Predictions 2022: 5 Employee Experience Trends To Watch
Predictions 2022: 5 Employee Experience Trends To Watch
Learn more
Next page
1. Turn the office into an event space
Employees have had a year and a half to customize their home office. Now that they’re cozy and connected, it’s going to take a lot to convince them they should return to their pre-pandemic routine.To entice people back to the office, businesses need to start thinking about their workspace the same way event planners think about an event. How do
Next page
1. Turn the office into an event space
you get someone to physically show up to a space? How do you make the space so fun and intuitive that people want to stay? What amenities do people want today? How do you create a compelling and valuable agenda?The in-office encounter isn’t yet the personalized, seamless experience employees built for themselves at home. It’s quite the opposite.
Next page
1. Turn the office into an event space
Companies that require people to work on-site with no flexibility to do work that could be done at home are having a hard time attracting or retaining talent.To hire and retain employees, I think companies are going to start investing in talent and tools to build the next-generation workplace, which will look a lot more like an event
Next page
1. Turn the office into an event space
center than an office. It will be easy to reserve and reconfigure flexible spaces and conference rooms. Services such as catering for small groups will be standard. Attendee scheduling should be seamless and a meaningful agenda of deliberate, collaborative work will be expected.
Next page
2. Address the labor shortage
To earn and maintain employee trust, businesses need to compete on culture. In the year ahead, that’s exactly what they’re going to do.Frustrated with work conditions and enticed by other opportunities, employees are resigning at historically high rates. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing a simultaneous rise in activism within the workforce.
Next page
2. Address the labor shortage
Grassroots advocacy is growing, with workplaces around the country unionizing and advocating for their rights.On top of that, employees are more socially conscious than ever before. They want to see proof that companies are investing in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) goals beyond simple quantitative scores.
Next page
2. Address the labor shortage
They also want to see DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives that do more than just check a box. Employees today are savvy enough to question how companies are nurturing underserved talent. As an example, a company that hires for gender parity must also follow through with the promotions and development opportunities that ensure parity sticks.
Next page
3. Provide benefits that matter
One of the results of the Great Resignation and the rise in employee advocacy is that employees are no longer satisfied with traditional benefits.Before Covid-19, many companies fixated on who could offer employees the coolest perks. But the pandemic poignantly
Next page
3. Provide benefits that matter
highlighted the benefits that matter for people’s day-to-day lives. For instance, a lot of women ended up leaving the workforce to perform caretaking responsibilities. Now, how will companies bring them back?People are no longer happy to settle for bare-minimum benefits or trendy perks. They want what matters: healthcare,
Next page
3. Provide benefits that matter
education, childcare, adaptable work schedules, the flexibility to care for family and friends. I think we’re going to see an increase in quality-of-life benefits like transportation and training subsidies. Creative solutions such as giving equity to lower-ranked employees will become standard.
Next page
4. Separating work time and downtime
A work-from-home workforce values boundaries between work time and downtime, since both often happen from the same desk. Clarifying the separation between the two is something executives need to do going into 2022.On the one hand, organizations that allow people to work from home will increasingly subsidize home office
Next page
4. Separating work time and downtime
equipment to attract talent. At the same time, leaders want to ensure they’re not enabling managers to indulge in scope creep. For example, if a company pays for an employee’s phone, can that person’s manager then call them on weekends? Can the employee still use their phone for personal calls? Is the employee confident their
Next page
4. Separating work time and downtime
privacy is being respected? We’re already seeing countries around the world passing new remote-worker legislation. This trend will continue.Companies that win the culture war will be ahead of the legislation and invest in privacy around working from home.
Next page
5. Investing in the talent supply chain
Problems with global supply chains have impacted businesses across every industry in unexpected ways, and it seems that will continue into next year.Some businesses are trying to regionalize their supply chain to avoid dependence on international suppliers. Others are stockpiling supplies locally so they won’t find themselves
Next page
5. Investing in the talent supply chain
without mission-critical tools and parts.As business leaders continue this move away from lean supply chain thinking, it will create new issues with the talent supply chain.The talent supply chain starts with the workers who produce raw materials, extends to the factory floor, and ends at the
Next page
5. Investing in the talent supply chain
business itself. When companies move their manufacturing and development in-house, they have to adjust their talent supply chain: who they’re hiring, for which jobs, where, and when.Some will invest in automated intelligence to power smart manufacturing. In fact, companies worldwide are
Next page
5. Investing in the talent supply chain
already doing that. But robots aren’t a panacea. Someone has to maintain them, and certain jobs require creativity that robots don’t have.