The Covid-19 global pandemic changes how we study professional workers and their everyday lives. We normally think of professionals as leading stable, secure, and independent work lives. The pandemic has made life more challenging for them. Increased workloads and economic uncertainties; the stresses and demands caused by an abrupt juxta positioning of work with non-work life; greater risks and safety concerns at work; new ways of performing complex work; fewer resources at their disposal; additional public scrutiny for decisions made; and increased reliance for work success on clients and others on the professional team, challenge key theoretical assumptions and raise new questions to explore empirically.

One general assumption worth revisiting post-pandemic is the idea of a profession as a homogenized collective possessing a unified value system, focused mainly on autonomy (Salvatore et al., 2018). A second big-picture assumption the pandemic moves front-and-centre is the separation by professionals of their work and non-work lives. This is related to another waning assumption that sees experts as conforming to a set physical location for client interactions that demarcates office from home, creating separate identities in the process. A post-pandemic world is one in which professional identities grow increasingly fluid and blurred. As Ashforth (2020) notes, organizations must now compete for professionals’ attention as identity objects more than ever before, with that attention dependent on the organizational response to current events. A fourth assumption involves the notion that professionals seek relational excellence with clients and view it as critical to achieving successful work outcomes and personal satisfaction (Hoff, 2017). These assumptions have been central to the research questions we ask about professionals and their work. They have separated out such studies from those of less-skilled workers.

Studying the Changing Values and Psychological States of Professionals in Greater Depth

The Covid-19 pandemic raises the spectre of a diverse array of values and psychological states scholars should study among individual professionals. These subjective phenomena shift the focus away from traditional macro-level dynamics like legitimacy, prestige, collective power, and professionalization. Instead, they focus on how professionals think about, internalize, and experience their work, uniquely and across different situations and contexts (Barley et al., 2017). The pandemic has forced adaptations that foment values and psychological states including self-preservation, resilience, optimism, courage, compassion, self-esteem, burnout, citizenship, and self-efficacy (Shanafelt et al., 2020). Such values and states have received less attention for professionals. In part this is due to entrenched beliefs that they are de facto in control over how they enact their role, highly intrinsically motivated, consistently satisfied with their work, and resistant to outside pressures on their work. The pandemic calls this understanding into question.

Researchers should ask questions that seek to better understand the processual aspects and personal outcomes of the professional journey in a pandemic changed workplace. They should acknowledge the fluid, fragile nature of the post-pandemic professional psyche. How does a doctor or teacher perceive and navigate risk and failure in their jobs? What are the values and beliefs necessary for them to be satisfied, productive, confident, and happy in the professional role as it is constructed now? How do professionals build up, use, and potentially lose restorative values like compassion, courage, and optimism in various work situations? What situations produce burnout and cynicism or, alternatively, self-efficacy and empowerment in the role? A focus on professional health and well-being gains significance in this regard.

Pursuing such questions requires gathering data from professionals on a range of values, attitudes, and beliefs; not only a select few. It requires idiographic methods like ethnography to understand the unique personal experiences of experts as they navigate complex work situations, getting at dynamics such as compassion fatigue and cynicism that may be more hidden from view with professionals (Hoff, 2017; Kellogg, 2019). It also means using theoretical ideas that touch upon phenomena like uncertainty and uncertainty reduction (Hogg and Belavadi, 2017).

The professional role will be more difficult to perform post-pandemic. Those in that role are increasingly subject to negative outcomes like burnout, anxiety, and dissatisfaction. Thus, research should also examine how organizations that employ professionals act (or do not act) to preserve and promote professional well-being. Do employers view professional health and well-being as important? What organizational systems or structures, particularly ones created or advanced due to the pandemic, enable, hinder, or otherwise impact professional health and well-being? In what ways do professionals expect their employers to care for them? How do professional behaviours focused on dynamics like coping influence how organizations think about professional well-being (Muzio et al., 2013)? These types of questions decipher the evolving employer-employee relationship given new employment situations for professionals.

When, Where, and How Professional Work is Done: Research Opportunities

The pandemic will shift, in some cases permanently, when, where, and how professional work is done. The obvious development here is the movement of professionals to working remotely, often from home. Among other things, this shift in work setting will provide them with opportunities to work non-traditional hours if they so wish. It will encourage many of them to think of their work and non-work lives in a more integrated way. It may lessen or strengthen professional commitment to their work and clients. It may focus some of them more on their home lives and roles such as parent at the expense of their professional role. It could reshape the concept of work-family balance.

In all professional work, virtual service delivery is here to stay, at the least providing a complement to traditional forms of face-to-face service delivery. Because of the pandemic, more professionals adapted quickly to technology to interface with clients. In US medicine, for example, it took only a few months to spur telemedicine innovations that doctors had resisted for a decade. In education, professors and teachers went from in-person classroom teaching to remote learning in a couple of weeks. The combination of in-person with remote work will continue. This also means that more professionals will now spend meaningful hours working in semi-solitude from home offices, without direct in-person interaction with co-workers and clients. Professional work could grow more error-prone or lower quality, to the extent it is performed quicker and with less organizational oversight.

Research is required that moves beyond traditional foci such as how professionals adapt to being organizational employees or managers, and identity formation and maintenance (Noordegraaf, 2015). These foci retain importance. But scholars must also now ask questions, for example, directed at the formation and maintenance of new psychological contracts between professional and employer (Baruch and Rousseau, 2018). What expectations will professionals now have of how their employers should treat them post-pandemic? What are key aspects of the new career ‘ecosystem’, as Baruch and Rousseau (2018) put it, that shape the implicit promises made by professional and employer toward each other in more socially and physically distant relationships? Will employers view their obligations towards professional employees differently now, and if so, how does this impact professionals’ role behaviours and attitudes such as loyalty, motivation, and trust?

Other post-pandemic topics ripe for study, and linked to changes in when, where, and how professional work is done include professional productivity in new job structures; the effects of greater work-home life integration on professional learning and career trajectories; the evolution of role socialization and networking processes for professionals; and shifts in the scope and substance of professional work, for example, does such work become more or less difficult to perform. Such questions will require researchers to apply ideas and concepts from social and organizational psychology that have not been used as much to study professionals. For example, work design theories that focus on what Grant and Parker(2009) refer to as relational aspects of work such as social support, and the proactive behaviours of workers resulting from aspects like job complexity, job crafting, and role adjustment.

The Morphing of Professional-Client Relationships: New Concerns and Questions

New concerns and questions also arise for researchers in considering how professional-client relationships may change post-pandemic. Professional-client relationships may become increasingly tenuous. They may grow more distant. This is due to factors like the professional’s need to excel on the transactional rather than relational aspects of service delivery due to things like increased demand for services; physical distance between professional and client; increased reliance on impersonal and virtual modes of interaction; and shifting preferences among professionals and clients in what to expect from each other. These factors existed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic accelerates their growth and significance.

Asking questions about how these factors impact professional-client relationships is important moving forward. For example, which factors effect (and in what ways) key features of effective professional service delivery such as trust, empathy, loyalty, and mutual respect? These relational features are assumed to be a self-propagating part of high quality professional work. How are both the professional and client experience shaped by these new interaction realities? Will professionals and clients define satisfaction with their relationship differently moving forward? How is professional discretion impacted by relationship change, due to less familiarity at times with the client, and thus, less tacit knowledge the professional can use for making decisions? Here again, idiographic methods are important as they capture how each party to the relationship participates in and sees it. Studies that collect primary data through direct observation and interviews can help researchers create updated montages of different aspects of the relationship experience, accounting for the evolving contexts of service delivery.

An additional area of study here is how organizations potentially become a more sustaining source for this relationship, especially to the extent they provide key resources and support for professional service delivery. Transactional forms of service delivery that emphasize speed, efficiency, timely access, and standardization give the organization a significant role in influencing professional and client behaviours, because this is what organizations claim to be good at (Hoff, 2017). This raises important research questions focused on the use of lower-skilled labour and coordinating structures like teams for doing some professional work (Kellogg, 2019); and the role that organizational resources like information technology and artificial intelligence play in facilitating professional communication and decision making. Such questions inevitably ponder the future of professional-client relationships in various industries like health care, education, and finance, as the post-pandemic world creates greater reliance by individual experts on their employers for connecting with clients and making critical parts of their role work effectively.

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Covid-19 与专业人士和专业工作的研究

Covid-19 全球大流行改变了我们研究专业工人及其日常生活的方式。我们通常认为专业人士过着稳定、安全和独立的工作生活。大流行使他们的生活更具挑战性。工作量增加和经济不确定性增加；工作与非工作生活的突然并列定位所造成的压力和要求；工作中更大的风险和安全问题；执行复杂工作的新方法；他们可支配的资源减少；对做出的决定进行额外的公众监督；并增加对客户和专业团队中其他人的工作成功的依赖，挑战关键的理论假设并提出新的问题以进行实证探索。

大流行后值得重新审视的一个普遍假设是，职业是一个拥有统一价值体系的同质化集体，主要侧重于自治（Salvatore 等人，2018 年）。大流行的第二个重要假设是专业人士将他们的工作和非工作生活分开。这与另一个逐渐减弱的假设有关，该假设认为专家符合客户交互的固定物理位置，将办公室与家分开，在此过程中创建单独的身份。大流行后的世界是一个专业身份变得越来越流动和模糊的世界。饰演 Ashforth ( 2020) 指出，组织现在必须比以往任何时候都更多地争夺专业人员作为身份对象的注意力，这种注意力取决于组织对当前事件的反应。第四个假设涉及这样一种观念，即专业人士寻求与客户的卓越关系，并将其视为实现成功工作成果和个人满意度的关键（Hoff，2017 年）。这些假设是我们就专业人士及其工作提出的研究问题的核心。他们将此类研究与低技能工人的研究分开。

更深入地研究专业人员不断变化的价值观和心理状态

Covid-19 大流行引发了学者们应该在个别专业人士中研究的各种价值观和心理状态的幽灵。这些主观现象将焦点从合法性、声望、集体权力和专业化等传统的宏观动态转移。相反，他们专注于专业人士如何在不同的情况和背景下独特地思考、内化和体验他们的工作（Barley et al., 2017）。大流行迫使人们产生了一些价值观和心理状态，包括自我保护、韧性、乐观、勇气、同情心、自尊、倦怠、公民身份和自我效能感（Shanafelt 等人，2020 年））。这样的价值观和状态很少受到专业人士的关注。这部分是由于根深蒂固的信念，即他们实际上可以控制自己如何扮演自己的角色，具有高度的内在动力，对自己的工作始终感到满意，并且能够抵抗外部对工作的压力。大流行使这种理解受到质疑。

研究人员应该提出一些问题，以更好地了解在大流行改变的工作场所中职业旅程的过程方面和个人结果。他们应该承认大流行后职业心理的流动性和脆弱性。医生或教师如何看待和应对工作中的风险和失败？要使他们在现在构建的专业角色中感到满意、富有成效、自信和快乐，需要哪些价值观和信念？专业人士如何在各种工作环境中建立、使用和可能失去诸如同情、勇气和乐观等恢复性价值观？哪些情况会导致职业倦怠和愤世嫉俗，或者在角色中产生自我效能感和赋权？在这方面，关注职业健康和福祉具有重要意义。

追求这些问题需要从专业人士那里收集关于一系列价值观、态度和信仰的数据；不仅是少数几个。它需要像人种学这样的具体方法来了解专家在处理复杂工作环境时的独特个人经历，了解同情疲劳和愤世嫉俗等动态，而这些动态可能更不为专业人士所知（Hoff，2017 年；Kellogg，2019 年）。它还意味着使用涉及不确定性和不确定性减少等现象的理论思想（Hogg 和 Belavadi，2017 年）。

大流行后，专业角色将更难发挥。那些担任该角色的人越来越多地受到负面结果的影响，例如倦怠、焦虑和不满。因此，研究还应该检查雇佣专业人员的组织如何采取行动（或不采取行动）来维护和促进职业福利。雇主是否认为职业健康和幸福很重要？哪些组织系统或结构，尤其是由于大流行而创建或改进的组织系统或结构，能够促进、阻碍或以其他方式影响职业健康和福祉？专业人士希望雇主以何种方式关心他们？专注于应对等动态的职业行为如何影响组织对职业幸福感的看法（Muzio 等，2013 年））？鉴于专业人士的新就业情况，这些类型的问题解读了不断演变的雇主-雇员关系。

何时、何地以及如何完成专业工作：研究机会

大流行将在某些情况下永久地改变专业工作的完成时间、地点和方式。这里明显的发展是专业人士转向远程工作，通常是在家中。除此之外，如果他们愿意，这种工作环境的转变将为他们提供非传统时间工作的机会。它将鼓励他们中的许多人以更综合的方式思考他们的工作和非工作生活。它可能会减少或加强对他们的工作和客户的专业承诺。这可能会让他们中的一些人更多地关注家庭生活和父母等角色，而牺牲了他们的职业角色。它可以重塑工作与家庭平衡的概念。

在所有专业工作中，虚拟服务交付将继续存在，至少是对传统形式的面对面服务交付的补充。由于大流行，更多的专业人士迅速适应了与客户互动的技术。例如，在美国医学领域，医生们已经抵制了十年的远程医疗创新只用了几个月的时间。在教育方面，教授和教师在几周内从面对面的课堂教学转变为远程学习。面对面工作与远程工作的结合将继续进行。这也意味着更多的专业人士现在将花费有意义的时间在家庭办公室半孤独地工作，而无需与同事和客户直接面对面互动。专业工作可能会变得更容易出错或质量下降，

需要研究超越传统焦点，例如专业人士如何适应成为组织员工或经理，以及身份的形成和维护（Noordegraaf，2015 年）。这些焦点仍然很重要。但学者们现在也必须提出问题，例如，针对专业人士与雇主之间新心理契约的形成和维持（Baruch and Rousseau，2018）。专业人士现在对大流行后如何对待他们的雇主有什么期望？新职业“生态系统”的关键方面是什么，正如 Baruch 和 Rousseau（2018 年）) 说，这塑造了专业人士和雇主在社交和身体上更疏远的关系中对彼此做出的隐含承诺？雇主现在是否会以不同的方式看待他们对专业员工的义务，如果是这样，这将如何影响专业人士的角色行为和态度，例如忠诚度、动力和信任？

其他适合研究并与何时、何地以及如何完成专业工作的变化相关的大流行后主题包括新工作结构中的专业生产力；更大程度的工作与家庭生活融合对专业学习和职业轨迹的影响；专业人士的角色社会化和网络过程的演变；例如，专业工作的范围和内容发生变化，这些工作是否变得或多或少难以执行。此类问题将要求研究人员应用社会和组织心理学中的思想和概念，而这些思想和概念在研究专业人士时并未被广泛使用。例如，工作设计理论侧重于 Grant 和 Parker（2009) 指的是工作的相关方面，例如社会支持，以及由工作复杂性、工作塑造和角色调整等方面导致的工人的主动行为。

专业客户关系的转变：新的关注和问题

研究人员在考虑大流行后专业与客户关系可能如何改变时，也会出现新的担忧和问题。专业客户关系可能会变得越来越脆弱。他们可能会变得更远。这是由于诸如服务需求增加等因素，专业人士需要在服务交付的事务性而非关系方面表现出色等因素；专业人士与客户之间的物理距离；增加对非个人和虚拟交互模式的依赖；以及在专业人士和客户之间改变对彼此期望的偏好。这些因素在 Covid-19 大流行之前就已存在。大流行加速了它们的增长和重要性。

询问有关这些因素如何影响专业客户关系的问题很重要。例如，哪些因素（以及以何种方式）影响有效的专业服务交付的关键特征，例如信任、同理心、忠诚和相互尊重？这些关系特征被认为是高质量专业工作的自我传播部分。这些新的交互现实如何塑造专业和客户体验？专业人士和客户是否会以不同的方式定义对他们关系的满意度？由于有时与客户不太熟悉，因此专业人士可用于决策的隐性知识较少，关系变化如何影响专业判断力？又是在这里，具体方法很重要，因为它们捕捉了关系的每一方如何参与和看待它。通过直接观察和访谈收集原始数据的研究可以帮助研究人员创建关系体验不同方面的最新蒙太奇，说明服务提供的不断变化的背景。

这里的另一个研究领域是组织如何潜在地成为这种关系的更持久的来源，尤其是在它们为专业服务交付提供关键资源和支持方面。强调速度、效率、及时访问和标准化的交易服务交付形式使组织在影响专业和客户行为方面发挥着重要作用，因为这正是组织声称擅长的 (Hoff, 2017 )。这提出了重要的研究问题，重点是使用低技能劳动力和协调结构（如团队）来完成一些专业工作（Kellogg，2019 年）); 以及信息技术和人工智能等组织资源在促进专业沟通和决策方面的作用。这些问题不可避免地会影响医疗保健、教育和金融等各个行业的专业客户关系的未来，因为大流行后世界使个人专家更加依赖雇主与客户建立联系并使他们的角色发挥关键作用有效。