How the world of work may change forever

How the world of work may change forever

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic impacted every aspect of life, but one of the first to be noticed was the changing work patterns.?Suddenly businesses, both large and small, shifted from having teams working out of offices to everyone working remotely, mostly from home, due to lockdowns being initiated by state governments.?Even as lockdowns are lifted and people try to return to some sense of normality, we see many employees and businesses in no rush to go back to the previous approach to work.

As we have seen, change can come quickly, and as technology continues to evolve, and environmental and cultural pressures mean businesses must seek alternatives, here are five ways work will change in the future.

Hybrid working will become the norm

One of the more positive elements of the reaction to the pandemic was the shift to remote working. This was done out of necessity at the time, but it has since been embraced by a changing work culture as something that may be the best approach moving forward.?

Working remotely, usually from home, removed the commute for millions of people, giving them more time with families, reducing costs and often providing a much less stressful start and end to the day.?It’s little wonder that changing work patterns in Australia have focused on this as employees embrace the benefits.

A hybrid work solution gives employees the ability to work from home for much of the time, and then working from an office when it is most practical to do so.?This flexibility has been shown to improve employee engagement, increase productivity and retention, thereby reducing recruitment costs for businesses.?

A reduction in service employment

The hybrid working system is not really viable for those who cannot do their jobs remotely.?Surveys suggest that around 40% of employees can carry out their duties remotely, which means the shift to hybrid working excludes around 60% of the workforce.

For many the way they engage for work will not change, however this changing work culture will have an impact across employment and especially in commercial centres.?Much of the workforce in a city, such as food provision, couriers, taxis and so on are there to cater to the needs of the office population.?Pre-pandemic, millions of people left their offices every day during a lunch break to purchase food and drink, affecting a chain of businesses aimed at satisfying such demand.?With the hybrid working, much of the time most of those people will simply not be where the offices are, they will be at home.

These changing work patterns will impact traditional city centres, as they will no longer be the hive of activity they were.?Delivery services and food vendors will experience growth in residential areas, where people are spending more time and have disposable income thanks to the reduction in commuting. While some will find a way to adapt, the reality is that in many market sectors, there will simply be fewer jobs to go around.?

A new level of care for employees

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, studies have shown that around 40% of the adults in the US were suffering from depression or anxiety, with similar elevated numbers seen around the world, including in a recent Australian study. While this has been attributed to the fear and uncertainty caused by Covid-19, it has led to a changing work culture that respects the need for appropriate mental health support.?

In fact, the shift to hybrid working is an opportunity not just for changing work patterns in Australia, but a complete rethink of the workplace culture.?As a response to the sudden rise in mental health issues amongst the population during the pandemic, many organisations, including LinkedIn and Red Hat, began offering mental health services to their employees, and providing fully paid recharge days that give workers a chance to take time away from work pressure without the stress of losing money.?

With a coalition of large brands including Microsoft eventually coming together to push for greater recognition of the issues and that all workers could benefit from such support, there is a clear opportunity for a change in work culture.?

A change in what we think of as work hours

With the changes in work patterns in Australia implemented almost overnight as remote working became an essential tool for survival of businesses and workers alike, how we approach work itself has been transformed.

It is not just where we work that may be about to change for good, but when we work. With hybrid working taking over, the idea of a Monday to Friday, 9-5 approach to work also becomes somewhat redundant, and around the world many businesses are already trialling 4-day weeks.?Whether Unilever in New Zealand or a national trial in Spain, the idea of a shorter working week that gives more time to recharge for employees is proving to be a success for all stakeholders.?

In fact, The New Zealand business Perpetual Guardian saw productivity increases of 20% after a trial of a 4-day working week and have implemented it permanently, while a trial in Japan by Microsoft revealed a huge 40% productivity improvement as well as higher employee engagement and improved morale.

As teams are working mostly from home, face to face meetings are limited, more frequently as hybrid working is adopted, perhaps have team members across multiple time zones, the idea of a set work schedule like the traditional 9-5 simply doesn’t make sense.?Instead, we will see a more flexible approach that allows autonomous scheduling to fit with both work and life needs for each employee.

Video Calls will become essential

Working remotely has many advantages, but the reality is that we need to talk to each other.?With team members possibly not even on the same continent and time zone, face to face meetings will become less practical.?Environmental pressures will reduce the willingness of businesses to be seen flying personnel around the world too, but while email and messenger platforms allow for some forms of interaction, it doesn’t provide the human connection that is essential for forming effective working relationships.

This means that video calls will be the backbone of how we reach out to team members, clients and other stakeholders.?Consequently, we will increase the bandwidth needed for internet-based communications around the world, and for everyone involved with hybrid working, the camera and other equipment needed will become an essential technology to have access to.?This changing work culture will ultimately rely on video interaction to provide the human connection people working in isolation will require.

Conclusion

At the heart of the changing work patterns in Australia is the move to hybrid working.?Everything else we have looked at in the five ways work will change in the future stem from the adoption of that hybrid model.?As we are already seeing hybrid adoption, other changes are inevitable. Together, they represent a significantly changing work culture that will affect every industry and every business in Australia and around the world.