Social capital
Like all new things, remote work was a small outlier in the world of corporations. It was something that a few dabbled with, mostly with specialist consultants and those for whom they had statutory responsibility, such as maternity leave.
That has now all changed, as the experiment at the edges has been forced to become mainstream in the face of the Corona crisis, and the world will not return to the previous status quo as the crisis dissolves.
Not only do many workers like remote work, as a relief from the daily commute, it has put a focus on the potential of substantial savings in expensive office space, and the opportunity to extend employment to areas where there exists a pool of available labour.
The change is a radical one, not one that would have happened inside a decade without the impetus of the Corona bug, but how do we make it work?
The critical ingredient will be Social Capital.
Are Social Capital and Trust synonyms?
Perhaps. However, to my mind, Trust is something that you give to individuals, and to the extent that those individuals are representatives of an institution, there is ‘rub-off’. Social Capital to me is an idea that encompasses the resilience of the culture in an organisation as well as personal trust given to individuals, and so is a much broader definition.
Pre-Corona, social capital was a function of the daily contact with co-workers of all levels in the corridor, around the water cooler, in meetings, all face to face. It was the glue that held everything together. It is the product of ‘culture’ forged by a combination of genuine leadership, and the instinctive behaviour of individuals, and groups of individuals.
Social capital is like any other form of capital. It needs to be built, strengthened, and renewed, or it dissipates as it is used. Face to face contact is the primary mechanism for this process, and in its absence, any store of social capital will be quickly used up unless alternatives are developed and leveraged.
Those who just manage by exerting the institutional power vested in their position in the pecking order will be emasculated. They never built any social capital, often did not see the need or have the ability. Others, the real leaders amongst a group, and they are not necessarily those with the slot in the pecking order, built social capital by their behaviour and attitude towards others.
The former group will hate this remote working thing, as their ability to direct is significantly diminished. They will fight the implementation. Meanwhile, the leaders amongst us will be less impacted, and will welcome the change as it makes the life of their co-workers, to differing degrees easier, while making theirs very different, and probably harder.
You will see the leaders amongst us very quickly, they will be the ones figuring out how best to replace the drivers of social capital pre-corona with new drivers in a post-corona world, and they will be shouting from the rooftops. The others will be in the long line of those swept aside by this tsunami of change.
