6 trends changing the workplace right now: Best approach to adapt

The workplace has recently gone through drastic changes in response to the pandemic. While not every change will last forever, many are poised to make a permanent impact on how employers operate.

Companies that want to keep their costs low, recruit and retain the best employees, and remain profitable will need to keep up with these workplace developments and adapt their policies accordingly.

Here are six big trends poised to change how workplaces operate and how to tackle them, straight from the experts at Robert Half.

1. Different employee expectations

The past two years have shaped people’s values and priorities – and that’s bled into what they’re looking for in their careers as well.

Work/life balance is a higher priority for employees, in large part due to the pandemic. People expect to have more say in when they work and where they work, and they also expect more out of their employers in every area from perks to salaries.

And if they don’t get what they’re looking for, they’re more willing to walk.

The impact of the Great Resignation is continuing to plague companies. Top employees are more eager to jump ship for the next best thing, and it’s getting more difficult to replace them.

Companies that don’t have a solid recruiting and retention strategy will be left behind in the war for talent. Both need to be equally prioritized when you’re creating salary budgets.

2. Demand for remote work

One of the areas that’s impacting whether employees stay with a company is whether the option for remote work is available.

Remote work allowed professionals to stay productive during the pandemic. It was key to helping many people with their work/life balance – and it’s a perk they’re not willing to give up.

In fact, over half (54%) of professionals surveyed who were currently working from home said they’d look for a new position if their employer required them to return to the office.

There are benefits to remote work for employers, as well. Allowing employees to work from anywhere widens your talent pool and lets you recruit new hires from around the country. It can be a boost to recruitment in a highly competitive market.

Plus, most remote workers said they were more productive while teleworking than they were in the office – citing the flexibility and the lack of commuting time as significant benefits to the arrangement.

3. Shifting role of the office

Although remote work is growing in popularity, there’s still a demand for companies to have office space, but they may not be using it in the way that you think.

Instead of requiring employees to report to a physical office on a daily basis, some employers are limiting in-person gatherings to specific purposes, such as training sessions, client meetings or team-building events. This combines the best of both worlds, allowing people to interact face to face while still primarily doing their jobs remotely.

It’s important for companies to really look at what they want employees to accomplish in the office and adjust their resources accordingly. For example, you may want to look at a smaller office space once your current lease expires if you’re only bringing employees on site for occasional meetings. Or you might want to forego office space entirely and consider alternative options for gatherings.

4. New leadership strategies

Even if many of the employees you work with in Finance work on site, chances are you and your managers are interacting with people who telework on a regular basis.

And that creates a unique challenge – leading people who work together, but who may not ever meet in person. To get work done, you may have to contend with people working from different time zones and who keep different hours than the traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday.

It’s essential to make sure all employees have a sense of belonging, regardless of the hours they keep and if they’re permanently off site.

Here, developing communication skills is essential. Managers should regularly talk to their team members – remote or not – about their needs and preferences, as well as the type of support they require to do their best work. This will help you create an environment where your workers can best use their strengths to benefit the company.

5. Embracing workplace flexibility

Flexibility isn’t just working a little earlier or a little later than the standard workday – it’s possibly working on different days and on entirely different schedules than you might expect.

While this may still be an odd concept to those who’ve worked traditional workdays for their whole career, the option of a flexible schedule is even more popular with employees than remote work, according to Robert Half research.

In particular, the four-day workweek, where employees work four 10-hour days and have three days off each week, and windowed work, where workers break their workdays up into non-consecutive chunks (e.g., 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.), are top options for companies.

Offering this type of flexibility can make you stand out among the crowd if your employees must come into the office full-time – and it can be even more appealing to workers if you offer flexible schedules and remote work together.

6. Importance of compensation and perks

Nearly half of employees feel underpaid, Robert Half research says. And in a time where personal finances are stretched thin due to high inflation, the search for better pay continues to fuel the Great Resignation. Many of your peers plan to increase their salary budgets for 2023 to account for this.

Along with pay, employees are looking for more bells and whistles in terms of professional perks and benefits. Offering only standard benefits like health insurance and gym memberships may not cut it anymore in this competitive market.

Companies are thinking outside the box right now. Along with increasing starting salaries for positions (and bumping up the pay of some long-term employees), they’re bolstering their benefits offerings with mental health counseling, mindfulness and meditation courses, and stress relief workshops. They’re also adding more paid time off as a standard benefit and providing employees with financial wellness resources (e.g., retirement planning seminars).

Polling employees about the type of perks and benefits they’re most interested in would be a good start to evaluating if your package is competitive.