With post-pandemic life slowly returning to normal both organizations and workers are now adjusting and adapting to the new realities and challenges. These challenges are creating opportunities to make positive changes that will sustain well into the future and improve the workplace experience for all. This also nudges both employers and employees to address key issues of employee well-being to ensure the workplace is more inclusive and conducive for everyone. Organizations and their leaders have been championing well-being, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workforce for some time now. Defining these priorities, along with a robust technology intervention, will enable them to derive value from their fiscal, human, and technological capital.

2022 will be the year of the employee: Now more than ever employees have more bargaining power. Some of the key indicators that the world of work will continue to outperform expectations are flexible/adaptive/hybrid work models, automation, and social consciousness. This also includes an active awareness to achieve the much-needed work-life balance. It is now imperative for employers to ensure workloads are practical and manageable and pay attention to everyone’s overall wellbeing.

College degrees are becoming less crucial: The social signaling value of a university paper degree in students is fast depleting – setting young job aspirants down a strong career path and equipping them with the skills they need to succeed for taking alternative paths to education & skills. Opportunities to develop new skills are expanding. Instead of spending years sitting in a classroom, employees are now investing in their development in smaller, bitesize chunks. Employers are also recognizing that their established workforce still needs to learn. Staying abreast of current trends with digital literacy is particularly important and so more and more people are pursuing online courses that award micro-credentials.

The Great Resignation is real: The pandemic has caused employees to rethink their priorities, and many workers are citing stress and burnout as causes to look elsewhere. The cost of employee turnover is expensive for organizations particularly for small and medium-sized ones. A recent Adecco study indicates that globally 54% of young leaders claim that they have experienced burnout which is alarming. Further, when considering office-based workers we found that an estimated 41% of workers have considered or are considering, moving to a new job that offers more flexible working conditions and 38% of surveyed workers are considering or actually switching careers.

Side hustles an increasing trend: Once upon a time, an employee with a business on the side was viewed as not committed to their “real job”. Now the side hustle is nothing to hide from a boss or a LinkedIn profile. Employers still want 100% effort from these employees but they recognize they need some entrepreneurial thinkers in the mix to stay ahead of the game in their sector. Side hustles take resilience, innovative thinking, and problem-solving plus lots of determination – all must-haves for sectors facing disruption and constant change. Enabling employees to succeed and even be promoted in their job while also keeping their side hustle means talent don’t have to choose between their job and their passion project – at least not right away.

Author

Manu Saigal, Director at Adecco India Pvt Ltd