It has been very easy in the last 13 months to be drawn down into a dark rabbit hole of worry and at times it has been more like despair.
I don't know about you reader, but I like statistics, I like how numbers can form a three dimensional picture and I get excited when I see even the mildest of correlations.
Unfortunately, those three dimensional pictures of the pandemic have been rather graphic, especially when you start to think of the numbers as lives and people with families. I have for that very reason stopped my addiction to www.worldometers.info/coronavirus as it was beginning to get unhealthy.
We all want to forget 2020 and even the first part of 2021, but as we all adjust to our new lives, let's have a look at the positive things we have gained from what was an awful situation:
Flexible working - no need to spend hours on a train or in a car; good for you, good for environment and good for our children and pets. A lot of employers have seen the benefits of home and remote working - words like 'blended' and 'hybrid' will be almost as overused as 'unprecedented' in the next 2 years. What about London jobs though, will we see a redistribution of salaries into the rest of the UK? Only time will tell.
Technology - has progressed leaps and bounds, in March 2020 laptops were like gold dust, the realisation of employers that actually everyone can work at home and be effective and productive, in some cases, more so! Who'd have thought trusting your staff would give you increased productivity?! (Every HR professional has been saying this for years)
Families - we got to spend more time with our immediate families than ever before, home schooling may have nearly broken some of us, but we made it through with a huge respect for any teacher who has to instil knowledge and order into at least 30 of these small humans! They definitely have a super power, one that I do not possess.
Let's be positive and strive to rebuild what we have lost, although not exactly as it was, because I think if we all take a good long look at what we have now, some of us think it is better than what we had before!
If you have any views or want to share your own experience then please feel free to comment, also if there have been other positives which you have found - please share them with us, it keeps us all grounded.