The Future of Work was shifting long before the lockdown.

If you listen to the current discussions around the “Future of Work”, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a meteorite struck the workplace in March 2020, instantly shattering the boundaries between our professional and personal lives.

As the leader of a workplace consultancy practice, it’s a constant discussion: “COVID-19 changed everything”.

However, the truth is far more nuanced. What we experienced in 2020 wasn’t a revolution; it was the final, loud collapse of a wall that had been crumbling since the late 1990s.

To really support our teams today, we need to look back at where this ‘always-on’ feeling actually started. Not with a pandemic, but with the day we all put a smartphone in our pockets.

I entered the workplace in the late 90s, when work was a place you went. When you left the building, you left the work behind. Then came the “digital leash”. Whether it was the early Nokia handsets or the iconic BlackBerry (and I had both!), the late 90s introduced a radical new concept: the ability to be reached anywhere, at any time.

Initially, this was marketed as freedom. We were no longer tethered to a desk or a physical office. In reality, the tether simply became invisible. For the first time, a manager’s query could interrupt a family dinner. A client’s “quick question” could buzz in your pocket during a child’s weekend sports game or during those few hours away from life on the golf course.

We traded the 9-to-5 for 24/7 availability long before Zoom or Teams became household names. By the time the pandemic forced us into our home offices, we had already spent two decades training our brains to never truly switch off.

The pandemic didn’t create the "always-on" culture; it merely removed the final physical excuse we had to hide from it. To lead through change today, we need to stop blaming the pandemic and start addressing the three-decade-old habits that brought us here.

Read part 2 - The Suit is Dead, and So is the "Professional Persona"