This week marks exactly five years since the UK went into lockdown. I vividly remember the preceding weeks in Stylist HQ: the urgent meetings cancelling huge events and working out how to distribute our beloved magazine, our colleagues dwindling in number by the day as they retreated to the safety of their homes and then, that final moment, locking the door to an office that felt as familiar as our own homes, not knowing when we’d open it again.

After those frantic weeks and the comradery that came with it, we were met with silence. Sitting at laptops in our separate homes, we had to learn how to work all over again; our painfully quiet rooms punctuated by hysterical laughter as a cat pounced across our screens or a colleague gave an impassioned speech on mute, all secretly wondering how we were going to keep it going. At least, we thought, it wouldn’t be for long.

The world of work has dominated headlines ever since. From the public celebration of key workers who weren’t afforded the luxury of WFH, through to furlough, job losses, the great resignation and the return to office (RTO) debate which rumbles on half a decade later.

Alongside the challenges, we found a new normal that fought against Zuckerberg’s “masculine energy” of old. It was a workplace driven by empathy, compassion and safety. Carrot, not stick. Ways of working that continue to drive how I lead today. Here are three lockdown legacies I hope we all hold onto as we continue to navigate change.

“5 years since lockdown, work has changed forever – these are the 3 lockdown legacies I hope stick around”