Bye-Bye, Remote Jobs?
Across the globe, workers likely knew this was coming. As a new survey reports, scarcely any top executives want to keep fully remote employees on staff. (Hybrid is another story, however.) Korn Ferry examines the pros and cons of this development. Plus, our experts on why 2023 was a “year of reckoning” for diversity and inclusion efforts, and what some DE&I leaders are doing to turn those efforts around. Happy holidays!
2024: The End of Fully Remote
If it were up to the country’s top corporate leaders, the number of fully remote workers would drop significantly in the New Year. In a new survey, 99% of more than 500 US C-suite and business leaders said that they expect employees to come into the office at least one day a week. That’s a big change from last year, when only 66% made this stipulation.
The return-to-office question has been at the front of most people’s minds ever since tens of millions of employees were sent home at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns. At the height of the pandemic, 42% of Americans worked remotely (today, around 30% do). Remote work was considered a necessity.
Now, however, more leaders consider it a luxury—one they are less willing to offer. Over the last 12 months, bosses have increasingly demanded that people work at least some of the time in the office. These leaders feel that their organizations are more efficient and innovative when people are working together in the same place.
Will AI Be Your Next Manager?
It hasn’t been a great year for middle managers.?Nearly half ?say they’re burnt-out. Organizations have been?cutting?their salaries and asking them to transition to individual-contributor roles. But all that is nothing compared to a new worry: Will ChatGPT or another AI platform take their jobs?
Every category of worker is potentially exposed to?disruption?from generative artificial intelligence—none more so than managers. AI is either “good” or “excellent” at 70% of the skills mentioned in management-job postings, according to a new analysis from the job-search website Indeed.?
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Even if the study doesn’t mean?managers?should immediately?update their résumés, experts say, it should remind them to use AI tools to?automate simple tasks and free up human workers for higher-value projects.
DEI: ‘A Year of Reckoning’
It might have been unrealistic to believe that by the end of 2023 corporate America would look far more diverse, equitable, and inclusive?than it did in 2020. But after George Floyd’s murder,? companies’ commitments of hundreds of millions of dollars—to diversify their talent bases, management pipelines, and supplier bases—made some leaders optimistic.
Yet most DEI leaders describe progress in 2023 using words ranging from “challenging” to “bad.” Indeed, today?one-fifth of companies offer no diversity programming at all, according to one survey.?The challenging economic environment has made some firms cut back on resources dedicated to DEI efforts. Those programs that remain are often being challenged.?Activists are suing some?organizations to stop DEI initiatives. At least 30 states are considering legislation to defund DEI measures in public?institutions.?And affirmative-action programs in college-admissions programs were declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
Other Must-Reads from Korn Ferry
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Technical Project Manager at Engility Corporation Formerly TASC
10 个月I've found that the more users know about a specific field, especially technical fields, the more useful AI can be. Stated differently, the less users know about a specific field, especially technical ones, the more problematic AI becomes. In the latter case, users don't know enough about the field to be able to tell when AI is inventing supposedly accurate information and when it is not doing so. User biases, etc. shape what AI offers up. I've asked college students to divide themselves into two groups (pro, and con), and then research an unfamiliar and controversial topic. Not surprisingly, both AI quests produced contradictory and entirely convincing conclusions. As they research those findings, learning more about both the topic and the sources of information that were scraped by the AI agent, the students begin to appreciate just how much the very questions they asked shaped AI's output.
Human Resources Director / Transformational Coach / Change Management / Desarrollo Organizacional
10 个月Thank you for sharing! In my experience it depends on the business and how the company wants to shape their culture.
That will be an oversight. You are in a prime position to offer more to employees then you can do with just wages. You gotta think outside the box because with all the down sizing your all doing there is not much left in the bucket. You need to offer much more than what you have got. You look at it from a monetary perspective consistently and you should but when it's not there you need to offer something else and this could very well be Remote, hybrid or office or pretty much just about anything else could be on offer. The world is your oyster. If your famished there might be a feast in there ??
Experienced Cyber Security Leader | Passionate about AI-Driven Transformation | Skilled in Cloud Security, Embedding Secure Development, and AI Governance | Guiding Organizations Through Secure AI Transformation.
11 个月I think as leaders we need to be careful not to slip into rose-tinted nostalgia about full-time in office work where you just have people together and “magic” happens. While the intention is good, as it often comes from a place of wanting to foster collaboration and success, it’s essential to recognize that work is not one-size-fits-all. Different types of work indeed require different environments to thrive. For instance, deep work, which requires high concentration and minimal distraction, often find its best setting at home. The quiet and personal space allows many to focus better and produce high-quality work. On the other hand, the office environment does have unique advantages, especially for in-person meetings and brainstorming sessions. But again, only if directed appropriately. Just by bringing people together in the same space doesn’t spark creativity and foster teamwork. I think we need to find the right balance and understand that flexibility and adaptability can lead to greater productivity and job satisfaction. The future of work is more only going to get more dynamic, and we’re going to need to look forward and adapt to keep creating the “magic” we all want.
People & Organizational Performance
11 个月Thanks for sharing. According to Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, fully remote work is associated with about 10% to 20% lower productivity than fully in-person work.