The Future Of Work 2023: Putting People First

Here’s what to expect in the year ahead

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that workers want more control than ever over when and how they work. Different approaches and tools allowing gig work, hybrid work, remote work, and even AI work, are taking the business world by storm. Companies that truly want to come through for their people must take not just the workday itself, but workers’ family commitments, passions, and other needs outside of work into account. The most successful programs will recognize the whole person – and their community – and support their entire physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
 

Here’s what to expect in the world of work in the year ahead.

Although economic volatility is sure to last into 2023, structural changes to the labor market will make ‘unemployment’ look much different than in years past.

The employment market has restructured over the last decade, and now, over 36% of U.S. workers are actively part of the gig economy, according to a recent study of workforce participation by Upwork. These workers can be hard to accurately capture with traditional job surveys, which target the conventional workforce (people who work a set schedule for 40 hours per week). As a result, traditional measures of unemployment may no longer provide an accurate reflection of the true state of the workforce in rough economic times. With many workers no longer believing in a single professional identity, workplaces may need to start embracing side hustles as part of career growth.

AI will eat up tedious work, shifting companies to invest more in expertise and strategic skills development for employees.

Beyond its usefulness in creating artistic avatars from selfies, AI will grow more intuitive and increasingly use multiple “senses” at once. Between chatbots, robotic process automation and predictive analytics, artificial intelligence is quickly taking over repetitive tasks that were previously expensive and time-consuming when done by people. This creates an opportunity for businesses to cut costs, and employees to refocus on more complex problem-solving and strategic work. Expect to see smart businesses continue their adoption of AI, but also invest heavily in training and education to sharpen their staff's strategic business skills. This process will help give businesses an edge over their competition.

Mental health resources will be non-negotiable for attracting and retaining talent in the coming years.

With physical and mental well-being combined in so many ways, mental health resources are no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have benefit. A collective of medical experts is now calling for regular anxiety screenings during annual physicals. Employers will continue upping their mental health benefits to match offerings for physical health. Offerings such as Brightline, Headspace Health and Lyra Health are just a few of the many solutions that organizations should consider and customize to meet the needs of their unique workforce. These offerings are helping to fill a real void caused by therapy and clinician shortages (a result of the pandemic) that have led to extreme wait times or the inability to find therapists at all.

Employees will ask for increased transparency into demographic metrics that demonstrate DEI.

With additional transparency and reporting requirements, businesses that have fallen behind on DEI will have their progress shown publicly. As a result, there is going to be more work needed in this area so that companies can show measurable progress in diversity and inclusion. Businesses will need to work harder to make sure their organization reflects the demographics of their operating environment. More transparency means more accountability – and this will be examined in all areas from recruitment to benefits.

Traditional office space will be shed, and co-working will boom once again.

Faced with an economic downturn, companies will continue to seek ways to reduce their real estate footprint and costs. Smaller, consolidated workplaces will place a focus on collaboration stations rather than solo workspaces. At the same time, co-working spaces that saw a decline in recent years will become popular once again as smaller groups of workers come together under one roof, each one closer to where those staffers live.

Maintaining company culture in a digital-first era will require geographically specific motivators.

Hybrid work is here to stay. We'll see offices become gathering hubs for collaboration, offsites, and team events. Hybrid arrangements will become more formalized next year, with colleagues coordinating which days to head into the office in advance. With this permanency comes new challenges in keeping corporate culture from getting lost or forgotten. New cultural scaffolding is needed to hold people accountable for the things that make distributed-work work. Employers need to start with a “rearchitecting of values” to emphasize behaviors and attributes that feed successful people engagement and collaboration in distributed environments.

Expect companies to identify “geographic leaders” amongst their distributed workforce to carry the banner in various metro areas with local offsites and networking meetups. Employers will need to welcome input from employees, lead with trust, and respect work-life boundaries.

As the future of work continues to evolve and be redefined in 2023, companies will do well to remember that with 75% of a typical business’ spend being on its people, success really does hinge on putting people first.

Author Bio

Kaleana Quibell is the VP of Wellbeing and Platform Partners at Sequoia, where she oversees the company’s well-being programs and partnerships, helping to support clients in coming through for the various needs of their people. Her background in the Total Rewards sector includes experience in recruiting and onboarding, benefits and human resources, and employee well-being program design. Connect Kaleana Quibell