Post-COVID-19 workplace ‘to change’ – experts

Several changes should be expected in the world of work after the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have predicted.

President of the Human Resources Association of Barbados (HRMAB) Brittany Brathwaite and University of the West Indies lecturer Jeremy Stephen said they expected more consultancy, contract work and shared working hours to emerge post COVID-19.

And they both recommended that companies continue to innovate, stay in touch with customers and help employees upgrade their skills during the pandemic in order to remain relevant.

According to the International Labour Organisation’s latest forecast, some 195 million people could lose their full-time jobs worldwide during the COVID-19 crisis.

Brathwaite told Barbados TODAY that in the case of Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean, this could mean a change to the structure of organizations after the health crisis.

“So rather than having tens of full-time positions, you will see a lot more jobs condensed and consolidated, and a lot more of the types of contracts you would see emerging would be people executing work on a project basis even though the jobs before may have been deemed as a fulltime,” she explained.

Brathwaite said while she expected an increase in the use of technology as companies become more nimble, Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean should prepare residents for “a lot less fulltime work and for a possibly a lot more high skilled consultancy positions”.

The labour policy advisor said even before the pandemic there had been a decline in low skilled labour in the region and a move towards more medium and high skilled ones – a trend she predicted to continue, especially in the areas of technology, data and analytics.

But she said it was a little too early to say what jobs could disappear or become less popular, pointing out that the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first appeared, was probably the only city to start emerging so far and they were already heavy users of technology.

Brathwaite said she believed the physical distancing practice would also change the trajectory of how jobs are created and how jobs are performed several months after the pandemic ends.

The HR and industrial relations practitioner recommended that in addition to enforcing gender equality and other labour related policies in the Caribbean, specialists including economists and labour experts, should examine various variables in terms of what will help get people back to work and economies to quickly rebound.

“We have to appreciate that it will go beyond just giving stimulus packages, but how we actually utilise our people,” said Brathwaite, adding that statistics will be critical going forward.

She added: “We need to have an idea of what our talent pool looks like as a country. So we need to be able to definitively say… we have this number of people who are low skilled, how do we transfer these number of people, if they are not going to find jobs in the next two to five years, to acquiring a medium or high skill. Those statistics will be the driver behind anything a country does.”

In a separate interview, Stephen told Barbados TODAY that depending on how affected businesses were during the pandemic, “they may very well wish to absorb more workers who are more willing to be techno savvy up to a point – willing to use tools to help with efficiency and impact positively on the profitability of the company”.

Stephen said he also expected a lot more e-commerce trade taking place and delivery and courier type jobs popping up in Barbados during and after the health crisis.

He also expected that a lot of the labour intensive or blue-collar jobs would remain in high demand after the pandemic since they are “not yet easily replaceable by technology”.

“Other jobs that are very easily replaceable by technology like administrative jobs might very well be hard to maintain or companies might want to shift away from those unless the administrative workers are willing to upgrade their skills in short order,” said Stephen.

The Cave Hill Campus lecturer also predicted severe negative impact on some industries including tourism and hospitality, cruise, and entertainment, explaining that it would take some time for people to again become comfortable to travel far distances or gather in large crowds.

He told Barbados TODAY: “In the hospitality and tourism industry you should expect unemployment for some time particularly for more junior administrative roles and service roles for sure. It might change for more so-called white collar or high capital human labour that they are going to find themselves working contracts.

“If it is that you want to artificially reduce the unemployment rate then you could expect that people would do shared days. So four hours instead of eight. You can expect that coming out of this.”

The economist said small businesses could also require their staff to work remotely instead of from a rented location especially if they now have the tools to do so. This, he said, would then have a negative ripple effect on the commercial property rental market.

Stephen recommended that the private sector employers help their workers to retool to make them more productive or more marketable.

He also recommended that business leaders keep in touch with customers in whatever way they could since people always have options.

“The private sector has to be more willing also to start investing more in technology than they were before,” said Stephen, while adding that it was now proven that people may be more willing to use e-commerce locally but at a fair price.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb