Business
4 Ways Work Will Look Different in 2022 By Scott Dust
Organizations that want to be successful will need to strategically adapt to ensure they’re able to retain employees THE WAY WE WORK has changed drastically over the past year. The integration into our lives and our reliance on technology has also increased. We’ve reached the era of “tele-everything,” and virtual or hybrid work is now the new normal. As we settle into new routines before the new year, it’s important to take stock of where we’re headed in 2022. Along those lines, below, I offer five predictions as a professor in business management and Fast Company contributor, for the upcoming year of work. To make the most of these predictions, organizations can adapt each to their own companies’ needs.
flexibility will have a much easier time attracting and retaining talent. Some organizations are balking at the idea of such extreme flexibility. That is their strategic choice. It could be because their product or service requires a face-to-face workplace. It might also be because it produces a specific culture or interaction pattern for employees. It’s important to note, however, that purposefully ignoring flexibility will shrink the size of the talent pool.
THE CUSTOMIZATION OF HYBRIDWORK OPTIONS During the pandemic, organizations were forced to send employees home so that they could work remotely. Employees, for the most part, enjoyed this virtual option. Well-being, work-life balance, and productivity all appeared to improve. Organizations were leery because they worried that employees would miss the interaction and collaboration that takes place when face-to-face.
THE DEFINITION OF FLEXIBILITY IS EVOLVING Employees want all sorts of things from their work. They want fair pay, opportunities to grow and develop, a positive organizational culture, and more. Over the last year, however, there has been a major shift in what employees want the most. While equitable compensation is consistently at the top, the newest employee priority is actually flexibility. We used to think of flexibility as flexible work schedules; the ability to have half-day Fridays or rearrange hours across the workweek. This is outdated. Today, when employees say they want flexibility, what they really mean is that they want to be able to get their work done anytime and anywhere. It’s no longer about rearranging hours, but about throwing out the idea of hours altogether. Employees are essentially saying, tell me the deliverable and the due date, and I’ll get it done. My prediction is that organizations that focus on 12
January-February 2022
In turn, a compromise ensued: the hybrid work arrangement. Hybrid is the new normal. However, there are as many variations of hybrid work as there are organizations. On one end of the spectrum, organizations can let employees work from home or the office whenever they see fit. On the other end of the spectrum, organizations require specific days for employees to be present, sometimes as many as four days a week. Many organizations have started in the middle. The vast majority tend to ask specific teams, units,
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