Our life, every day, every hour, is full of unconscious behaviors, which we as managers should bring to light in this new normality and consider how we can actively shape them. Because if you actively design social micro-interactions, they can become valuable links in a more virtual corporate culture of the new normal.
While we those responsible ultimately decide which workplace style is best for their own company, employees should have opportunities in many places to give feedback or take things into their own hands. Companies plan to work and collaborate for the next few weeks, and after the COVID era, they should say goodbye to the old status quo. A rethinking of the workplace design or the introduction of new forms of work should lead to an ideal result for both sides: To be able to achieve the optimal concentration for deep work and at the same time to improve cooperation and cohesion by paying enough attention to the critical social cement, which is the described micro-interactions.
My conclusion: the transition to a distributed work environment has created a new paradigm. Work and private life are more closely interwoven than ever before, so companies should also develop new forms of work, products, and experiences that help their users and employees to cope well with this new work reality. The course has been set, and the first steps have already been taken. Now it’s time to focus on the finer points because they turn a good thing into something vast and plentiful.
