Getting back to 'normal' - CNN

Kathryn Vasel followed her own good advice and took the week off to recharge. For today's newsletter, CNN Business' Jeanne Sahadi is our guest writer.

After nearly six weird months of unsettling changes and deep uncertainty about ... well, everything, who doesn't want to get back to normal?

Yes, I know. There is no going back to "normal" normal. Too much has changed. And truth is, we'll all be better off if we collectively choose to reject some elements of the old normal, like systemic racism.

But it's impossible not to compare our lives today to where life was in early March before the sky fell. And, at least economically speaking, that's a fair baseline to assess how we're doing.

CNN Business partnered with Moody's Analytics to create the Back-to-Normal Index -- which looks at 44 national and state indicators to gauge just how much economic activity the United States is generating relative to pre-pandemic levels.

The latest reading: The US economy overall is operating at 78% of where it was in early March. The index also assesses each state's economic activity before coronavirus became a household name. South Dakota leads the pack at 93%. New York is pulling up the rear at 71%. But Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are not much farther ahead at 73%.

While the economy is still far from "normal," Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi puts it this way: "[I]t is substantially better than the darkest days of the pandemic in mid-April, when we were unsure how contagious or virulent the virus was. Nonessential businesses in much of the country were shut down, and most of us were sheltering in place. Our Back-to-Normal Index hit its nadir of just 59% on April 17."

Check out the Back-to-Normal Index here.

Dealing with survivor's guilt after layoffs

When you survive a round of layoffs at work, your first reaction will often be relief that your life -- and finances -- will not be upended.

But that relief can be short-lived, since your brain may move right on to other, more stressful feelings: Grief and guilt that great colleagues were let go. Worry about how your workload will be affected. And fear that you'll be next in line for a pink slip.

Those responses are magnified when layoffs are spurred by a crisis like the one we're in today.

So it's especially important that managers and leaders proactively help employees handle the stress of surviving a layoff. Otherwise, "it has an enormous drag on productivity and engagement," Brian Kropp, chief of HR research for business advisory firm Gartner, told me.

Read on to learn five steps managers can take to help their teams recover and refocus on the job at hand.

Training videos aren't cutting it

One company hopes to help put an end to workplace discrimination using virtual reality.

Los Angeles-based Vantage Point uses VR headsets to immerse users into scenes showing discrimination in the workplace and then asks them how they would handle the situation, writes CNN's Nell Lewis.

"I realized how effective it is in truly putting you in a person's shoes," said Morgan Mercer, Vantage Point's founder. "Giving you a first-person experience of what it's like for somebody to flinch every time you walk by them, or what it's like for somebody to yell words at you on the street, or what it's like for somebody to stand a little bit too close."

Initially, the company provided training through VR to prevent sexual harassment at work. It then expanded to combating other types of bias, including gender inequality and bullying based on sexual orientation. Now it offers a course covering systemic racism.

Click here to read more about how VR can be used to help stop discrimination and harassment.

Do you really miss going to the office?

Working from home full-time was a huge adjustment for the millions of us who started doing it virtually overnight back in March.

Now several months in, many say it's preferable to having to "go" to work.

The New York Times and Morning Consult surveyed more than 1,100 remote workers, and 86% "said they were satisfied with the current arrangements — even when that sometimes meant working from their bedrooms or closets. They reported feeling less stressed, more able to take breaks and that they were spending more time outdoors," the newspaper reported.

That includes working parents, even those who may otherwise have one nerve left overseeing their children's remote learning. "Parents are considerably more likely than people without children to say that working without face-time requirements has improved their productivity, career path, work-life balance, mental health and home life," according to the Times.

For more on the survey results, click here.

Coffee break

If 2020 had a mascot, it would be the exploding head emoji. So much is a mess, and we have a lot to do to fix it.

To offset the constant stress, I watch home renovation shows ... every day.

Also helpful? CNN Style's Sanctuaries. It's a compilation of ideas for creating calming and inspirational spaces from leading designers and organizational experts. Have a look. Your yin and yang will thank you.

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