globalpandemic

Why Does India Have So Many COVID Cases?

Something has gone horribly wrong in India. Today, the country has reported 346,786 new cases of COVID-19 for the previous 24 hours, with 2,624 deaths – the world’s highest daily toll since the pandemic began last year. Overall, nearly 190,000 people have died from COVID in the country, while more than 16.6 million have been infected.

The new outbreak in India is so severe that hospitals are running out of oxygen and beds, and many people who have been taken ill are being turned away. New Zealand, Hong Kong, the UK and the US have either banned direct flights to and from India, or have advised citizens against travelling altogether; and the list may well get longer.

The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who is keen to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the country, has been forced to cancel a planned trip to India this coming week and, instead, plans to meet with President Narendra Modi virtually. For a country where COVID numbers appeared to be dropping dramatically just a few weeks ago, what has gone so wrong in India?

The Indian variant, known as B.1.617, appears to be wreaking havoc in the country. Since April 15, India has been reporting more than 200,000 cases of coronavirus every day and its capital, Delhi, recently announced a week-long lockdown after a rise in cases there overwhelmed the healthcare system.

“If we don’t impose a lockdown now, we might face a bigger calamity,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said as he addressed the city on Indian television on April 19. Worryingly, bed spaces and oxygen supplies in hospitals appear to be stretched, with reports of sick patients being turned away from hospitals and social media feeds filled with distraught family members whose loved ones cannot access the healthcare they need.

On Wednesday this week, as the COVID toll was rising, Delhi’s highest court took the unusual step of publicly criticising the central government and its approach to managing the country’s oxygen crisis. The court was hearing a petition filed by Max Hospitals seeking urgent help to tide over the oxygen shortage it was facing in six of its hospitals in the capital.

“Human lives are not that important for the State it means. We are shocked and dismayed that government doesn’t seem to be mindful to the extremely urgent need of medical oxygen,” the Bench stated. “We direct Centre to provide safe passage…so that such supplies are not obstructed for any reason whatsoever,” it said. “Hell will break loose [if oxygen is not supplied].” Damning words for the government in a time of crisis.

It is not entirely clear why this surge has happened in India, but it is likely to be because of crowded events organised in the run-up to elections – President Modi himself hit the campaign trail addressing election rallies in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on March 30 as the upturn of cases began. Large groups and social gatherings during religious festivals have also played a part, as well as the re-opening of public spaces and easing of lockdown measures which took place gradually throughout 2020 with the final “unlocking” of restrictions happening in December 2020.

There is also much concern about the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus in India. It is thought the dominant strain in the country now is the variant which was first identified in the UK, and which has shown to be up to 60 percent more transmissible between humans. On March 25, it was further announced that a new “double mutant” variant had been detected in India, now known as the “Indian variant”. This development is what has other countries spooked.

The Indian authorities do not think this new variant has yet become the dominant COVID strain in the country, but it is likely to be contributing to the increasing numbers. Genome sequencing of the new variant has shown that it has two important mutations:

1. The E484Q mutation: This is similar to the E484K mutation identified in the Brazil and South African variants, which have also been reported in recent months. The concern is that this mutation can change parts of the coronavirus spike protein. The spike protein forms part of the coronavirus outer layer and is what the virus uses to make contact with human cells.

Once contact has been made, the coronavirus then uses the spike protein to bind to the human cells, enter them and infect them. The immune response that the vaccines stimulate creates antibodies that target the spike protein of the virus specifically. Therefore, the worry is that if a mutation changes the shape of the spike protein significantly, then the antibodies may not be able to recognise and neutralise the virus effectively, even in those who have been vaccinated. Scientists are examining whether this may also be the case for the E484Q mutation.

2. The L452R mutation: This has also been found in a variant thought to be responsible for outbreaks in California. This variant is thought to increase the spike protein’s ability to bind to human host cells, thereby increasing its infectivity. A study of the mutation also suggests it may help the virus to evade the neutralising antibodies that both the vaccine and previous infection can produce, though this is still being examined.

This new wave in India has been devastating for the country. A coordinated response is needed between Indian states and central government to manage the supply of oxygen and essential drugs if the number of COVID-related deaths is to be brought under control. There is also a concern that we do not know the true number of deaths from COVID, as some people have died at home before they could get to hospital and many others in India, particularly in rural areas, have had difficulty accessing testing facilities.

Pressure urgently needs to be lifted off the healthcare system and the only way to do that is to ramp up the vaccination programme, strengthen social distancing procedures and re-introduce lockdown measures.

One of my passions as a doctor is being able to pass on my knowledge to the doctors of tomorrow. I have done it for years and am a senior lecturer at two UK universities.

A large part of the teaching I do involves getting my students to speak to and examine patients. This has been a challenge in the last 12 months as bringing patients into the surgery for them to see students has been too risky, and the patients that tended to have the illnesses the students needed to see were generally shielding to reduce the chances of them catching COVID-19.

Medical students have been lending a helping hand to COVID-ravaged hospitals all over the world, and their assistance has been welcomed by many. But we also need to prepare them for a world beyond COVID and, in the limited time we have with them, to ensure they are prepared for a wide range of medical conditions from the physical to the mental. But how can we do that if they were unable to see patients as normal?

Technology has been the answer. Our surgery, where I work as a family doctor in Bradford, northern England, is lucky enough to have a clinical skills lab that students can learn in. This is a room that has “model” body parts that the students can use for examination purposes.

Students can come into the surgery and, initially, hold telephone consultations with patients, speaking to real patients who ring in about their ailments. The students record a medical history by speaking to the patients and attempt to come up with a management plan which they then run past me or another doctor for approval.

Because the students cannot examine the patients physically, we then make a list of the examinations the students would have done and, once their clinic list is complete, move over to the clinical skills lab. I then ask them to practice the examination they would have done on the models. This might include a chest exam, a rectal or vaginal exam. The models can be adjusted so that each time the student uses them they will make a different examination finding, such as a new lump or abnormal breathing sounds. It really is quite clever.

Although it will never really replace the real thing, this method has allowed us to keep medical education going throughout the pandemic – something that has challenged medical schools the world over.

And now, some good news: Exercising can reduce the risks of COVID

A new study by Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland has shown that regular exercise can reduce the risk of getting infections like COVID-19 by up to 37 percent. The researchers conducted a full-scale systematic review of 16,698 worldwide epidemiological studies published between January 1980 and April 2020, with world-renowned immunologists and epidemiologists from University College London (UCL) in the UK and Ghent University (UGent) in Belgium, as well as exercise and sports scientists from Cádiz University in Spain and a public health consultant from NHS Lanarkshire (NHSL) in the UK.

They found that doing 30 minutes of exercise which gets you out of breath and a bit sweaty five times a week strengthens your immune response to infectious diseases. It is thought that regular exercise increases the number of immune cells in the body acting on the first line of defence – the mucosal layer of antibodies. These cells are responsible for identifying foreign agents or “germs” in the body without depressing the rest of the immune system, so it’s perfectly safe and protects you against infectious disease.

We have known for some time about the benefits exercise can have for a person’s overall physical and mental health. Now, in the time of COVID, it has been shown to help boost your immune system too. So the message is clear; get outdoors and exercise if you can or to the gym if it is in keeping with your local COVID guidelines. If neither is possible, your kitchen or living room is a perfectly good place to do 30 minutes of dancing, jumping or whatever floats your boat!

Reader’s question: Is it safe to go to my hospital appointment during a pandemic?

Over the past 12 months, people have repeatedly been told that the safest place for them is home and that hospitals are busy dealing with COVID-19 patients. While that is true, it is also important to remember that other illnesses have not gone away.

I have found that many of my patients are not attending their appointments for other conditions because they are worried about catching COVID or think their illness is not as important as coronavirus. Hospitals and GP surgeries all over the world have gone out of their way to make large parts of their buildings COVID-free. This means that they can be used for non-COVID-related services and staff working there will not be crossing over to cover COVID wards or clinics. So, if you receive an appointment to attend a clinic or hospital service, it is really important that you do go.

By : Dr Amir Khan

Source: Why does India have so many COVID cases? | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

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As Pandemic Fatigue Sets In at Work, Employers Try to Help

People are tired. Between a global pandemic, economic crisis, social unrest, & political upheaval, the past year has been physically and emotionally draining for just about everyone, and perhaps most for essential workers.

Across industries, workers struggling with pandemic fatigue are facing burnout more than ever. For leaders, keeping these employees engaged and motivated is a challenge in itself. While some leaders are turning to incentives like gift cards and cash to help support employees, others are taking a softer approach, investing in relationships and focusing on workplace communication.

Money Talks

When the pandemic began, the hospitality industry fell off a cliff, says Liz Neumark, founder and CEO of Great Performances, a catering company in New York City. She knew keeping everyone employed would be difficult until her business could find another source of revenue apart from events, which eventually came in the form of preparing meals for essential workers and people unable to quarantine at home. While some of her employees, such as those in sales or event production, saw salary reductions, chefs, kitchen staff, and other employees making food for essential workers kept their full salaries and got help with transportation as well.

The founders of P. Terry’s, an Austin, Texas-based fast-food restaurant chain, give employees gift cards and cash to help pay for groceries and offer them interest-free loans. They also incentivize employees to participate in community and civic causes, including paying hourly wages for volunteer work.

Justin Spannuth, chief operating officer of Unique Snacks, a sixth-generation, family-operated hard pretzel maker in Reading, Pennsylvania, increased hourly wages by $2 for all 85 of his employees. The company also hired additional temporary employees to provide a backup workforce. Spannuth says the move helped persuade employees with possible symptoms to stay at home by easing the guilt that employees can have about not coming in and potentially increasing the workload on their colleagues.

“The last thing we wanted our employees to do was get worn out from working too many hours and then have their immune system compromised because of it,” says Spannuth.

Helping Employees Connect

Andrea Ahern, vice president of Mid Florida Material Handling, a material handling company in Orlando, Florida, says it was difficult to keep morale up when the business was clearly struggling; employees were uncertain about the company’s future, and their own. To help ease the stress, the company held a wide array of picnic-style meals in the company’s parking lot. It was a light distraction that still followed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Now, she says, morale has started to rise.

“With the release of the vaccine and the so-called ‘light at the end of the tunnel,’ we’re starting to see the industry get a lift in activity, and associates feel good when they know their jobs aren’t at risk. However, it wasn’t always this way.”

These kinds of events can, of course, also take place virtually. Company leaders across industries are encouraging staff to treat Zoom as a virtual water cooler. But while casual online gatherings after work can help colleagues maintain friendly relationships, they can also contribute to “Zoom fatigue”–the drained feeling that comes after a long day of video calls, which often require more concentration than in-person meetings.

Matt McCambridge, co-founder and CEO of Eden Health, a primary/collaborative care practice based in New York, says while his teams hold regular virtual water coolers, they switch it up. For example, the company hosted an interactive “dueling pianos” virtual event over the holidays, as well as a magic show.

Better Communication From the Top

Communicating support work-life balance at a time when many people are remote and facing trauma is critical. Neumark notes that when her catering company was pivoting and in the process of providing hundreds, if not thousands, of meals, the team was relying mostly on sheer adrenaline. Months later, now that the novelty is gone and fatigue has fully set in, the boundaries she set are crucial.

One rule, for example, is weekends off, unless there’s an urgent, unavoidable request. “The weeks are still so intense, and people need their private time right now,” says Neumark.

It’s essential that leaders understand the issues their employees may be facing and not try to gloss over them, says Dr. Benjamin F. Miller, a psychologist and chief strategy officer of Well Being Trust, a foundation aimed at advancing mental and social health. “When your boss is pretending that everything is OK, it doesn’t create a conducive work environment for someone to talk about having a bad day,” says Miller. That’s one reason virtual water coolers often fail, he notes. While they’re great at getting people together, there’s little benefit if people can’t speak openly and honestly.

It’s also OK to tell employees that you, as a leader, are not having an easy time. Showing vulnerability doesn’t show weakness, Miller adds. You’re setting an example that shows that it’s OK to be honest and acknowledge that not everyone is not having the best time. If you aren’t aware that someone is in a crisis, he says, you may lose the opportunity to reach out to that person and help.

By Brit Morse @britnmorse

The Bright Side Of Covid-19: Seven Opportunities Of The Current Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has a lot of dark sides. Around the world, people get ill and die, schools close, the healthcare system is overloaded, employees lose their jobs, companies face bankruptcy, stock markets collapse and countries have to spend billions on bailouts and medical aid. And for everyone, whether directly hurt or not, Covid-19 is a huge stressor shaking up our psyche, triggering our fears and uncertainties.

No matter how serious and sad all of this is, there are upsides as well. Therefore, along the Monty Python song “Always look on the bright side of life” let’s not forget those and make the best of what the crisis gives us. As the good old SWOT analysis tells us, there are not only threats, but also opportunities. With opportunities I don’t mean that the crisis provides extra business for companies like Zoom and Go to Webinar that enable virtual meetings, or for Amazon, which is planning to hire another 100,000 employees. The latter is probably more a threat than an opportunity for most, especially for the mom & pop stores that go through difficult times already.

With opportunities I mean general opportunities that are available for most people affected by the crisis. The current crisis offers at least seven of them:

Opportunity 1: More time

In today’s overheated economy time is often seen as the most valuable and sparse thing we have. Covid-19 shows why: because we have stacked our week with social gatherings and entertainment such as going to the theater, birthdays, cinema, restaurant, bar, sportclub, gym, music, festivals, concerts and what is more. Suddenly, all of that is cancelled or forbidden, giving us significant amounts of extra time. And still, live goes on. This shows us how easy it is to clear our calendars. Obviously this doesn’t apply to the health-care sector and other crucial sectors, but beyond those it applies to a large majority of sectors.

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The opportunity is that we can spend this time on other things—or even better, on nothing and enjoy the free time. Looking at the crowded parks, waste collection points, garden centres and DIY stores in the last week, many people seem to have a hard time with the latter. Instead of enjoying the extra free time, they fill it immediately with other activities. To seize this first opportunity though, re-arranging how you spend your time and reserving time for nothingness is key. Not just during the crisis, but also after it. The advices in my previous article on the Covid-19 crisis could help in realizing this.

Opportunity 2: Reflect and reconsider

The fact that the coronavirus disrupts our day-t0-day lives provides an opportunity to reflect on things and to reconsider what we do, how we do it and why we do it. Things we took for granted—like going to the gym—are suddenly not possible anymore. Furthermore, many people have had to change their mode of working and work from home instead of at the office. This means that a lot of our routines are interrupted. MORE FOR YOUWhy KPIs Don’t Work; And How To Fix Them How Cisco Takes Care Of Its Employees What Business Leaders Can Learn From The Special Forces

This offers a great opportunity to rethink our habits and routines and make changes. Now that you haven’t been able to go to the restaurant twice a week, commute 2 hours per day, hang out with your friends or go to a party every weekend, you can reflect on whether you really want to continue doing so after the crisis. The virus forces you to make changes to your daily life that you might actually want to keep also after the crisis.

Opportunity 3: Speed and innovation

Many organizations suffer from slow procedures, complex bureaucracies and rigid hierarchies making organizational life less than pleasant. The coronavirus has forced many of them to break through these rigid systems and act instantly. Suddenly procedures can be skipped or accelerated, rules can be side-tracked and decisions can be made more autonomously without formal approval. And suddenly employees are allowed to work from home without direct supervision.

Covid-19 shows that, as soon as there is a strong enough stimulus, things can change. This leads to remarkable innovations. Not being allowed to open their doors, restaurants, for example, are shifting to delivery mode. And schools suddenly do much of the teaching and even some of the testing online. This brings the opportunity to create innovations now that can be maintained after the crisis. And it also can help to keep the current speed and innovation mode afterwards.

Opportunity 4: Better meetings

As referred to in an earlier article, people spend up to 23 hours per week in meetings, half of which are considered a failure or waste of time. The current crisis has forced us to rethink how we deal with meetings. Because in many countries it is not allowed anymore to meet with a group of persons, many meetings are cancelled. And when they still take place they are mostly virtual and shorter.

As such, it provides an excellent opportunity for resolving one of the most disliked parts of organizational life. The technology for this is already present and mature for a couple of years, but the coronavirus triggers a sudden need for it. The real opportunity here is to make systematic changes so that meetings will be more effective, also after the crisis.

Opportunity 5: Reconnect and help

Challenging times offer a great opportunity for social bonding and other ways of connecting to and helping people. Of course, not being able to visit friends or family has increased isolation and feelings of loneliness in some cases. But the feeling of “we’re in this together” has also triggered interesting ways of connecting. Some of those have gone viral—such as Italians singing together from their windows and balconies—but there are many small, local initiatives too to connect and help people who need it.

In the individualized societies many of us live in, this provides opportunities to reconnect and create more social coherence. Not only during the crisis, but also afterwards. This opportunity comes with a big caveat though. Parallel to these nice initiatives we also witness how far people go to protect themselves and their families. People hoard food, medicine, toilet paper and guns without thinking a second of others. However, while it triggers self-serving egocentric behavior too, the Covid-19 crisis does provide us the opportunity to reconnect and show our social side.

Opportunity 6: Cleaner environment

The virus caused a shutdown or dramatical decrease of industrial activities. Factories are closed or operate far below their capacity, road traffic has reduced radically and air traffic collapsed, and the lack of tourism has emptied the streets in overcrowded cities like Venice, Amsterdam and New York. While this may be bad news for most people and especially those working in the affected industries, this is also good news for our planet. Covid-19 causes a significant reduction in green house gasses and other air, water and land polluting outputs. In Venice this has allegedly led to dolphins return after just a couple of weeks (although some argued this to be a hoax).

Whether the particular example is a hoax or not is not so relevant. The fact is that the shutdown and lockdown of large parts of our economy is good for nature—at least on the short term. The opportunity this provides, is to keep parts of this in place also after the crisis to make long-term improvements. Along the line of the previous opportunities, the current crisis provides us an opportunity to reconsider our lives and reorganize it in a way that has less impact on our planet.

Opportunity 7: Modesty and acceptance

The final opportunity that the Covid-19 crisis offers, is a chance to create awareness for the moderate role we play on this planet and accept that things cannot always go as we want them to go. The Covid-19 pandemic is a global crisis chat is unprecedented in modern peace time. We had other pandemics like SARS, but their impact was less substantial. And we had the 1973 oil crisis, but that was a man-made crisis. The coronavirus is not man-made and yet disrupts lives across the planet.

As such, the virus shows us that, no matter how well-planned and organized we are and no matter how much we live in the Anthropocene—the era characterized by significant human impact—we are not in control. One simple virus is disrupting everything. This offers a great opportunity. In almost every aspect of life we want to be in control. Whether it is health, airline safety or our calendars, we live in the illusion that full control is possible. The virus can help us create awareness that this is not the case. It provides an opportunity to take a more modest role and accept that many things are simply beyond our control.

Once again, the Covid-19 crisis has a large dark side. But as these seven opportunities show, it has positive sides as well. Since all seven opportunities require a quite fundamental change in how we approach the world, seizing them can take substantial time. In that sense, and if we keep on looking at the brighter sides of life, the longer the crisis lasts, the larger the opportunities are and the bigger the chances are of actually making changes to our deeply rooted habits and convictions. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink

I help companies do strategy through training, mentoring and consulting. My drive is to bring you and your organization to the next level with strategy approaches that work. I wrote “Strategy Consulting,” “Nor More Bananas,” and “The Strategy Handbook.” Reach out to me via jeroenkraaijenbrink.com, LinkedIn or jk@kraaijenbrink.com

Pat Flynn 282K subscribers 26 million Americans are without a job right now, and that’s just in the U.S. alone. It’s a terrible situation, one that I’m all too familiar with myself having gotten laid off during the recession in 2008. These are tough times, but there are opportunities within them, too. I was able to build a business back in 2008 as a result of getting laid off, and I imagine that those who focus on the future, and the ability to create something new now, are the ones who are going to come out of this dire situation best.

U.K. Hit By Worst Economic Contraction On Record Amid Covid-19 Pandemic

Britain’s economy shrank by a record-breaking 9.9% in 2020, new figures by the Office of National Statistics show, highlighting the impact of Covid-19 restrictions, employment uncertainty and reduced demand, with limited growth in the final quarter narrowly avoiding a double-dip recession.

The Office for National Statistics said Friday that the U.K.’s economic output fell by 9.9% in 2020, the largest annual fall on record.

Though the economy grew 1% in the last quarter when looser restrictions boosted the services industry, overall output was down 7.8% from the last quarter of 2019, the ONS said.

The slump is twice that of the 2009 financial crisis and is possibly the worst in 300 years, with models from the Bank of England suggesting a decline of 13% during the Great Frost of 1709.

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U.K. finance minister Rishi Sunak said the figures show that the U.K. has suffered a “serious shock” as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“While there are some positive signs of the economy’s resilience over the winter, we know that the current lockdown continues to have a significant impact on many people and businesses,” Sunak said, adding that his focus “remains fixed on doing everything we can to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods.”

Key Background

The pandemic and associated public health restrictions made for an economically bumpy 2020, especially in economies like the U.K. which are heavily reliant on services. In the U.K., the first and second quarters of 2020 shrunk the economy by 2.9% and 19% respectively, but there was record growth of 16.1% in the third as restrictions were lifted.

Tangent

In contrast, the U.S. economy shrank by a record 3.5% in 2020, the worst year since the aftermath of World War 2.

What To Watch For

Strict public health measures and a resurgent wave of Covid-19 infections driven by a dangerous new variant of the virus have the U.K. economy likely falling again in 2021. While the U.K. has the worst coronavirus death rate in the world, it also has one of the best vaccination records, priming the country for an economic comeback. The BBC reported Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane describing the economy as a “coiled spring” ready to release large amounts of “pent-up financial energy”.

Five Lessons From The Pandemic Light A Path Forward To The Future Of Work

Finally, we are nearing the end of the 2020 tunnel and seeing encouraging glimmers of light. While the pandemic is not yet under control, we do have promising vaccine news as 2021 approaches, and many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have returned to on-site work. We see stabilization in US government after months of uncertainty, and the beginning of commitment and action to address longstanding racial and social justice inequities.

At a more granular level, these months of operating in survival mode have provided valuable insight into how organizations and people can truly move forward from this disruption and position themselves to navigate the future disruptions that are bound to occur. In short, we see a path toward thriving, not merely surviving.

The lessons learned over the past eight months bring sharp focus to global human capital trends that have been evolving for years—trends in well-being, reskilling, superteams (combining humans with machines), workforce strategies, and the role of HR. Even more, these lessons reinforce the overarching need to build the human element into everything an organization does in order to create lasting value for workers, organizations, and society at large.

1. Human potential is our greatest untapped asset.

Organizations have tended to think about what people can do in terms of the bullet points on their resumes and job descriptions. But none of us really knows what we’re capable of and what our limits are until we’re tested and pushed to those limits. The past eight months have been a defining test. They’ve taught us that people can operate differently. They can adapt and perform in ways far beyond what their jobs and roles specifically call for and do what has to get done.

We must now challenge how we think about the workforce and use technology to help identify and unleash human potential within and beyond the organization. This includes retaining the magic that comes from empowering people to break through hierarchy and bureaucracy, lead at all levels, and roll up their sleeves to get the job done.

2. True top-of-the house leadership looks like nothing we’ve seen before.

For years we’ve talked about “tone at the top” and the importance of top-down leadership. Now we have stellar examples of what that looks like: examples of CEOs being more transparent and human than they’ve ever been before. This includes opening dialogues on tough issues like racism and well-being and allowing them to be front and center, and generally leaning into issues that go way past the traditional C-suite agenda.

Senior leaders now have the opportunity to embody the organization’s purpose—its set of values supporting economic, social, and human interests—to infuse meaning into work that mobilizes employees around common, meaningful goals.

3. Leadership and culture are about connection and empowerment.

As people isolated at home, team leaders became the organization’s lifeline. It became their responsibility to not only focus on outcomes and organize the work accordingly, but also think about the moments that mattered culturally and foster trust in the organization. If they didn’t have empathy, listening skills, the trust of their teams, and the ability to communicate, manage, and lead, work suffered or at times didn’t get done at all.

Going forward, leaders and teams at all levels (not just higher levels) must develop capabilities that enable them to work and lead effectively while supporting the human needs of their team and representing the organization’s culture.

4. Work is the most underutilized source of value.

Work is more than simply the output it produces. It’s a powerful human force—a way for people to connect to a purpose, feel motivated, build relationships, and showcase their true capabilities. Yet no one is responsible for driving work transformation, keeping up with the pace of change, or harnessing what it can bring to the enterprise.

Organizations now have the opportunity to re-architect work for the future, not as a mechanized process, but as a flow that aligns with ways humans think and engage, and that continues to evolve. By its handling of COVID-19 challenges, HR has earned the right to spearhead this effort on behalf of the organization.

5. Ecosystems are essential to extend organizational capabilities.

The sheer enormity of the past year’s challenges proved the value of being able to leverage external partners and resources to accomplish what organizations couldn’t do on their own. For example, one transportation industry CEO related to us that, given the company has no Chief Medical Officer, he was able to enlist a top academic medical center to provide that guidance. In another example, we’re working with a group of 10 CHROs to build a cross-organizational learning program aimed at moving Black and Latinx professionals from the director to the executive level.

Going forward, organizations should deliberately cultivate an ecosystem of partners, vendors, alternative workers, and professional networks, realizing it’s the new reality of how work gets done.

From hard-learned experience to a leap forward

It would be a tremendous waste to treat the past year as a detour—a momentary delay that leads us right back to the path we were on. Instead, we need to treat 2020 as a shortcut that showed us how to leapfrog to our desired destination: a place where we’re not merely surviving, but thriving.

With the end of 2020 in sight, we have the means to createthe light we want to step into. There’s no “waiting for a better time”—the time is now. We’ll be sharing more insights on how organizations can get this done in the coming weeks in Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends (sign up to receive a copy here).

This piece was co-authored by Jeff Schwartz, principal and US leader for the Future of Work, Deloitte Consulting LLP.

Erica Volini

Erica Volini is the Global Human Capital leader for Deloitte Consulting. Throughout her career, she has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations to link their business and human capital strategies. She is a frequent speaker on how market trends are shaping the future of work and the HR profession and is a recognized thought leader in the trends shaping the world of human capital today.

Steve Hatfield

Steve Hatfield is a Principal with Deloitte Consulting and serves as the Global Leader for Future of Work for Deloitte. He has over 20 years of experience advising global organizations on issues of strategy, innovation, organization, people, culture, and change.

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A new global initiative will use nuclear science to better manage pandemic threats, such as COVID-19. The IAEA Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (ZODIAC) project will establish a global network to help national laboratories in monitoring, surveillance, early detection and control of animal and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola, avian influenza and Zika. ZODIAC is based on the technical, scientific and laboratory capacity of the IAEA and its partners and the Agency’s mechanisms to quickly deliver equipment and know-how to countries. Subscribe for more videos: http://goo.gl/VxsqCz Follow IAEA on social media: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/iaeaorg/ Twitter – https://twitter.com/iaeaorg Google+ – https://plus.google.com/+iaea Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/iaeaorg/ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/iaea © IAEA Office of Public Information and Communication http://iaea.org

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