In showbusiness W.C. Fields coined the phrase ‘never work with children or animals’, an axiom that most who have ever appeared on camera would agree with.
However, in a world where working from home has become the new normal and video conferencing is now the communication channel of choice, this is now rarely an option.
Cats, dogs, children, partners, workmen, gardeners…unexpected human or animal cameos have become an unavoidable part of working from home.
Please Excuse My Cat (and other distractions)
Ah yes. Working from home. Once the preserve of a lucky few senior staff and consultants; suddenly the new reality for millions of people as UK businesses scrambled to adapt to the virus pandemic.
Data from the ONS suggests that by April nearly half of all employed people in the UK were doing some sort of home working, with an incredible 86% doing so as a direct result of Coronavirus.
Great news for Nescafé, (or Nespresso if you have one of those fancy-pants coffee machines - ahem). Very bad news for the multitudinous coffee shops inhabiting our deserted city streets.
Whilst home-working has undoubtedly been a major interruption to conventional face-to-face business communication, in many ways it has also torn down barriers. Whether it’s my cat unceremoniously joining a Zoom call, or an unsolicited video tour of my house (as I frantically try to locate a charger cable left in another room), video conferencing has certainly given many of you more insight into my world.
On video calls with clients and business contacts, it is now par for the course for things to be temporarily halted so someone can let the dog out, take delivery of a package, accept a cuppa from their partner or have a child stick their head in to say hello. In one particular instance a young man of four came and sat on his mum’s knee to tell me about his Lego, before getting bored and wandering off to find something more interesting to do (apparently discussions on financial planning are a poor substitute for Pepper Pig).
In my view rather than disturb the natural flow of meetings or undermining people’s professionalism, for me at least, it has added a new, more human dimension to doing business and communicating.
A few years ago, a serious interview on BBC News with Professor Robert Kelly about Korean politics, was unceremoniously gate-crashed by his two small children live on air. It makes for brilliant watching and you can do so by clicking here. At the time it went viral (over 40,000,000 views and counting!), as an unusual example of a home broadcast being gate-crashed by children.
Nowadays this has become a daily occurrence for thousands of workers across the UK. Just whilst writing this blog post today I was delighted to find two more amusing videos of children doing their very best to ambush their parents on live television. Please find both available for your viewing pleasure by clicking here.
Much like the gradual trickle of more casual attire entering workplaces following the Silicon Valley trends of the late 00s and early 10s, the 2020 explosion of video conferencing is now further changing expectations and accepted norms in business and communication, breaking down barriers and making us all just that little bit more human.
Clearly the virus pandemic has been a humanitarian and economic crisis on a global scale, the true effects of which are still only just becoming apparent. However, like all things in life, good things can come from bad situations. If one unintended consequence of Coronavirus is that people take themselves a little less seriously and cut each other a little more slack as human beings all trying their best, then it’s not all bad.
Now please excuse me while I go and untangle my cat from my power cable and let the dog out…
