AOM Scholars On… The Workplace’s Pandemic Reset

Leading global workplace scholar expert and Panel Moderator Peter Bamberger of Tel Aviv University joined panelists Adam M. Kleinbaum of Dartmouth College, Tsedal Neeley of Harvard Business School and Jennifer Petriglieri of INSEAD discuss “The Workplace’s Pandemic Reset” as part of AOM’s scholar-led webinar panel on 22 July 2021.

The panel explored just how much the workplace has radically changed as a result of COVID-19 and how future, unseen changes will continue to impact nearly every organization, employee, and workplace around the world.

The AOM Scholars showcased their research-based insights to make sense of this workplace evolution and analyze the implications of these changes for organizations and employees in the near-term and long-term. 

Research-based insights:

• How colleagues are missing integral networking and professional relationships as a result of remote work, and how these missed relationship building opportunities disproportionately impact minority workforces, particularly women and/or people of color

• Survey data has shown today’s workers, who are remote and in-person, are the most stressed than they’ve ever been. The panelists explained why this has happened, what organizations can do to mitigate stress and worker burnout for their workforce, and how worker wellness is one of the most important items for companies today to focus on and be prepared to help provide solutions immediately and into the future.

• How the nature of work is changing in lockstep with the pandemic and the digital work revolution, including explaining ramifications of this rapidly evolved nature of work.

• Why workers are leaving the workplace in such dramatic rates, especially regarding working women, and how organizations can keep talent, make them less stressed, and more fulfilled with their career.

• The ways in which the pandemic has impacted working couples, and caused more working couples who hold senior leadership positions to retire early or dramatically reduce their workloads. This has had a significant impact on organizations who have had a senior talent drain as a result of this exodus.

• What the future of work looks like, and how organizations, employees and the world can best prepare for it.

Panel Soundbites:

“The companies of the future that are going to win the talent war are going to be those who recognize that there is a work life divide—and treat people and their lives holistically and lead with a focus on 'what is best for our employees’ not only at work but overall. Companies who don’t do that are going to bleed talent”.

- Jennifer Petriglieri

“In the same way that COVID accelerated the virtualization of work, it has also accelerated the digitization of work, where reliance on data, technology, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, robotic processing and automation have advanced in extraordinary ways across many companies. If we get this hybrid work right, which speaks to the nature of work that’s changing, we are going to be better prepared to deal with the digital revolution that is right around the corner, where all of us will have to participate. We are setting ourselves up for a changed work landscape that is unavoidable.

- Tsedal Neeley

“Advice to organizational leaders-if inequality was a problem before the pandemic, it has certainly been accelerated by the pandemic. This is something that if organizational leaders don’t pay attention to, this is going to come back and bite them big time and they need to pay greater attention to it.”

- Peter Bamburger