By The Beginning Of 1400, Many Of Us Expected The World To Return To Normal. Vaccines Were Made And Distributed, And Many Managers Expected Everyone To Return To Work Within A Few Months. 

However, circumstances different from what some experts predicted, and the emergence of new Covid 19 strains, the battle for the top talents, the unprecedented increase in layoffs, and the unemployment of a significant portion of technical workers, were just some of the devastating consequences of this global epidemic.

Some experts and institutions have predicted that this dangerous trend in labor and employment will increase.

New strains are emerging and may cause telecommuting to resume. Many employees face declining real wages because annual wage increases lag behind inflation. Hybrid work, a combination of telecommuting and face-to-face work, creates more inequalities around different employees’ places, time, and amount of work.

The Harvard Business Review has conducted research in this area and interviewed CEOs, HR managers, and executives to examine their views and predictions about the world of work in the next few years.

Here are ten essential and influential trends that will play an important role in workplace instability in the coming years.

1. Justice and equality will be decisive issues in organizations

Justice-oriented matters such as division of labor, job descriptions, payroll, and the like will reach a turning point. According to the analysis, the number of times that managers and senior employees have spoken in their calls about issues such as justice, equality, and participation has increased by about 658 percent from 2018 to today.

Questions about justice and equality are posed in new ways:

•  We have seen organizations where some managers have allowed their employees to work long hours; however, some disagree. Who can have floating working hours?
•  Employees move to places with a lower cost of living and do things remotely. So, what happens? Should employers reduce their salaries, even if the quality of their work has not changed?
•  Companies pay 20 percent more when hiring new employees in today’s job market. Is it fair to pay new employees more than older ones?
•  Companies offer new and targeted investments for specific segments of their workforce (for example, increasing funding to support employees who have children). While these investments are necessary to help employees, employees who do not have children ask why employees who have children receive money for child rights, and we do not.

In 2022, corporate human resource managers should consider the issue of justice and equity management based on employee experience. It is the number one priority for HR managers in the coming years.

2. Some companies reduce working hours or working days per week instead of increasing salaries in the talent competition.

Employers are proposing a substantial salary increase to attract talent in today’s market. Research has shown that the United States has seen a 4 percent pay rise since the beginning of the year, while the standard is 2 percent.

But in the face of inflation, real wages have fallen, and if inflation continues, employers will find that the value of the wages they pay becomes less and less in exchange for the purchasing power of employees.

While some companies can only attract talented people and compete through play, others do not have the financial resources. For this reason, some employers reduce the number of working hours of employees and keep their salaries constant instead of winning the talent war by raising wages.

As wages increase, working becomes more valuable and attractive to employees. However, reducing working hours helps employers with less liquidity compete with organizations that offer higher pay but do not change working hours.

We will most likely see that a small number of organizations will accept 32 hours of work per week with the same pay as the previous method, based on a new way of competing to recruit skilled workers.

3. Staff redundancies will increase if combined and remote work becomes commonplace for specialist staff.

At present, flexibility in the place, time, and manner of other people’s work is not different but is one of the minimum expectations of employees. In countries like the United States, employees expect the same flexibility in their jobs as they expect the 401 (k) (employer-sponsored retirement plan) to apply to them. Employers who do not consider flexibility will see their employees leave their jobs as employees go to jobs that offer valuable offers that meet their needs.

Unfortunately, in today’s tight labor market, increasing flexibility in many organizations has not been able to reduce employee turnover; In fact, leaving the job will increase for two reasons.

• First, there is no strong incentive to keep employees in their seats. Employees who work part-time or remotely have fewer friends at work, resulting in poorer social and emotional relationships with their co-workers. These weak connections, which are associated with a reduction in social pressure (severe influence of one person or group on another person or group), reduce employees’ desire to stay in the workplace and make leaving the job easier for employees.
• Second, as the number of potential employers increases, employees will have more choices. Combined work and telecommuting have become commonplace, and the geographical scope of the organizations for which one can work expands. The increased risk of labor loss remains, even in the combined model where employees are expected to be at work at least once a week. Employees are forced to commute to and from work despite long distances, even if they are reluctant. It causes some employers to offer offers such as paying travel expenses to employees.

These factors lead to a stable and higher rate of quitting than at any other time, and in fact, the prominent resignation will change into a continuous concession.

4. Managerial duties will automatically disappear, creating a space for managers to establish friendly relations with employees.

The manager-employee relationship is changing more than ever. In the case of combined and telecommuting employees, managers are the first bridge through which employees experience the employer’s presence.

Managers are also at the forefront of addressing concerns about employee fairness; They can distinguish between a general strike by employees or their need to find a standard solution to their problems.

At the same time, vendors of HR-related products and software are creating products that replace recurring management tasks, such as scheduling, approving expense reports, and overseeing the completion of subordinates’ work.

The next generation of these technologies could replace other management tasks, such as providing performance feedback and employee support.

Research shows that by 2025, nearly 65% ​​of the tasks performed by a manager will have automation capacity.

With such growth in automation, companies face a significant challenge; Reduce the number of managers or change the job description, which gives a new definition to the term manager.

Organizations that extend the powers of managers to oversee more subordinates will have significant cost savings because fewer managers are needed to manage people. Organizations that decide to change the level of authority of their managers must change the mindset of managers and their skillset from task management to employee experience management.

It goes beyond managing employees’ specific responsibilities. It will focus on issues such as understanding the impact of work on employees’ personal lives and defining paths that pave the way for employees’ career advancement and advancement. While this change may slow the decline in the workforce, it does require new and advanced training for managers.

5. The tools we use for telecommuting become tools that help measure and improve performance

As work becomes more geographically dispersed, managers become less aware of employee actions. It leads to biased employee performance rankings based on their workplace, Not the influence, influence, and position they have in the organization.

In 2020, nearly 3,000 managers found that 64 percent believe that employees who work in the office perform better than telecommuters, and 76 percent believe that they are more likely to be promoted to office staff.

The same tools that employees currently use to work in a virtual environment evaluate employee participation as we move forward. For example, new technologies can provide background information about the people in contact during virtual meetings.

The more information there is about the people in the meeting, the better participants will be able to focus on the topics that matter most.

Collaborative technology (tools and systems designed to facilitate teamwork in the office better or remotely) can force employees to behave in various ways that improve employee interactions. For example, it requires managers to contact people who have not been more active than others present at the meeting. These flips allow participants to use a variety of interactions to improve the quality of the meeting.

6. The complexity of combined labor-management reinforces the need to return to work in some employers

More than 90% of employers plan to use a combined work model for their specialist employees in 2022. Of course, it is expected that many well-known companies will want to change their approach and demand the return of employees to their jobs full time. Factors that lead to this change are:

• Poor business performance that managers try to justify because of combined work.
• It Increases layoffs by employees working with a combination program.
• Unreliable reports from hybrid employees indicate that they are doing multiple jobs simultaneously.
• Lack of organizational culture.

In any case, the organizations that implement employees’ return to the office quickly realize that the challenges they faced had other important and underlying causes. Demanding the return of employees to the office will only exacerbate the rate of staff decline.

7. Health will be the latest measure that companies use to understand their employees

Many companies have expanded the health care they provide to their employees following the Corona epidemic. Over the years, managers have used various metrics such as employee satisfaction or participation to understand their employees. In 2022, organizations have added new metrics to assess their mental, physical, and financial health.

 A 2020 Gartner survey of 52 HR managers found that:

•  94% of companies made significant investments in their health plans.
•  Eighty-five percent increase in support for mental health benefits.
•  A 50 percent increase in physical health support was the criterion.
•  38% focused on issues related to employee financial support.

Gartner’s research shows that employees who take advantage of these benefits report 23 percent higher mental and 17 percent physical health, and 23 percent report sleeping well at night. These improvements and personal improvements increase the performance and retention of employees and prevent them from leaving the job.

In 2022 and beyond, organizations will take new measures for the well-being of employees, including financial, mental, and physical health, to predict and maintain performance more accurately.

8. The Chief Executive Officer will be the primary and next level C job title

Level C job titles are the company CEOs, who are often essential and influential people in organizational decisions. Today, cultural and social issues are fully integrated into the workplace. Some organizations ask employees to focus on the whole thing because they look for a more productive work environment with more productivity.

However, employees expect their employer to be more involved in the day-to-day social debates. Gartner’s analysis showed that three out of four employees hope their employers to enter and comment on current social discussions.

A combination of these factors creates conflict in the workplace.

Reduced A Gartner survey of more than 500 employees in 2020 found that 44% of employees are seriously estranged from their co-workers because of their beliefs. In addition, Gartner’s analysis found that when employees became frustrated with their employers’ position in the day-to-day social debate, their participation by one-third.

Changing the nature of organizations, how employees relate to the organization, and changes in job descriptions and plans will lead to the emergence of a new C-level job title in 2022 or later called the Chief Executive Officer.

These responsibilities are widely distributed in the job titles of human resources, law, communications, and other organizational positions. In 2022, as the ESG (Business Ethics and Responsible Management) Index becomes important for corporate strategies, this job description will include in the new Chief Purpose Officer job title.

9. Sitting is a new type of smoking

Teleworking has affected the lives of employees in various ways. Some have reacted to this work style by increasing physical activity and losing weight (35%). But most people are sedentary and overweight (40%), most likely due to physical inactivity, which is usually done at work by going to various meetings and office trips. Physical inactivity in multiple parts of the workforce increases the health risks lurk and will inevitably affect teleworkers.

In response, organizations will use communication programs, benefits, and new technologies to support the physical mobility of their telecommuters to improve their health. However, this technique has its drawbacks. For example, some companies exaggerate so much that it will provoke a strong reaction from employees. In addition, some employees will have lower participation rates due to physical disabilities.

10. Combined work without close supervision worsens the situation in the long run

Gartner’s research shows that employees who work remotely or on a combined schedule perform the same as employees in their offices. But managers believe that people who work in their office perform better than people who work from home and are more likely to be promoted.

This misconception is reinforced by senior executives who claim that combined and telecommuting employees perform poorly. Given this, managers are likely to consider higher pay and promotions for employees present at work than those who work remotely, even if there is no difference in the performance of the two groups.

The data show that women and people of color are more likely to telework than white men. Talented people with a low presence can exclude from essential conversations, job opportunities, and channels that promote career growth.

We have all witnessed and lived with the greatest deconstructions in the workplace over the generations, a fact whose rhythm does not slow down. What changes in the degree to which these deconstructions are variable? In 2022 and beyond, managers must learn how to keep pace with these disruptions and organizational developments not to hit the organization.