EMERGING TRENDS THAT ARE RESHAPING THE WORKING WORLD

I recently came across an article from Gartner addressing the topic of the future of work. In the article, Gartner explains that in 2023, organizations will keep facing?historic challenges: a competitive talent landscape, an exhausted workforce, and pressure to control costs. In this environment, they believe it’s imperative to tackle the following nine trends:?

The so-called future of work has become the?now?of work. Many of the changes which started pre-pandemic were accelerated in the past two years and have become permanent aspects of our working lives.

Below are some of the emerging trends in people and organizations that I consider particularly interesting:

1. Skills-based hiring - More employers value experience over academic qualifications. For employers, skills-based hiring broadens the talent pool, increases the speed to hire, and adds greater diversity of thought in the workforce. This shift is accelerating as a growing number of professionals?do not need a degree to perform their jobs.

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2. Hybrid working is more than a policy - As hybrid working becomes the permanent way of working, business leaders have to set clear principles for success, rather than mandate policies. Before an employee starts working in a hybrid model, the employee and team leader must agree on guidelines to ensure inclusivity by defining the workspaces where work will happen, the technology tools needed, the team norms, core collaboration hours, and rituals for success.

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3. Omni-channel learning – The growth of hybrid working and learning is leading to a re-invention of traditional corporate academies. Learning happens where employees are, thus the raising concept of flexible pop-up campuses ranging from using streaming technology to multiple locations to a creating live studio experience. Corporate academies are going to be omnichannel, where learners engage where they are, whether that is in person at a corporate headquarters, in a satellite office, in a pop-up space, or online.

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4. Flexibility is for all – Work flexibility is something desired by all segments of workers. More and more knowledge workers as well as frontline workers prefer flexibility in?“when”?work gets done over flexibility in?“where”?work happens, it means the ability to choose one’s work schedule and it no longer means just working remotely.

For knowledge workers, working asynchronously requires a cultural shift where work-life boundaries are respected, workers are trusted to do their jobs outside of a traditional 9-5 workday, and employers set guardrails on where live synchronous work can take place.

Flexibility in work schedules is also possible for frontline workers, for example allowing workers the ability to work more hours on some days and compensate on other days, which would result in increased employee retention.

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5. A blended workforce - We used to think of the blended workforce as being a combination of full-time, part-time, and gig workers, but the increased use of automation has changed the definition of a blended workforce moving to greater usage of digital automation assistance (bots). As we think about the future blended workforce, we must be aware of the need to regularly conduct audits of AI tools to ensure the data behind the algorithms is unbiased. Ensuring AI is both transparent and explainable is a key factor of the new blended workforce.

Have you assessed which jobs in your organizations are already and/or will be heavily impacted by AI? I would suggest preparing an action plan to be able to properly reskill the current workforce, target the right skills to be brought on board from now on and optimize productivity.

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As Gartner said: “How you respond to them could determine whether you’re an employer of choice”.

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