Divya Parwal is Manager at Digifintax Solutions Private Limited. The company provides digital transformation solutions and SAP FICO implementation services.
The new normal of life under lockdown includes virtual house parties with long-lost friends, job interviews on video conferencing apps, live movie streaming with online
companionship or a live charity concert of your favourite popstar performing from his or her home.
With the young discovering old ways to connect and the old connecting with the new,the Covid-19 outbreak has turned some assumptions about technology and the
demographics of the Internet on its head.
The more obvious changes have been the wide patronisation of mobile applications,earlier considered suitable only for preteens. One of these is House party an informal
video calling app with games-like charades and trivia that one can enjoy with an intimate group of friends.
Technology adoption by the more ‘senior’ professionals has also picked up, in the absence of any scope to conduct face-to-face meetings or interviews with many
favouring app-based video calls on Zoom and Skype.
In one survey, the World Economic Forum assesses, some 44% Global HR leaders believe new technologies will enable remote working and promote co-working space
and teleconferencing in small and large organisations.
It’s worth reflecting on how we could imagine a changed world like this.
Our future place of work might not be an open plan office. They will be underpinned by virtual conferencing, complete and constant connection and portability. Our
working day will be fundamentally different.
Disruptive business models based on cloud and technology will fundamentally reshape how we do business, both individually and as companies. Critically, these
very technologies might help us unlock the solutions to some of the biggest societal challenge in last 100 years we currently grapple with.
What will be absolutely decisive is how we equip our children, our students and our colleagues to harness the power of this technology to transform our world for the better. And it means reinventing the HR function, equipping it to continually assess
and provide for the training needs of employees.