How is COVID-19 continuing to change human behaviour and affect our ways of living and working?

Exploring emerging human behaviour and purpose during COVID-19. Tracking today's challenges to find tomorrow's solutions

EY Seren teams are running two-week sprints of mixed-method research to understand how the global pandemic is changing how we live and how we work.

The hypothesis is that human behaviour is changing significantly, and that service providers will need to significantly change what they offer and how they offer it, to meet these new needs. To do that, EY Seren teams are running:

• Desk research across over 200 sources 
• Depth interviews with people, virtually, in their own homes about what really matters to them right now 
• Diary studies with customers across the UK to get insight into how behaviour is changing
• Interviews with design leaders and professionals across sectors to understand how COVID-19 is transforming the role of design and delivery
• Quantitative surveys to validate and scale the insight

EY Seren teams will publish what we discover to our community fortnightly. If you want to share your opinion or find out more about this research, please let us know.

Do I trust it?

Unsurprisingly, what people trust and distrust has changed. In some areas normal factors have accentuated, but in others new factors have arisen. Economies and markets are founded on trust – so all the talk about “reopening the economy” will only be enabled by close attention to these.

Physical: surfaces, spaces and other people are all possible sources of infection and thus not to be immediately trusted.

Emotional:  our ability to trust others comes down to judgements of whether they demonstrate competence, act with integrity, care about others and honour commitments. This is acute for new behaviours, such as digital usage or contact tracing apps, where emotional concerns around security are likely to need managing.

Perceived: time is a factor. People are willing to spend 10 minutes in close proximity to get groceries, but not two hours in a cinema, and much less a week on a cruise ship.

Prejudice: trust is determined through our “fast thinking’” brains, which are often caught up with unconscious bias and prejudice. This could lead to the exclusion of certain groups, e.g. minority groups who are affected significantly by COVID-19.

A new area of leadership

COVID-19 is accelerating us into a new era: that of the doctor. The doctor sees the newly globalised and financialised economy like an organism struck by pathogens where old rule books don’t apply, and where subjectivity and objectivity sit on an equal footing. The opportunity to shift strategy towards purpose, sustainability, and inclusiveness is available in ways that it wasn’t before.

As leaders around the world focus on the longer-term recovery ahead, there is an emerging realisation that any return to normal will require them to transform their businesses, services and platforms. There is also a desire to not only return to a “new normal” but address larger, regional and global challenges along the way such as climate change, poverty, and access to healthcare. Care is the new watchword – so this shift to a doctor mindset of leadership seems like an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.

Leading in this new era requires a range of new attitudes and traits: empathy, purpose, acting on behalf of all stakeholders your organisation represents and impacts; the ability to seek a range of inputs yet be decisive; being other-directed, strong vision-setting; and balancing risks. If in doubt do what the doctor does – get closer to the people you care for.

We’ve all lost something

Everyone’s lost something to COVID-19 and everyone’s navigating recovery from loss. At one extreme there are those who have lost a loved one and experience grief and bereavement. Then the many who have lost income and financial security. And then the billions of people who have lost their freedom. The connecting factors – the loss of connection, security, agency, identity and independence.

The loss of rituals to deal with dying and grieving further extends the experience of bereavement and recovery. It has become harder to be present for friends and loved ones, to support them through the emotional hardships and experiences of grief and isolation.

Loss is a well-established area of psychological enquiry. It can lead to depression and anxiety, but also anger. For example, the perceived loss of freedom in the US during lockdown has led to acts of civil disobedience.

Understanding two key dimensions of our collective sense of loss will help providers improve services to better support people.

Make do and mend

Although many have lost something in this crisis, there’s also emerging evidence of people trying to create something new.

Consumption of screen content has risen, but the combination of binge-watching colleagues then binge-watching Netflix isn’t much fun - there is a need to achieve a screen-life balance.

This desire to create something new is not about chest-thumping declarations of emerging from isolation with a suite of new skills, a new business idea and a brand new body, it's a gentler notion.

Given the scarcity of goods, resources, stimulus and cash, people are having to make do and mend what they have.

This shift from consumption to production is helping people find or rediscover the forgotten pleasure of the creative process.

Sharing spaces and burdens

COVID-19 is changing how people interact and navigate spaces (both public and private). We are moving from a “high-touch” to a “low-touch” world.

Urban infrastructure is ill-suited to physical distancing and is being hastily changed to signal desired behaviours.

Employers will roll out physical distancing measures in workplaces. This is already happening in China.

Citizens’ new default position will be to avoid crowds and public transport. Bicycle use will increase in urban areas.

People are sharing the burden of lockdown in family units and local communities. In some cases, family members in the same local community are using social media to stay connected as they are forced to self-isolate.

In the short term, impacted workers have relied on bank repayment holidays and the government furlough scheme to sustain them. However, when these crutches are withdrawn, individuals will be forced to turn to their family and other networks to bridge income gaps.

Generation crisis

A whole generation is growing up that only know crisis: with the 2008 financial crisis, COVID-19, and Brexit in the foreground, and the climate crisis ever-present in the background.

The typical psychological responses to crisis are uncertainty, fear and hopelessness, whilst at the same time people try to live an emotionally positive life. That can lead to cognitive dissonance and bewilderment.

Virtualising customs and rituals

Customs and rituals are integral to being human. There is an uncanny sense of incompleteness when one can’t hug a loved one, head out to meet friends and family for lunch, or shake hands with a client at the start of a meeting.

Equally, physical playground rituals play a real role in childhood education. Many families struggle with the responsibility of home schooling and keeping children engaged.

Our leisure time is marked by rituals of collective meals, weekend trips to shopping malls and high streets for lunch and dinner, window shopping, sporting events, cultural events, and so much more.

As the summer months approach, travel destinations, culture events, and sports are all virtualising a return to a mediated shared experience.

We are more social, in many ways, than ever before, and social distancing is really more about physical distancing and our willingness to experience services and share moments together safely in close physical proximity.

Escape from home

The end of the lockdown honeymoon has been palpable: the flood of memes have reduced, the long-term fatigue of isolation is kicking in, and though some may not yet feel ready to return to work, many more are ready to escape the home.

Governments are easing lockdown restrictions. Complex social distancing rules and personal health concerns will make the return to physical proximity a complex challenge for those returning to work, their high street, and their school. Expect a return to some things, but normal is unlikely to be one of them.

Each individual will balance competing and inter-related personal, family health and financial wellbeing considerations when assessing their level of comfort with a return to any physical proximity.

Many have found new ways to live and work, which will be either cast away or reconfigured in a new round of experiments.

For customers dealing with complex issues like bereavement, illness, and job loss, these will continue and they’re likely to demand new digital expectations developed during lockdown to be met.