Humble Predictions for 2022

Last year I took somewhat of a break from LinkedIn. I posted a lot less, engaged a lot less, and generally retreated to other forms of expression. In earnest, there were a few reasons why I did this.

1. I experienced lots of change both professionally and personally. I got married, the company I work for got acquired, and I was struggling with my mental health.
2. Lack of connection made me less inspired to write. The pandemic has had different impacts on different people. For me, the lack of connection made me want to retreat to other things that weren't related to work.
3. Transitioning into a new role forced an identity crisis of sorts. The role I was in prior to acquisition was one that I had carved out for myself, and was the start of a different path. The new role I came into caused me to wonder what my purpose and contribution would look like.

Thankfully, I've emerged in 2022 with a greater sense of clarity around my new role and a genuine excitement for the people I am working with. I'm fortunate and grateful to have had such an amazing manager help me navigate uncertain waters, and through that I also gained a friend, even though we no longer work together. So as I was coming back from the holiday break, I felt it was time to put down some of my thoughts about what 2022 has in store for the evolving world at work.

I've never really been someone to "set goals" or create resolutions, rather, I like to do reflections. So much happens over a short period of time, let alone an entire year, that I often find my priorities can change faster than the accomplishment of my goals. So in my reflections on last year, between the good, great, and not as good, I wanted to get back into writing. I turned off so many of my notifications now on almost all my apps because they often do more harm than good, and as someone with ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, notifications also can be a source of unwelcome disruption with really nothing to be gained. And the truth is, life is far too short to not focus on what really matters.

So if you're reading this, I thank you for that. There is a lot of great information sharing happening these days, and this is really more an outlet for me to exercise my creativity than anything else. Without further ado, here's some thoughts I have about what will matter for the working world in 2022.

1. Reframing Productivity and Engagement

It's clear that with continued variants and the adoption of remote working (for those that are able) that productivity and engagement need to be revisited. Our lack of inter-office collaboration has caused us to sit in more meetings than ever before, and in some cases they serve less purpose. McKinsey found that 80% of executives were considering implementing changes to meeting structures and cadences, while Microsoft found that virtual collaboration has caused their teams to work in more silos and decrease network connections. This in turn has made information and knowledge sharing more difficult, among other things. Another study from HBR found that 60% of managers either did not know, or could not remember the work their teams were doing. I'm sure I'm not alone is saying that the pandemic has significantly impacted our memories, and I often joke with my colleagues that we can't remember what we did last weekend or the weekend before.

This doesn't even begin to speak to the difficulty that working parents have faced, or the safety and health risks posed to frontline workers who do not have the option to work from home. Given that our personal and professional lives are so much closer together, the impact one can have on the other is greater. So if we are measuring employee engagement, we can't use broad strokes to provide the right insights. There is a need for greater precision in focusing on the unique aspects of employees across more areas than just simple demographics, which in turn should enable more personalized solutions. We shouldn't just be looking at team engagement, but rather how aspects of intersectionality such as those who are parents and/or caregivers, or non-remote employees, impact sentiments around work. We can't solve all of the personal problems people face, but we can create solutions to help lessen the impact they have on work. And as for productivity, we should be considering how to make work more meaningful and meetings more purpose-driven. I've been impressed with companies opting to give employees more days off, and while that's a good start I think the next step is to make sure that people are working on things that really matter to them as much as possible. Make it okay to decline meetings, or not come back to the office. Ask people what they think they are working on that is compelling, but also what isn't. In regards to returning to offices, the case can be made that work location impacts personal productivity more than general productivity. The role of the office should now be seen as a place for connection and collaboration rather than a place to get deep work done. That said, if someone prefers to work in an office they should have that choice, as should the folks who prefer to remain at-home all or most of the time. Productivity is personal, and should be treated as such. For positions whose role requires them to be on-site, productivity is about removing barriers to ensure employee satisfaction. There have been stories about retailers closing earlier due to rising cases of the Omicron variant and labor shortages, and I see these as a good thing. We shouldn't be burning out employees to keep stores open even if it does impact profit margins. And let's be real, US corporations are not suffering financially. Companies with on-site staff should be working on ways to ensure productivity by improving the employee experience. Better pay, more benefits, increased vacation and sick leave, as well as promoting a culture of health and safety.

2. Holistic Wellness

Burnout is nothing new, and it is finally getting the attention that it deserves. Despite all the conversation, it seems not a lot is changing. Consider this research from McKinsey and the screenshot to the left. This is just in relation to working parents, and doesn't even begin to cover industry burnout, more specifically healthcare. Looking below is research from Gallup, the implications of burnout have massive dollar costs associated with them, notwithstanding rising recruitment costs due to turnover caused by burnout.

And this is just mental and physical health, but the conversation has to be broader with regards to financial health. Inflation in the US recently rose to 7%, the highest since 1982, and that was in the midst of a 3-year global recession. The impact on supply chains has made goods more scarce, while there is increased amounts of waste at a time when the world is facing a growing existential crisis brought on by lack of action to address climate change. All of this amounts to an ever larger crisis looming that will impact the global economy, overall mental health, and the bottom lines of companies everywhere.

The solution isn't simple, however, it's not impossible either. The calls to action have to be to increasing wages to outpace inflation, particularly for traditionally low-paid positions that are seeing the highest amounts of attrition like retail, education, and food services. In the same vein, companies need to do all they can to ensure workers safety and health and not rely on the existing workforce to make up the difference furthering the likelihood of burnout. While conversations around mental health are getting less stigmatized, access to help is still relatively difficult especially for those living in major metropolitan areas. Offering childcare services, subsidizing even, are ways to help working parents deal with the uncertainty of school closures. Above all, we need to make it easy for people to take a break when they need to and build connections that have been fractured by isolation, particularly for corporate office environments where silos are shrinking networking and interactions. The "always on" tech stack so many organizations use for collaboration certainly require new rules of engagement as well.

3. Positions and Outcomes > Promise and Posturing

2022 is going to be the year of accountability. DE&I has become a multi-billion dollar industry and while lots of money and programs have been created it still seems there is a deficit around actual change. In the book Diversity, Inc., author Pamela Newkirk talks at length about this specific issue and it seems that the issue keeps expanding. Korn Ferry found that, "Only 31% of organizations have integrated DE&I into business operations, and most companies are still in the early stages of addressing issues – developing DE&I strategy (61%) and unconscious bias training (58%)." With all of the money spent on DE&I programs, the potential for backlash is only getting greater if change doesn't start to happen. This is about more than just race and ethnicity, it's also about accessibility. 57 Million Americans have some form of a disability, and companies are still 98% of the world's websites top one million websites don't offer full accessibility.

Issues like gender pay gaps, racial and ethnic pay gaps, as well as the increasing unemployment rates of people with disabilities all point to the need to take DE&I beyond just instagram posts and PR statements to a more transparent and accountable forum. Governments agencies are simply not doing enough, and companies have to fill that void. The implications for this are widespread. Just look at the Harris Poll on Corporate Reputation Rankings, specifically the bottom of the list below.

These reputation rankings not only impact a companies external brand, they also impact the bottom line. Even more interesting, is that companies that promote tangential programs without offering any sort of substantive change are more likely to be the target of cyberattacks. All of this is to say, it's time that companies go beyond just saying the right things and actually start doing them.

I've mentioned some ideas in some of the sections above, but the gist is still that employers have to make the employee experience better. Trainings and workshops have been proven to yield little behavior change without reinforcement through policy and process. Accountability and transparency are key to re-building trust, and it would be foolish to say that this kind of change is easy or fast. So organizations have to consider how to embed accountability into the long-term strategy, and create a road-map for what is changing, when, and what to expect. We have seen compensation increase as a reaction to labor shortages, but what if you increased wages simply because your company is profiting more, or because inflation is rising? Would that not yield greater retention and increased sense of satisfaction? On inclusive hiring practices, wouldn't it make sense to hold hiring managers more accountable to interviewing a broader range of candidates rather than prioritizing hiring overall? Providing audits of recruitment not as a means of punitive action, rather as a way of highlighting an unconscious bias to promote awareness and action. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but that's the easy part, execution and action is what matters most.

4. WIIFE (What's In It For Employees)

Attrition and retention have long been aspirational goals for many organizations, and the reality pre-2020 was that many companies were complicit with churn. The big reason being, the employment market was in their favor. The US saw consistently record lows of unemployment across industries, and traditionally low-wage positions were filled quickly out of necessity for people to survive. What's happening now can only be seen as a shifting power dynamic, away from employer-centricity to employee-centricity. Full-time salaried workers are realizing that burnout, less than competitive wages, and toxic work environments don't have to be the norm. While low-wage positions are showing strength in numbers by quitting and forcing companies to examine pay and benefits to keep pace with increased cost of living and elevated importance of safety and health. Concepts like Employer Value Propositions were beginning to become mainstream pre-pandemic, yet seemed largely to be marketing-driven exercises rather than thoughtful examinations of employee's needs, wants, and priorities. And while pay and benefits are driving resignations, it's important to consider the lack of professional growth and development, alongside the now defunct belief that people's best work is done in an office. This may sound obvious to those paying attention, and even PWC confirmed this in their latest "Future of Work" report.

As companies consider plans to return to offices, it's telling that 39% of employees are likely to leave if asked to make a"hard return", while 55% say their ability to work flexibly will impact their intent to stay. While flexible working, benefits, and pay all have implications on retention, when it comes to hiring it's imperative that companies consider their own practices and values if they intend to attract talent as well. Edelman found that 6 of 10 employees chose their employer based on their values and beliefs, and in the same report found that belief-driven employees are more loyal, committed, likely to advocate, and outperform. Combing all of these points together the message becomes clear; in order to retain, attract, and outperform organizations have to ask themselves, "what's in it for employees" or WIIFE?

Employees have more choices than ever on where to work, and while there are still disparities around roles and wages, it's becoming clear that the onus for change lies with each company to change and adapt their processes and policies to serve employees better. Regardless of whether you have a predominantly desk-based workforce, an on-site workforce, or a mixture of both the solutions are broadly applicable. That means improving equity by decreasing pay-gaps and wages, creating opportunities for employees to develop new skills and behaviors to succeed, and ensuring that employees have support for all aspects of their wellbeing (physical, mental, emotional, etc.), and above all ensuring health and safety regardless. In essence, companies have to take better care of their people and stop focusing as much on increasing profits, because one has more long-term stability than the other. Moreover, companies need to consider how what they are doing is impacting the people that are most important to their success, while making changes that have benefits for both. Take investing in skill-development and training for example, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if they invested in helping them learn. This doesn't just include internal learning programs, but subsidizing education needs or investing in coaching programs to help with soft-skills and behaviors. The reciprocal effect of focusing on WIIFE is that employees and employers win.

These are just my observations, and I cannot lay claim to them being much different than what you may have already seen out there. While these are the areas I feel to be most impactful looking forward, I'm curious to know what others are seeing, hearing, and doing. Please share that with me in the comments, and thanks for taking the time to read!