The COVID-19 pandemic brought immediate changes to the way people worked with lockdowns taking place across the world. In the UK, many were forced to work from home. For a long time, companies had said working from home wouldn’t work, but overnight, these changes happened. It is now five years since the first lockdown in the UK. Four businesspeople look at how COVID-19 has changed the way people work.
In a harsh reminder of time’s passing, this March marked five years since the first COVID lockdowns in the UK. Five years since both businesses and individuals were forced to adapt overnight to a world where no one could leave their homes. As most businesses moved work online, it felt like a seismic shift was occurring. Even as restrictions gradually lifted, many believed that the world of work was changed forever.
But was it? With the world (more or less) back to normal in 2025 and return to office mandates abounding, have things simply returned to the way they were? Or did the pandemic really have a lasting impact on the world of work?
A Digital Transformation breakthrough
It’s no secret that, despite the advent of digital technologies over the last 20 years, many businesses have been slow to take full advantage. New technologies were often not being adopted, particularly in sectors such as retail and hospitality, despite the potential benefits.
This is where, argues Mark Williams, Managing Director EMEA at WorkJam, the pandemic has had a lasting impact. “Organisations had to rethink their operations to navigate such turbulent and unstable circumstances, which is where technology came into play,” he explained. “Businesses were able to leverage digital frontline workplace apps in multiple different ways during the pandemic to aid with managing staff and ensuring stores could remain functional.
“In industries such as retail and hospitality, many employers had no way to easily communicate with their workforce, resulting in them being unintentionally overlooked and left in the dark. Frontline workplace apps were able to provide the necessary platform for employers to meaningfully connect and communicate with their workforce when they needed it most – whether needing to inform staff of new policies, instructions or even just motivational posts to boost morale and maintain a sense of community.”
He added: “The COVID pandemic resulted in a lot of businesses facing serious operational challenges, but the upside is that it accelerated the adoption of digital frontline workplace tools. Post-pandemic, businesses continue to rely on these capabilities for resilience and efficiency, to be flexible and agile, no matter what challenge is thrown their way.”
The accelerated adoption of technology has had significant impacts elsewhere. For example, there has been a huge shift towards digital learning and development versus in person training. Becky Wallace, Head of People at LearnUpon, said: “With employees spread across different locations, companies had to quickly pivot to online platforms for employee training, leading to an increased reliance on scalable digital learning tools like LearnUpon.”
However, she points out that five years on: “There is still work to be done when it comes to perfecting online learning. Online learning solutions have matured, but many organisations are still working on scaling learning experiences, ensuring employee engagement and aligning learning initiatives with business outcomes. At LearnUpon, we see that organisations are continuing to refine their L&D strategies by incorporating more on-demand, microlearning and interactive content to meet the needs of a diverse workforce. The key to success is ensuring that online learning is flexible, accessible and is tailored to what your employees really need.”
Work from home or return to office?
Of course, the biggest change brought about by the pandemic was the sudden advent of remote working. Even as lockdowns ended, many organisations kept either full or partial remote working practices, and many hailed it as a new era of work. However, in recent months, high profile organisations such as Amazon and JPMorgan have enforced office returns – despite the fact that half of UK professionals say they might quit if ordered back to the office full time.
Richard Gadd, SVP & General Manager EMEAI at Commvault, suggests that perhaps the future is somewhere between the full work from home arrangements of lockdown and the five days in office being demanded by some businesses. “There are many reasons why working remotely might suit one person more at a particular time in their life,” he said. “For example, for women, getting back into work after having children can be difficult – working from home adds a level of flexibility that was rarely available before, whether that’s doing the school drop offs and pickups in between meetings, or just being there when your teenager gets home. For all parents, the ability to spend more time as a family is invaluable, and I for one hope we don’t return to pre-pandemic ways of working.
“However, balance is crucial. There are some drawbacks to extensive remote working, primarily around the lack of face-to-face contact between teams. Innovation and leadership are built from meetings where staff come together – sitting on a Zoom call on mute doesn’t promote the same connections or ideas. For new employees especially, permanent remote working restricts mentorship and coaching that only truly succeeds in person. Therefore, a hybrid working model, where both time in the office and time at home are given priority, is unsurprisingly emerging as most people’s preferred approach.”
“Since the pandemic, flexibility has changed from a want to a need,” agrees Mark Wilson, Technology and Innovation Director at Node4. “Employees who have experienced the benefits of flexible working arrangements are reluctant to return to a traditional office set-up full time. Those who enforce full time in-office working risk alienating parts of the workforce, losing talent and ultimately reducing diversity.
“Undoubtedly the world has changed because of the pandemic, which forced organisations to rethink traditional work models. Whilst we’ve seen some shifts back towards office-based work, the long-term trend remains one of flexibility, Digital Transformation and continuous innovation.”
Looking to the future
It’s clear that many of the changes COVID brought are here to stay. Despite pushback on remote working, there are still plenty of business leaders – and plenty of employees – who value flexible work too highly for it to go anywhere any time soon. And digital tools adopted during the pandemic have had a lasting impact on businesses. Whilst they may have eventually been adopted anyway, lockdowns certainly sped up the process significantly, bringing benefits to many businesses.
