2021 <br> FORECAST <br>
Intermittent cloud with a chance of curveballs.*
Welcome back, friends, to the ‘new normal’, ‘work as unusual’ or whatever it is we’re calling it these days. In completely unshocking news, 2021 feels much like 2020 slipped into a new frock and is back serving up more of the same.
Nevertheless, there’s something about a new calendar that inspires a sense of possibility. It’s also the time when every LinkedIn pundit posts their predictions and trends, most of which are either offensively obvious or as vague and open to interpretation as Nostradamas’ quatrains.
The truth is nobody can accurately predict the future. Not seers and certainly not experts (futurists included). Without the benefit of hindsight, the best we can do is approach the future of work in the same way as forecasting the weather, drawing on past data, patterns, macro trends and gut intuition.
So, in lieu of another Top 5 Trends for 2021, here are a few areas we’re focusing on with our collaborators.
Safety and wellbeing underpins the employee experience
Now more than ever, nothing is more fundamental to the people’s experience of work than safety and wellbeing.
The first priority is addressing the mental health ramifications of massive change, uncertainty, fear, anxiety and social isolation caused by the pandemic. This is even more important for US-based teams who have also seen significant political and social upheaval.
Our other focus is continuing to help EHS leaders weave safety into the employee experience. The present climate is causing heightened anxiety and distraction, and for frontline workers the slightest lapse in focus can have severe consequences. By making safety simple and an integral part of work, we reduce the likelihood of safety incidents occurring.
Good communication remains fundamental, especially during change
Part of our work during the pandemic involved helping existing collaborators communicate new policies and procedures for COVID-safe practices; and shifting learning and development, onboarding, and induction experiences into virtual channels.
Even before the pandemic, organisations with good communication exhibited four times higher engagement and were three and a half times more likely to significantly outperform peers. Given the shift towards dispersed teams, remote work and work from home, the importance of good communication will only increase over the coming years.
For managers aspiring to become great leaders, building capability in communication and the human skills will be essential to informing, inspiring, motivating and connecting with their people, as well as improving performance.
Flexible, multi-channel experiences
While the pandemic caused the pendulum to swing to delivering content exclusively through virtual channels, it won’t always be this way.
Face-to-face continues to offer benefits that even the best online channels can’t match. It’s the way we naturally connect, and there are nuances in our communication that are more easily and accurately interpreted in person.
Moving forward, the best experiences will comprise an element of both, considering the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each channel. This will also involve a degree of flexibility to allow for the ever-changing nature of travel and distancing measures amidst the tail end of COVID-19.
Change demands better learning experiences
Whether it’s a result of a pandemic or new technology, the business landscape is constantly changing and shows no sign of slowing down.
It will make sense from a cost and cultural perspective for organisations to keep good people with the right skills and cultural fit, and reskill them to shift into different roles.
This underscores the need for lifelong learning, shifting the responsibility for learning to the individual and organisation, rather than tertiary institutions. This in turn requires more efficient and engaging learning experiences, including peer-to-peer, on-the-job and microlearning.
The intersection of technology and humanity
There’s a tendency to fixate on technology, yet it’s only one half of the connection equation.
We’re fascinated by the intersection of humanity and technology, and focused on pushing the possibilities of various platforms to help deliver engaging and impactful experiences throughout all stages of the employee lifecycle.
Brand as an all-encompassing expression
Branding has typically been prioritised for an external market, with the responsibility falling to a brand and marketing function or external agencies. Internally, the employer brand and employee value proposition (EVP) have been the domain of People & Culture departments. And internal communications functions have taken the unnecessary role of policing external brand guidelines internally under the misguided notion of ‘consistency’.
We believe the next few years will see the rise of an integrated internal function combining expertise in brand, people, and human-centred design and communication to provide a congruent, comprehensive and immersive brand experience to employees and customers alike.
As organisations look to regroup following the pandemic, this will prove essential for attracting and retaining the right people.
“Remote work” is simply “work”
If anything positive came out of COVID-19, it’s the proof that remote work… works. A recent study found 48 per cent of remote workers exhibit more discretionary effort, compared to 35 per cent of non-remote workers.
Although the technology required to facilitate remote work has been around for over a decade, the pandemic forced hundreds of millions of employers and employees worldwide to engage in a large-scale, real-time experiment.
This raised the question: how to onboard, teach, communicate and connect with people when face-to-face isn’t an option?
At Everyday Massive, we’ve been advocates for flexible work arrangements for years, embodied through our work/life manifesto of Work Without Boundaries. We believe that over the next five years, this will become increasingly commonplace with ‘work’ seen as something you do, not a place that you go.
With dispersed teams and greater flexibility around where and how people work, as well as the possibility of future pandemics, it also makes sense to focus on delivering consistent experiences across a range of channels, both face-to-face and virtual.
Inclusion becomes commonplace
The notion of diversity and inclusion is (thankfully) moving beyond a box to tick and becoming the norm. This is being driven by social trends, but also the shift toward dispersed teams working without geographical boundaries.
The shift involves moving beyond policies to consider diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the employee experience, and every stage of the employee lifecycle, including recruiting, career pathways, and learning and development.
In this way, diversity will be seen as a measure, and inclusion the action.
Foundations of transparency and trust
The proliferation of fake news and its dissemination via social media are breeding distrust and cynicism, particularly in the younger generations. For organisations to succeed, people will need to trust in their leaders and the brand.
With trust comes a need for greater transparency, particularly around ethical practices and supply chains. The generation entering the workforce wants to know their impact on society and the world.
Purpose defines the generational shift
Countless studies have shown people’s motivation increases when they see how their work contributes to a higher purpose — to their organisation’s mission and vision, or society as a whole. This is particularly applicable to the generation entering the workforce, making purpose an essential element of both the experience and brand.
Social enterprise and ethical practices will become more than nice-to-haves, they will be must-haves. And more than simply having the right policies in place, communicating them will be essential.
The human experience
Perhaps all of the above can be summarised as prioritising the human experience. As the lines between the employee experience (EX), customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) blur, we’re seeing a more holistic focus on people.
This will manifest as a consistent experience through all facets of an organisation, both internal and external, expressed through brand. A shift as logical as it is long overdue.
Is that sun we see peeking through the clouds?…
* Basically the weather in Melbourne.