Foreword
Since mid-March, all the news has been focused on a single subject, on a single major concern and all its consequences. Since the middle of March there has been this uncomfortable atmosphere of the end of something. More than two months confined between two brackets that are still not behind. Then, a feeling of suffocation. The body which, bowing under the pressure exerted by the desire to regain a certain idea of freedom, is shaken by a daily life that now seems detached from reality.
Through time, within the same space
Since the dawn of time Phobos and Pathos have been part of the cultural baggage of all civilizations. Bearing different names and faces in different villages, Fear and Sickness have always seemed, in the eyes of more and more people, seizable, controllable, circumspect? For with knowledge (as opposed to ignorance) growing, the playground of Phobos and Pathos is smaller, the myth losing its strength. Thus are positioned the beacons of what must or can be... What is acceptable, desirable, permitted, with a limited or even negligible level of risk. Relationships between individuals, members of a society, or a family are thus framed.
If you draw a random X on a map and position yourself on it with your eyes wide open for a long time, you will be able to note the differences that time brings. Change comes with time, and time is the backdrop against which adaptation takes place.
Across space, at the same time
As opposed to the time with which space blooms, the latter offers simultaneity. From one space to another at the same time, the beacon delta is not, strictly speaking, the consequence of a change. Phobos and Pathos are everywhere at once, displaying different faces in different villages. One in comparison to the other is by no means an evolution, but is certainly a difference. One and the other are two, distinct. Consequently, the other cannot be better or superior to the one. Both are desirable, both are permissible, both have a limited or even negligible level of risk.
If you draw two X's on a clock and stare at them for a long time, you will be able to see that they have never moved relative to each other, but that they are no longer in the same position in relation to the hands, which continue untiringly.
In a professional context, new employment contract
Anyone who has had the chance to work professionally in different fields of activity or in different countries knows that the standard is not unique. Relationships between individuals, work schedules, analyses, priorities, management philosophies, office space planning, supplies, different paper formats, etc. differ from one environment to another. It is as if a set of professional spheres (not silos), with varying degrees of impermeability (because they influence each other), were cohabiting.
No one sphere is better or better than the other. Each one is a function of a distinct reality, the fruit of its own contextual adaptation, of its evolution.
In mid-March, in this multi-professional and multi-dimensional context, the only great concern arrived. Blind, it always strikes with the same leitmotif, but the impacts and consequences differ, because the targets do not all offer the same colour... And again, the attention paid to the one great concern is not the same everywhere as the means deployed to respond to it vary.
The professional reality of crane operators, dentists, landscapers, computer developers, massage therapists or farmers is not the same. Just as the cultural reality of Singapore, New York, Sao Paolo, Jakarta or Havre-Saint-Pierre differs.
But the one big concern always attacks in the same way... in close proximity. So the different professional contexts must necessarily adapt, change, evolve... each according to its own reality. The different professional contexts will still be distinct tomorrow, but all of them, to survive, will have to offer a safe employee (EX) experience.
This safe work experience will only be possible with a holistic approach that takes into account lifestyle, health, and work space planning.
The work space will have to be defined according to the vectors of distance, hygiene and sanitation. On this subject in Quebec, CNESST has put together a very useful toolkit (Ma trousse) on the subject, the content of which is available in a smartphone application. Clearly, telework will not disappear with the coming summer.
Office towers will have to look different, open workspaces will have to be redefined, corporate cafeteria buffets will have to be redesigned.
Lifestyle, health and work climate will also have to be taken into consideration.
And of course, risk identification measures will have to be put in place, triggers identified. The reading of a high temperature is one of the simplest triggers to use and is an excellent means, but it must always be considered in a controlled environment. On this subject, during a recent interview concerning the current context, Mr. Benoit St-Denis, Head of the Infection Prevention and Control Program at the CISSS des Laurentines, rightly mentioned that it is important to "(...) consider the reading of a high temperature as an indicator that should lead an employer to further analyze the employee's situation by means of a questionnaire on the lifestyle and health status of the person concerned. "In addition, and at this stage, a safe employee (EX) experience must necessarily be supported by a "(...) intervention protocol aimed at limiting the risks of contagion (...). »
Preserving safety and health in the work environment will require new paradigms that we will all have to live with.
In a societal context, a new social contract
As with the professional space, living in society leads each person to concede a certain individuality in order to allow and ensure the common space. This fundamental Rousseauist conception of living together, the social contract, is at the basis of our contemporary societies and is common to all our cultures. It goes without saying that to ensure the security and freedom of the group, we will all have to leave aside a small part in addition to our individual freedom.
We have changed
We have neither won nor lost. We have all been transformed, and this metamorphosis is not yet complete. One thing is certain, tomorrow will never be the same as yesterday. Many people today feel as if they have lost a bit of innocence, when in fact we probably just have to let go of too much carelessness. Knowledge has left us a calling card.
How do you see tomorrow who is already here?
LUC LACHAPELLE B.A., M.A., M.B.S.I.
CERTIFIED PROSCI, SIX SIGMA
DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC CONSULTING SERVICES
IN-RGY