When we first moved to remote working over a year ago, video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or WebEx seemed like the perfect solution to all our communication issues. At the start of the pandemic, we even used them extensively after working hours. Remember Zoom quiz nights in lockdown number one? After a year of COVID lockdowns, our excitement about these virtual meet ups with friends and family has dropped. We might even experience a slight sense of dread just reading about yet another Zoom call.

Every day, we are faced with different challenges in the workplace, perhaps a difficult meeting, or a taxing task that we have tried to put off for as long as possible. As we outlined in last week’s article on Energy Management Habit 1: Managing Your Mindset, this is heightened by the ongoing pandemic and our unconscious’ preoccupation with the threat that COVID-19 poses to our physical wellbeing. Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are continuously released into our blood stream, triggering an amygdala hijack (the body’s fight-or-flight response). From an evolutionary standpoint, our amygdala has thus evolved into our internal alarm system.

Humans are creatures of habit. It’s been over a year since COVID-19 became an all-encompassing threat to our health and wellbeing, and working online has become our new normal. Where we were alert and careful at the beginning of the pandemic, we now view the virus as part of everyday life—a dangerous development, which Bloomberg identifies as the new “COVID Challenge” that we face. The virus might not constantly be at the forefront of our minds. Our bodies and our unconscious, however, are in a state of continued alarm.

We are thrilled to participate in the CEO Action Day of Understanding again this year, during which organizations encourage their teams to have discussions to further understand and embrace their differences and work to educate their people to build more inclusive cultures. As your prepare for this year's event, here are a few learnings to keep in mind.

Momentum for action on racial equity has continued to build around the world, and we like many others have spent the past few weeks in an ongoing discussion on what else we can do to help contribute to positive change. It remains remarkably difficult for organizations to have uncomfortable conversations about racial bias, so as a first step we’re spreading awareness of how cognitive diversity can be used as a powerful device to break down the walls in these conversations.

Even with all the excitement around our transition to the New Year, many of the colleagues, executives and managers I speak with describe a feeling of mental fog and slowness, as well as hesitancy in gearing up for the coming year.

As one meme stated: "Before I commit to 2021 I am going to need to see a list of terms and conditions." 

As we’ve learned in 2020, there are some things you simply can’t predict about the year ahead from the vantage point of the present. 

After all, how many of us had a pandemic-induced lockdown and acceleration of remote work adoption on our “trends to watch” lists at the end of 2019? But the major upheavals of this year also give us a pretty good hint at some of what we can expect for the future of work and human resources in 2021.

When it comes to the broad field of Human Resources, everything from complexities related to COVID-19 safety and vaccination policies to potential changes in compliance and regulatory priorities from a new US presidential administration will be in the spotlight.

2020 was quite a year! From the COVID-19 pandemic and fundamental shifts in the ways we work, to significant social upheaval in response to racial injustices, the need for better, more inclusive thinking is greater than it has ever been!

Get ready for 2021 with our Top 10 most popular resources from 2020 – eBooks, white papers, and webinar recordings – with Herrmann's community of inclusive leaders, culture champions, and learning & development catalysts.

Zoom fatigue is real. It’s so real that even the term “Zoom fatigue” is getting tired. But we’re also dealing with a reality that will require virtual team work and collaboration for many of us at least for the near future — and maybe longer. 

Beyond the pandemic, the trendlines are signaling a move toward more remote working, shopping and learning going forward. That means video conferencing, remote team distribution, and virtual, technology-driven collaboration, in some form or fashion, are here to stay.

Companies like to say people are their most important asset. A new mandate from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) puts that old axiom into sharp focus. 

The human capital disclosure rule, which went into effect on Nov. 9, 2020, and is part of the SEC’s broader project to modernize Regulation S-K, requires publicly traded companies to disclose specific information about their human capital resources and any measures or objectives the company focuses on in managing the business — such as those that address the attraction, development, engagement and retention of employees.