For a second imagine you have an office wherever you want it to be, you have robots that perform all your mundane tasks and your boss is extremely concerned about whether you are enjoying your work.
Sounds unreal? Welcome to the future of workplace.
It does seem like a page out of a science fiction, except with fewer aliens (or so we think).
How the Future of Workplace is Emerging
Due to the lighting paced advancements in technology, the idea of the traditional workplace is being turned over its head. Say goodbye to cubicles and hello to flexibility, automation, and a work life balance that actually makes sense.
The workplace of the future is not just concerned about getting work done, rather it is about having fun and bringing the best out of you while doing it.
1. Normalizing Remote and Hybrid Work
More and more companies and employees are preferring remote work
While COVID-19 forced companies to move towards remote and hybrid work solutions, the good news is that they are here to stay.
Researchers used this opportunity to study remote work and its pros and cons. Turns out, employees become more productive when they work remotely rather than physical, on the office job. Moreover, they were more satisfied with their jobs, experienced greater motivation and spent more time than normal office hours on their work.
Also Read: Work From Home Advantages and Disadvantages- The Good and the Bad
Seeing such promising results, many companies continued remote work policy. Employees are also demanding work from home opportunities from employers as they got comfortable with it.
2. Accepting Flexible Work Timings
Flexible work timings increase productivity
In the post pandemic world, the Great Resignation has brought work-life balance as the top labor market issue. Employees want flexible work timings where they have the freedom to choose when they work.
Researches show that flexible work schedules and shorter working hours leads to a healthier work life balance on part of the employees, reduces turnover rates and increases productivity.
Studies like these that are highlighting the enormous benefits of flexible work are paving the way for a flexible future workplace.
3. Get Comfortable with Technology and Automation
Automation is the future of workplace
Technology today is advancing at a frightfully fast pace and the workplace is not impervious to its impact. The integration of automation in workplace is evolving workflows as well as workforce.
This raises fears that automation will completely replace human workforce. However, such a speculation could not be further from the truth.
As new technology is rendering multiple jobs obsolete, many new ones are also being created to take its place. Technology is helping streamline workflows by taking over manual, repetitive work leaving humans to tackle the bigger, more complex tasks. AI robots and chatbots save us time, energy and resources and increase overall productivity.
Related: How ChatGPT will Impact Student Thinking and Creativity
In the future workplace, digital literacy and dexterity will be key skills to deal with the heavily incorporated technology. In addition, the workforce will need to equip with the soft skills more than manual technical skills as there will be increased demand for social and cognitive skills such as decision making, creativity and innovation, communication skills, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence for tasks that only humans can perform.
4. Fewer Meetings
Unnecessary meetings drain company time and resources.
“Do yourself and your company a favor: cut the meetings in half.”
Gary Vayerchuk
Meetings are notorious for their uselessness and wastage of time, yet your work calendar must be full of them.
A recent study confirmed the popular belief about the wastefulness of unnecessary meetings by underscoring the unproductive nature of meetings. The study found that such meetings wasted $100 million a year for big companies and hours of company time that could be invested in productive work.
What’s more, reduced number of meetings improves workplace environment by not only reducing micromanagement, employee stress, but also increasing employee empowerment, productivity and job satisfaction. They waste hundreds of company hours that could be invested in work and
Online meetings are even more stressful as a common phenomenon called “zoom fatigue” emerged as virtual meetups began to be conducted over the pandemic on such a large scale.
This does not mean that meetings should be totally eliminated. Meetings are important for employees to engage with their coworkers which is essential for human connection and meaning making that people seek in their work.
Therefore, companies of the future will restrict meetings only to those with important agendas to make their workplace more productive.
5. Emphasis on Employee Experience
Employee experience is becoming the top workplace priority in future workplaces
The Great Resignation has raised concerns about employee retention among companies, making employee experience a top priority. Employees now are demanding more than money as their motivation for work. Rather, they are looking for engagement, inclusivity and feeling of shared connectedness with their workplaces. They want to be heard, participate in company decisions and derive meaning out of their work.
Remote work reduces the feeling of human connection and sense of meaning that employees get from their work. People want to feel they are contributing to something bigger than themselves and doing their part to make the world a better place.
Related: Boost Employee Performance with These Best Emotional Intelligence Practices
Many companies are leading the future by morphing their workplace culture to incorporate these emerging trends. On top of that, the future workplace will have greater emphasis placed on workers’ not only physical but mental and emotional wellbeing. An employee centric workplace culture will typically be a four day work week, with limitation on after work emails and flexible work time and place.
Companies that will make use of ways to make employees feel connected, valued and purposeful in hybrid and remote work settings will thrive in the future.
6. Stepping Up the Sustainability Game
Sustainability is one of the most burning issues of the future
Sustainability is one of the most trendy topics in current times. following the Paris climate deal, there is an urgency to mitigate world temperature change between 1.5 to 2 degrees. Such a large milestone cannot be achieved without the involvement of businesses who are a major stakeholders in the fight against climate change.
While governments are usually blamed the most for addressing climate change, corporations have an even bigger responsibility considering their enormous social and political influence and their ability to shape consumer preferences.
There are many organizations that keep a check on climate consciousness and carbon footprint of businesses.
As businesses are increasingly being made to feel responsible, some of them are indeed taking steps towards sustainability by shifting the way they operate to a more greener, sustainable path.
The world is prioritizing sustainability at every step, including the workplace culture. This has set out small but meaningful changes such as workplace shower facilities to encourage commuting to work through bicycles rather than fuel consuming vehicles. Likewise, many business such as Hewlett Packard and Ford create recyclable parts and products. Some are redesigning product packaging to make it more sustainable and eco-friendly.
Although all these measures only aim at containing their own carbon footprint, in the future, companies will be expected to do more than damage control. They will need to actively contribute to making the world resilient to climate change, such as by planting forests, running environmental awareness campaigns.
