributor: Corneliu Bodea<\/p>\n\n

I don’t know what others are concerned about in these times, but I am most interested in the likelihood of profound changes in the wake of the current COVID-19 crisis. Here we have two broad categories of thought: those who believe that the recovery will be total, with minimal and limited consequences, and those who believe that there will be profound and lingering changes. <\/p>\n\n

Being part of the second category, I am not so much concerned with this debate itself, but with identifying those values, behaviors and beliefs that will change. My curiosity takes the form of both pure anthropological interest and the pragmatism of the businessman who wants to understand what will be the new social springs that will determine economic changes and how abrupt they will be. <\/p>\n\n

I was watching Taleb in amazement when he rejected the categorization of this crisis as a Black Swan, since he says, a Black Swan certifies first of all the quality of being completely unpredictable, when this crisis was to be expected. However, I would say that the astonishment that has engulfed mankind as to the seriousness of this problem, astonishment that does not cease and takes on forms of denial by launching all conspiracy theories, makes this crisis one of sufficiently surprising appearance that the response to it is uneven, timid, and thus, the aggravating consequences. People have generally received the crisis with deep astonishment and concern, and their reaction has generally been cautious and correct, thus reasonably managing the initial expansion. I am referring to the initial expansion, because I believe that there will be successive waves of the appearance of the virus and the only hope is that our experience and response management will be much more appropriate. <\/p>\n\n

The surprise and the sense of urgency made people isolate themselves, the measures taken by most governments imposed quite strict conditions of social distancing and even isolation where things became serious. The impact of these long-term measures (2 months) on a socio-psychological level is already being felt, and from despair and divorces to rediscovering family values and the importance of friendly relationships, people have experienced a wide spectrum of new feelings and awareness. <\/p>\n\n

Personally, I felt like I was traveling on a high-speed train and I was looking out the window at the landscape transformed into long and straight lines, homogenized by speed, a train that suddenly braked and began to go “on foot”, revealing the true landscape: unraveling the lines into objects and parks, houses and people. This feeling gave me satisfaction and time to observe what I felt. I haven’t read so much since childhood, I have never listened to so many podcasts and I have never had the feeling of boredom for decades as I had these days. I went to the office and there it was quiet, I sat for hours on the terrace and thought. I started new projects and I had time to understand… to understand what I was doing. I don’t pretend that this is how everyone felt, and I know that there are people who have already been hit hard by the current crisis. Those who have fallen ill, those who have lost friends and relatives, those who have already seen their businesses ruined. <\/p>\n\n

I also felt the frustration generated by the lack of meetings with friends, the lack of interaction and contact. I strongly believe that people need this contact and that they will know how to find it again. However, I can’t help but think about the chance to do the introspection that this period has given us. Now the question: will there be something left in us from the pleasant amazement with which we discovered the landscape of our lives and even our own needs and satisfactions? And will this change our future behavior in any way? I think so! <\/p>\n\n

I would choose from the multitude of things that will change the way we work or the way we perceive the work relationship. Our work model is generally to find a job. An employer who offers us a position that suits our training and requirements and offers us his time. From his perspective, he sees an employee whose time he buys and makes other company resources available to him: phone, office, car, etc. I think there is a good chance that these things will change. Employers will no longer offer space, car, they will no longer be interested in seeing us “in the office”. People in turn will no longer want to crowd into the subway and elevators, to sit in a building locked in an office with 100 others. A kind of “uberization” especially of certain positions could occur, and people could contract their services to dozens of employers. To work from wherever they want and when they want, to enjoy time with the children when they want and to leave to work in a caf\u00e9 when they feel the need for interaction. To be able to go to the matinee and work in the evening on the terrace. The efficient ones could increase their income, and companies could decrease them. Why so many offices, why so many cars and public transport? <\/p>\n\n

As early as the first wave of industrialization, in the 18th century, Adam Smith warned of the risk of people losing the meaning of their work, risking it turning into an activity lacking commitment and awareness. To some extent this has happened, and we often meet demotivated people who either write lines of code or supervise an automatic machine that makes a small piece of an assembly, or who lack the general perspective on the importance and social role of their effort. They are content with the reasonable transactional relationship and the fact that the income covers the rate at the bank. A context in which managers of their time choose who to dedicate to and continuously optimize the work done to their own lifestyle, could be the change that brings a leap in the value and quality of work, an ingredient that could represent the missing piece today in the puzzle of the market economy. The neo-liberal tendency, which today comes into conflict with nationalism and conservative politics, lacks such an ingredient to return to the firmament. <\/p>\n\n

Whether this will happen or not, this period, which I hope we will get through well and quickly, will leave behind a deep economic crisis, which will bring changes. But important changes do not come from the economy or politics, they come from changing the way people think and feel, from their evolution. I can only hope that we have learned what there was to learn, that we have understood the extreme pressure brought by unnecessary acceleration, that we have calmed our arrogance and had time to take a good look at ourselves and understand that we are vulnerable, that solidarity is important, that leadership suffers and that involvement is needed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know what others are concerned about these times, but I’m most interested in the likelihood of profound changes as a result of the current COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12073,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11107\/revisions\/12073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adremengineering.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}