The world of work – key trends for 2023
26 Jan 2023
There has probably never been a greater period of change in the world of work than the last three years.
The pandemic, of course, altered everyone’s perception of what was, and was not, possible in terms of remote and hybrid working.
Companies moved with an agility they had shown little enthusiasm for previously, to allow staff to work from home and ensure they could still operate effectively despite not being in the workplace.
This pace of change is unlikely to slow much in 2023, as changes brought about by Covid are consolidated. With that in mind, here is our look at the key trends you might expect to see over the coming 12 months.
Increased surveillance
As we spend more time working away from the office – and therefore out of physical sight of line managers and executives – the urge to introduce measures to monitor our productivity grows.
This brings with it an inevitable tension between employer and employee. One wants to ensure their staff is working productively, whilst the other wants to ensure privacy and personal freedoms are not trampled upon.
We can expect this debate – and where the line should be drawn – to continue throughout the year and see technological developments which are likely to push boundaries. Already employee tracking software is gaining in use and that is unlikely to change.
Expect a fierce debate over where to draw the boundaries between an employer’s expectations and an employee’s rights and the issue of wellbeing to be right at the heart of it.
The right to switch off
There is a growing movement across Europe to give workers defined rights to prevent them being overloaded with work, emails and messages from their managers at all times of the day and night.
Just last month, Scottish civil servants negotiated the right to not be contacted outside work hours – becoming the first workers in the UK to do so.
Scottish Government guidance now says that staff “should not be required to routinely perform work outside their own agreed normal working hours” and “should not be penalised or pressured to routinely work outside their normal working hours”.
Similar laws already apply in Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and France and it seems likely that pressure will grow to adopt something similar more widely across the UK.
Four day working weeks
We’ve already seen trials for switching to a four-day working week – with the same pay – in this country, and it is a model which appears to be growing in appeal.
As many as 86 per cent of the companies taking part in those trials said they would be extremely likely, or likely, to consider adopting the measure permanently.
The change of work culture since the pandemic – and the increased focus on mental health – suggests this is an idea whose time is coming, and whilst a four-day week may not become mandatory, we can expect more and more companies to consider it as a serious option.
Flexible working
It doesn’t take a soothsayer to work out that we are all likely to be working more flexibly over the coming years.
The rise of homeworking technology, increasing focus on work-life balance and growth of a part-time workforce means that regular 9-5 office jobs are becoming less and less attractive to many people.
Hybrid models – where workers split their time between the office and working from home – are already growing in popularity and that trend will doubtless continue for the foreseeable future. Staff can expect the office to become a less rigid physical place and more nebulous concept as the change embeds itself in business thinking over the coming years.
