What social change do you think COVID will trigger?

[jewel1968]

I have been pondering this for a while and as we spend more time in lockdown I wonder what the long term social impacts will be. Some are fairly obvious but I am wondering what else might occur. For me I think when we finally get to the other side of this pandemic I can see some changes, such as:

• lots more home working where infrastructure allows
• more people continuing to exercise at home or in the park and gyms not so attractive
• fashion changes with people more focused on comfort e.g. high heels go out of favour
• perhaps an impact on how we look after children
• if schools perfect online learning we might see it used in some circumstances e.g. When kids are too sick to travel to school but could work from home
• a change in how we test kids e.g. might we move away from exams

I know some social scientists think we might enter a decadent period similar to the roaring twenties.

Interested in your thoughts...

I was actually wondering the other day if schools might become online across the nation and taught by just one provider - such as oak academy.

Imagine how much money the government would save.

There’d be no need for Ofsted - other than to inspect childcare providers where students were working (if not at home)

Provision would be more or less even (to the government anyway) across the board.

Massive headache solved.

More working from home. More austerity to recoup the costs of the pandemic.
More areas of deprivation due to increased unemployment.
It's not going to be great for quite a while.
The under lying trauma of knowing the rug can be pulled from under you at any point, knowing now that the government doesn't care if you or your loved ones live or die as long as money is to be made somewhere.
I'll be focusing on family and freinds and making sure I appreciate the time we have with them.

Laughing my head off at the PP who has implied that employers don't need to pay attention to the needs and career aspirations of their entry level staff. I work in an industry that competes with similarly prestigious career starting points for the best graduates. If we don't provide a clear and desirable career path and working environment with networking and training opportunities in person, the best graduates will go somewhere that does. I find it hilarious that that PP doesn't think businesses need to pay attention to this!

I disagree about the heels - as soon as we can get out again I shall be wearing my highest pair of heels and making a bigger effort than ever before!

I know my friend has not received health visitor visits in our area as they aren’t doing them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the norm if people are able to cope.. to cut the cost on health and social care.. I find it quite sad..

I think there are just some jobs that can’t be learned independently no matter how capable the student.
I own a film and TV company. No one can build a set or light it for their bedroom. And no one can learn how to do that (beautifully and cheaply) from their bedroom.
No one can recce locations from their bedroom or act their part. They can’t research a documentary from home. Etc etc
And to learn to do that stuff you have to be with those that are doing it. Then telling you what they’re doing on zoom just isn’t enough.

@MadameBlobby

This is where education of children is critical. If a graduate is incapable of self motivation, research, remote learning, self discipline, time management, etc. by the time they leaves university, and not destined for work in a laboratory/research environment, they may find other more capable students have an easier time getting jobs.

Some jobs need in person supervision and it’s not to do with the person not being capable. I’m a lawyer. You learn so much in legal practice from being around other more experienced people and just learning by osmosis how they work. It’s extremely difficult to replicate that from home. Maybe in roles that are not so demanding in every way it might be more straightforward

I'm a social worker and it's impossible to learn how to be a good social worker on your own from home

@Peachee

I know my friend has not received health visitor visits in our area as they aren’t doing them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the norm if people are able to cope.. to cut the cost on health and social care.. I find it quite sad..

That shouldn't be the norm, which area?

Lots of health visitors are still doing virtual visits. It won't become the norm - it's a scandal from a child protection perspective already and needs to stop.

I really hope it brings about change in the care of our elderly. The care home deaths are scandalous and the shocking level of care in some places is heartbreaking and inhumane.

@BlackberrySky

Laughing my head off at the PP who has implied that employers don't need to pay attention to the needs and career aspirations of their entry level staff. I work in an industry that competes with similarly prestigious career starting points for the best graduates. If we don't provide a clear and desirable career path and working environment with networking and training opportunities in person, the best graduates will go somewhere that does. I find it hilarious that that PP doesn't think businesses need to pay attention to this!

That wasn't what I said. I was responding to a previous posted that was saying this would not translate into an online working environment. I was pointing out that clearly they can, and that employers will not care for or pander to graduates who cannot live and work in an online world.

If a graduate says, 'look, I just cant do this video conferencing thing, and I need to work in an office with other staff around me, and I can't do training without a classroom environment, a company will pick a different candidate. Businesses inherently employ candidates they already know are going to fit with where their company is going. They do not employ sub-standard employees when they have the opportunity to pick from the best, and then they are the ones who get to choose where they work.

@HelloMissus

I think there are just some jobs that can’t be learned independently no matter how capable the student. I own a film and TV company. No one can build a set or light it for their bedroom. And no one can learn how to do that (beautifully and cheaply) from their bedroom. No one can recce locations from their bedroom or act their part. They can’t research a documentary from home. Etc etc And to learn to do that stuff you have to be with those that are doing it. Then telling you what they’re doing on zoom just isn’t enough.

Yep. No one can lay brick or plumb in a shower either. There will always be a need for manual labour.

@Dustyboots

I was actually wondering the other day if schools might become online across the nation and taught by just one provider - such as oak academy.

Imagine how much money the government would save.

There’d be no need for Ofsted - other than to inspect childcare providers where students were working (if not at home)

Provision would be more or less even (to the government anyway) across the board.

Massive headache solved.

I've long advocated a more standardised approach to teaching/schools rather than the ad-hoc situation we have now where different teachers do things very differently, all creating their own resources etc. Massive amounts of time could be saved, and standards improved, by having a central library of resources and a standardised approach. And yes, a central online provider would help towards a seamless learning experience where there is reduced necessity for students to actually be in the classroom, in case of illness etc.

@Stripyhoglets1

More working from home. More austerity to recoup the costs of the pandemic. More areas of deprivation due to increased unemployment. It's not going to be great for quite a while. The under lying trauma of knowing the rug can be pulled from under you at any point, knowing now that the government doesn't care if you or your loved ones live or die as long as money is to be made somewhere. I'll be focusing on family and freinds and making sure I appreciate the time we have with them.

Spot on. But there's always the duvet to hide under for those who wish to hide form real life and dream of times past.

@Hibernatingnation

I really hope it brings about change in the care of our elderly. The care home deaths are scandalous and the shocking level of care in some places is heartbreaking and inhumane.

The same could be said of hospitals too!

@Stripyhoglets1

More working from home. More austerity to recoup the costs of the pandemic. More areas of deprivation due to increased unemployment. It's not going to be great for quite a while. The under lying trauma of knowing the rug can be pulled from under you at any point, knowing now that the government doesn't care if you or your loved ones live or die as long as money is to be made somewhere. I'll be focusing on family and freinds and making sure I appreciate the time we have with them.

I don't think we'll have austerity again. Unemployment will be too high, and we need to get, maybe a million or two, people back into work. You can't do that by cutting. What we need is a sensible/sustainable spending spree. That's not the Brown/Blair way of just chucking huge amounts of money out there and hoping for the best. Not just giving wage increases to those who shout loudest. That achieves nothing. We need to improve infrastructure, so that the money is spent on things that will endure for decades to come. That's building up our manufacturing and other industries. New roads, railways, etc. Mass demolition/repurposing of empty retail in town centres etc. I genuinely believe we need to spend our way out of the pandemic. Yes, in the short term, that means more debt, but like I say, if it's carefully planned and executed, the "multiplier effect" will kick in and we'll reap the rewards. We really mustn't throw money widely into the economy only to see it be spent on imports or end up in the bank account of billionaires behind PFI schemes etc.

I'm a social worker and it's impossible to learn how to be a good social worker on your own from home

I’ll bet. Another extremely demanding and difficult job.

Many of these office jobs are being offshored. Why pay a British worker 30k when somebody in a developing country will do the job just as well for 5k? No pesky unions either.

Elli these jobs aren’t manual labour.
For one thing they pay really well.
Jobs in the arts often do.

www.ft.com/content/192eb45a-f7c9-4897-ac56-57cb743ac2f2

“ The shift to remote work carries an inherent risk
If your job can be done from home, can it be offshored somewhere cheaper?”

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/marker.medium.com/amp/p/3f771f9d1529

I agree with you Kazzyhoward but I do not really trust the tories to do the right thing. They should have done those things back in 2010 to get the economy back on track - but wanted to stamp on the public sector at the time. I hope they do what you've suggested but am not sure that they will.

@Donoteatthekittens

Many of these office jobs are being offshored. Why pay a British worker 30k when somebody in a developing country will do the job just as well for 5k? No pesky unions either.

It's about quality, not just cost. I've been involved in offshoring on and off for a couple of decades or so. We've used, probably, dozens of firms over that time, and learned a lot about the process. For quality, you have to put a huge amount of time and effort into choosing the right firm/people, training, setting up systems of monitoring/quality control, etc. Once you've done that, and are engaging the right calibre of staff, your costs aren't that much less than if you'd kept with UK staff in the first place.

There's a reason why the UK office of a multinational accountancy practice still does it's own work in the UK rather than "offshoring" it to their Far Eastern offices! It's because their Far Eastern offices aren't actually that much cheaper when you factor in them using top quality staff, quality office accommodation, etc.

Offshoring is fine if you want cheep and cheerful and you're not that bothered about quality (just look at how badly written are the instructions in consumer goods from the Far East). It's a different kettle of fish when it's professional services that need to be done by experienced/qualified staff as they're not that much cheaper!

@Stripyhoglets1

I agree with you Kazzyhoward but I do not really trust the tories to do the right thing. They should have done those things back in 2010 to get the economy back on track - but wanted to stamp on the public sector at the time. I hope they do what you've suggested but am not sure that they will.

I think the 2010 Tories were the anti-thesis to Brown/Blairs' spending splurge. Things are different now as public finances were back under control before covid, so there's not as much to cut back on.

I think this is an interesting discussion.

We'll see re WFH over time. For some sectors this isn't working as well as participants would like to think it is. For others more flexibility will be productive.

More importantly I feel that this crisis and what will follow throws existing inequalities into sharp relief. This applies to education but also to the workplace. I'm increasingly uncomfortable about the army of people servicing the privileged "office" class that can work at home (I'm one of them). This might become a social problem, and accelerate low pay, low status, insecure and unappreciated employment.

We know who the key workers are now and still don't value them highly, and with a few exceptions (like doctors) they hold none of the agency or power.

I'm concerned that this will become the primary divide in society. Those with agency and those without. Maybe it already is.

So on the positive side we have people putting more effort into family, kinder to environment (less travel), more flexible working, more focus on mental health, less consumerism, better care for elderly and perhaps a roaring twenties...

On the negative side we have mass unemployment (moving jobs overseas), deep depression, poor on the job learning, depleted NHS, lots of lockdowns and a big duvet where we can all hide under - oh and high heels.