In the wake of COVID-19, employers must embrace a work-to-live culture

Before COVID-19 turned our world upside-down, modern workplaces sought to lure employees into longer hours with open workspaces, office happy hours and pool tables that offered attractive alternatives to cramped apartments or expensive bars.

But the pandemic might have changed all that, for good. For better or worse, workers have spent more than a year working from the comfort of their real home while spending time with their real families.

As workers return to the office in the coming months, leaders must adjust their workplace to reflect a new social contract at work and a significant shift away from a culture of family to a culture of business. Here are a few ways to do so:

Change your workplace narrative.

The employer-employee relationship, at its core, is transactional, and pretending it’s not is a mistake.

In the post-COVID environment, it’s time to retire tired “family” tropes and replace them with more authentic narratives that focus on enablement. Employers should embrace a more honest and authentic role in employees’ lives as a mean to provide for one’s family, travel the world and pursue career ambitions. Nothing more, nothing less.

Celebrate productivity, not hours.