It wasn’t so long ago that if anyone was working at home, hearing kids in the background, or dogs barking, or anything domestic coming across a business call, was considered to be unprofessional. Who could forget this viral video?
Now here we are during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us working from home, it’s become acceptable to hear all those sounds, or even to see them in video conferencing sessions. Even news or late-night talkshow hosts filming their bits from their homes will have their families and pets participate.
We’ve somehow now realised that these are people with real families, and it in no way made them any less professional about it.
We could now see that as people, our personal lives and business lives need not be separate, and this whole thing about work-life balance can change to something else.
Perhaps this pandemic will change the way we see each other. Maybe it will make us more personable. It will allow us to see each other as people.