Hello Quartz readers,
When India entered a nationwide lockdown on March 25, a majority of companies made working from home mandatory. Almost seven months later, office reopenings are only partial, and guidelines remain strict. While working from home in India can have big advantages, it’s also taking a toll on mental health.
A third of workers in India have been feeling more burnt out over the past six months, according to a recent survey from Microsoft. Some 40% say they are stressed by the lack of separation between work and personal life, while 35% said they feel disconnected from their colleagues.
The ideal WFH setup—spatially, mentally, emotionally—is a topic of much discussion at Quartz, and if you’re looking for more resources check out our guides to borderless teams, the home office, and managing remote employees (also our series on cultivating resilience). But one of the best tools we’ve found, other than a commitment to wearing pants during work hours, is talking to and commiserating with each other. So tell us:
Okay, let’s get started.
A second opinion
Consulting may be the biggest industry that nobody really sees. The world’s largest companies use outside consultants to help them decide how to direct their resources, and consultants like Deloitte and Accenture are among the US government’s largest outside contractors of any kind.
Consultants’ work is behind the scenes, and typically goes on with little scrutiny and even less regulation. The industry largely escapes notice until problems surface: Professional-services firms have been cited for enabling global companies’ tax-avoidance schemes, and for mishandling efforts to help banks prevent money laundering.
So it isn’t always easy to see when consulting firms are hurting, but when their clients suffer, so do they. The pandemic has forced many companies to delay or cancel projects and cut their spending on consultants, especially in industries that Covid-19 has hit hard, like travel.
“In a crisis, consulting is one of the first things that’s cut,” says Mark O’Connor, chief executive of Monadnock Research, which tracks the industry.
Delta Air Lines, for instance, said in March that it would “substantially reduce” its use of outside consultants. Wells Fargo plans to heavily cut its consulting spending, the Financial Times reported in August. CEO Charles Scharf said the bank’s spending on outside services like consulting was “extraordinary…beyond anything that I’ve ever seen.”
As a result of spending cuts like these, Accenture is reportedly laying off 5% of its global workforce, or about 25,000 employees. Deloitte and KPMG have recently had layoffs in the US. At Accenture, which is publicly held, consulting revenues in the quarter ended in August fell 8% compared to the same period a year ago, before the pandemic. PricewaterhouseCoopers’s overall revenues, including both consulting and other business lines, were down 6% year over year for the quarter ended in June.
To be sure, the degree to which consulting firms are suffering varies enormously, depending on whether their clients are in hard-hit industries and on what kind of consulting they do. But it could be awhile before things get better: Source Global Research, an advisory firm focusing on professional-services companies, projects the consulting industry’s global revenue will fall 14% in 2020, though that’s better than the 20% the firm projected earlier in the pandemic.
“It is a double-edged sword,” says Joe O’Mahoney, a consultant and professor at Cardiff University in Wales, of the pandemic’s impact on the industry. “But it’s more of a cut from the sword.”
Welcome to the age of corona consulting. In our latest field guide, we look at how consultants are rebranding as pandemic-fighting experts. Here’s what we learned:
- It’s a good time to be a consultant, but a terrible time to become one: Job listings in the US are down by 50%.
- Without access to one of their favorite tools—the humble whiteboard—consultants are experimenting with digital collaboration tools.
- There’s plenty of work for executive coaches, as business leaders seek guidance on everything from managing layoffs to navigating uncertainty.
- One challenge facing now-remote consultants who are used to advising clients in person: the importance of body language.
✦ If you want our professional opinion, now is the perfect time to invest in a Quartz membership, which gives you access to all of our field guides, stories, and presentations—paywall-free. Take 20% off your first year with the code QZTWENTY.
Masked avenging
As Americans grapple with debates over mask mandates, Indians are all for them.
Nearly 90% of respondents to a recent survey in India said they believe wearing masks should be mandatory. Respondents also felt the government should punish those who flout the rules, with 40% saying they favor increasing current penalties.
Wearing a mask is mandatory in India, and authorities have been cracking down on rule-breakers. In Delhi alone, more than 25,000 people have been fined since mid-June for not wearing a mask, while Mumbai has fined over 14,000 people since April.
Buyer’s recourse
A tour through your last six months of spending might indicate some changes: The pandemic is having a major impact on what consumers buy across a variety of industries. See if you can identify which of these goods are seeing sales soar. (Answers at the end.)
👖 Jeans
🚲 Bicycles
🧥 Coats and jackets
👁️ Lasik eye surgery
🌱 Gardening supplies
👛 Luxury goods
👟 Comfy shoes
📺 Streaming
🕴️Men’s suits
You asked
Can the coronavirus really live on my phone for 28 days?
Under very specific circumstances, yes—but don’t go dunking your phone in bleach. A single lab study published this week tested how long the virus survived on different surfaces; smooth surfaces like glass and bank notes showed the highest levels of infectious virus after sitting around for 28 days at 20°C (68°F). (Good news for mask-wearing: Of the materials studied, cotton was the least hospitable to the virus.)
But there are lots of ways this experiment does not mimic real life. Most relevant: The test was conducted in the dark, which means there wasn’t any UV light to help kill the virus. And it used a high dose of the virus suspended in simulated mucus; in real life, an infected person’s spit would include biological factors that help degrade the virus.
Though transmission of Covid-19 via surfaces is still believed to cause a minority of cases, it’s a good idea to wash your hands regularly, avoid touching your face after touching things in public, and stop licking your phone.
Essential reading
- The latest 🌏 figures: 37.9 million confirmed cases; 26.3 million classified as “recovered.”
- Attention shoppers: Need a pandemic necessity? There’s now a store for that.
- ____-shaped recovery: America’s V-shaped recovery is in danger of flatlining.
- On the money: Can you still ask for a raise in pandemic?
- Danke: Germany is drafting a law to protect work-life balance.
What are people spending on? Sales of bicycles (indoor and outdoor), coats, Lasik, gardening supplies, comfy shoes, and streaming are on the up and up. Jeans, luxury goods, and men’s suits, meanwhile, are struggling.
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