The times, they are a-changin’. Bob Dylan wrote that in 1964, but there could be hundreds of songs with the same name written today. In the start of March, our world went on as usual, offices were open, and people went to the grocery store without covering their face. Come April, we had lost sports, businesses had shut down, and weddings were pushed back into the abyss, hopeful that the date will one day come. The status quo has gone to the wayside, and unpredictability reigns supreme. One thing we do know is that we need to move away from the way things used to run and embrace new, post-pandemic practices. In a survey ran by the National Recreation and Parks Association, they asked participants to prioritize both the top 10 trends they personally agree with and the top 10 trends that will impact them professionally the most and combined the data to create this list.
1. In-person offerings and virtual programming will coexist
Before the lockdown, there were very few agencies that had virtual recreation programming, but by mid-April, more than 60 percent had launched some sort of virtual program, from classes and sports camps to teen and senior centers.
2. People will view access to parks/outdoors as a right, not a luxury
As everything shut down, parks around the country saw a huge increase in traffic as time outside was one of the few ways to maintain your mental and physical health. This increased usage should result in getting community leaders to embrace the goal of everyone having access to a park.
3. Zoom will be a verb
Most of us have been on a Zoom meeting, and, even as the country starts to open back up, don’t expect these virtual meetings to slow down. These virtual meetings have shown us that not every meeting needs to be in person and have proven to be an efficient way to host a meeting in terms of both cost and time.
4. Basic personal hygiene and public sanitation requirements will increase by significant levels
This ended up being the number one trend that participants agreed with personally, and for good reason. Hand washing and sanitizing has increased dramatically, with a lot of people going from no washing to 20+ seconds. The expectations of public buildings being properly cleaned will also be held to a much higher standard.
5. Our understanding of truly essential workers will change
An essential worker is a term that has recently entered the lexicon of many of the population, and this definition will continue to change as we realize more and more who is and isn’t essential. Most wouldn’t have said that a grocery store clerk is essential in the start of 2020, but by April we saw just how important they are, and that change of what deems a worker essential will continue to occur.
6. Permanent office spaces will shrink as work from home and remote working become an expectation, not a perk
As businesses sent their employees to work from home, they started to realize the savings, both in cost in rental space and in time spent by employees on their commute. With the latter growing by the year, the desire for a better work-life balance has taken priority. As agencies compete to hire the best of the best, the perk of working from home will be a main selling point.
7. Customer experiences will be more faceless and/or touch less
This is a trend that was not started but expedited by the quarantine. Things such as online registration or digital payments have been part of our lives for some time now, and we’ve heard about touch screens coming to places like fast-food restaurants, but this has been spreading into other areas of business, omitting the need for a front desk in favor of a self-service kiosk.
8. Offer less handshakes and more fist bumps
While we hope this isn’t the case, the handshake may be a thing of the past. Unnecessary touching seems like a theme of yesteryear, and with it, we may be losing one of the standard greetings in the business world.
9. Being busy is less important than being present
For too long, if you looked busy, you were productive. It didn’t matter if you had swept the same tile a thousand times, if you were doing something, that was good. The pandemic made us slow down and be more mindful to all. We’ve realized that sometimes we’ve got to get outside and smell the roses.
10. Esports will continue to grow exponentially with virtual versions of major sports
This is a case of seizing the opportunity left when “real” sports postponed their seasons. Twitch, a major streaming platform, estimated its audience grew by one-third in March alone. NASCAR has its eNASCAR series, with each of its drivers using a souped-up virtual car, and races attracted up to 1.3 million viewers.
There will surely be other changes and trends, as each day brings an air of uncertainty. Our world looks different now than it did last month, and next month will probably be the same by being so different. But, even as the times are changing, we still need to plan for the future and with that includes planning for tomorrow.