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As Australian employees emerge from lockdown and organisations grapple with worsening talent shortages, we can finally look beyond the old office/home choice and see that the new norm will

be genuine flexibility and the ability to work from anywhere.  They’re digital nomads, and they’re not new – freelance creatives have been bouncing round South East Asia for years, but this

corporate flavour certainly is. The new nomads are full-time employed, but travelling while they work for a single boss. There’s no robust Australian data yet, but new research out of the US

found that the number of digital nomads increased by almost 50% in 2020. The number of corporate nomads rose by 96% in just 12 months, from 3.2 million in 2019 to 6.3 million in 2020.  In

an unusual turn of events, I spent more of this year than not working remotely. A series of advantageous mishaps (cancelled flights, closed borders, blind luck) have seen me work at airports

and cafes, in hotels and AirBnBs, and – best of all – a dreamy co-working space on Magnetic Island in Far North Queensland. In 2020, I spent the same period working in my apartment in

Melbourne. Life took on a grim certainty of rinse and repeat centred around the metronomic press conference. This wasn’t all bad – I found the certainty about my routine quite soothing, and

I was also acutely aware that I was in an extremely privileged position to be able to work at all. ADVERTISEMENT Yet I was certainly not at my best, and I found myself limping into 2021 with

limited enthusiasm. Like many others, I read Adam Grant’s _New York Times_ article about languishing and felt a painful pang of recognition (or ‘seen’, as the kids would say). Grant calls

languishing ‘the neglected middle child of mental health’, characterised by a lack of motivation and focus. I had just enough self-awareness to know something wasn’t right, but not enough to

know how to tackle it.  When Melbourne went back into lockdown in July, I extended my holiday in Queensland only to meet a lot of people who had done likewise after finding themselves

accidentally stranded. Others had intentionally planned working trips around the country due to cancelled overseas holidays, or just a need for change. Some found a single space to work for

several months; others took it week by week, setting themselves up somewhere new for Monday. I did a bit of both.  So what’s it like, working from anywhere? Finding good wifi is key, as well

as a spot to make video calls where you’re not going to drive the other patrons up the wall. I became much more intentional about managing my diary, and found that my productivity and

energy seemed to at least double. When someone shared Adam Grant’s essay again recently, I was pleased (if surprised) to discover it no longer resonated.  Hospitality businesses are starting

to take note. A recent piece in Forbes highlighted the opportunity of catering for the new digital nomads, who all need places to stay, work and eat. Estonia, for instance, is marketing

itself as a digital nomad destination and offering legal visas for remote workers. A wonderful side-effect of this overall trend is more cross-pollination between creative freelancers and

the corporate types who used to spend their days in a dedicated office. Learning from each other can only be a positive thing for Australian innovation and corporate culture.  Businesses

that can support their employees to do what I did – to recharge and find new inspiration and creativity by being in different environments and combining work with travel – will have a

significant advantage in staff retention. It’s easier said than done, as there are tax and legal implications, but the payoff in attracting and engaging the best talent will be huge. There

are considerable opportunities to be had for entrepreneurial types that can capitalise on this trend by providing positive, welcoming places for people to work while on the road. If you’re

planning to create some more co-working spaces in paradise, count me in as your first customer.  _SONIA CLARKE IS THE DIRECTOR OF FUTURE OF WORK AT PWC._