A lot has been written about the tremendous changes in our work and life in the past two years-of course out of necessity and concerns about safety. By 2022, the pandemic will still be a fact of life for many of us. However, to be fair, we have learned to adapt to new behavior patterns and expectations at work. If we are one of millions of "knowledge workers" who find that they can choose the time and place of work more freely, then hope that we can make full use of this opportunity to achieve a better balance between family and work life .

The future of work: 5 workplace trends in 2022

Of course, no matter how many articles there are about widespread shifts away from the office and concentrated workplaces, there are many occupations and majors that are not an option at all. For front-line workers in many other industries such as healthcare, retail, teaching, transportation, and security, buzzwords such as "mixed workplaces" may have little impact on their daily lives. But they are unlikely to be immune to the other trends on this list, because technology opens up opportunities for new ways of working and continues to redefine our relationship with the workplace.

When it comes to our workplace, there will continue to be three main models-centralized workplaces, decentralized remote organizations, and a hybrid approach of "best of both worlds". What may change in 2022 is that as employees, we are more likely to make choices instead of being forced to align with any model your organization chooses out of necessity.

Organizations are clearly changing their relationship with the idea of ​​a centralized workplace. According to KPMG's research, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, 69% of large companies expect that the total amount of office space they will use will decrease.  

The scope of the hybrid structure will range from the company maintaining a permanent centralized office and equipped with mobile offices to accommodate the fact that employees will work remotely more frequently, to completely eliminating offices and relying on co-working spaces and serviced conference rooms to support the needs of key employees remotely labor force.

A recent report commissioned by the video messaging platform Loom found that 90% of the surveyed employees (including employees and managers) are more satisfied with the increased freedom of working from home, indicating that this may become a trend. We are entering 2022.

The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, artificial intelligence and automation will create 97 million new jobs. However, people working in many existing jobs will also find that their roles are changing because people are increasingly expecting them to enhance their abilities through artificial intelligence technology. Initially, this artificial intelligence will be mainly used to automate their Repetitive elements in daily roles and allow employees to focus on areas that require more humanity-such as creativity, imagination, advanced strategies, or emotional intelligence. Some examples include lawyers who use technology to reduce the time to review medical records to find precedents, and doctors who have computer vision capabilities to help them analyze medical records and scans to help them diagnose patients' diseases. In the retail industry, enhanced analytics can help store managers with inventory planning and logistics, and help sales assistants predict what individual shoppers will look for when they enter the door. Marketers can use more and more tools to help them target marketing campaigns and segment audiences. In engineering and manufacturing positions, workers will increasingly acquire technology to help them understand how machinery works and predict where failures may occur.

Before a pandemic, the priority is usually to hire employees who can create efficient organizations. In the middle of the pandemic and after the pandemic, the focus has firmly turned to the direction of resilience. Built-in redundancy or overlapping skills may have been considered inefficient before, but today it is seen as a wise preventive measure.

This of course includes another sub-trend, where employers are beginning to understand the importance of incorporating employee healthcare and well-being (including mental health) strategies into their game plans. Many people are now trying to take on more responsibilities and help their employees maintain physical, mental, and financial health. One of the challenges the company will face in 2022 is to find a way to achieve its goals without being overly intrusive or invading the privacy and personal lives of employees.

Ensuring that the workforce is healthy enough to keep the business running is obviously a key element of resilience, but it also includes implementing more flexible processes with built-in redundancy to provide protection in the event of a disaster, which will affect operational efficiency. As we enter 2022, These processes will certainly play an increasing role in the daily lives of workers.

Look less at roles, look at skills more

Gartner said: "To build the workforce you need after a pandemic, focus less on roles (group unrelated skills), but focus on the skills needed to drive an organization’s competitive advantage and the workflow that drives that advantage. ."

Skills are critical because they can solve core business challenges, as well as the capabilities required by the workforce to overcome these challenges. On the other hand, roles describe how each member of the labor force relates to the overall organizational structure or hierarchy. We must have seen this trend brewing for some time, moving towards a more "flat" organizational structure, rather than a strict hierarchical team that uses direct reporting and chain of command methods to communicate and solve problems. By focusing on skills, companies have solved the fact that problem-solving and answering core business questions are the keys to promoting corporate innovation and success in the information age.

From the worker’s perspective, focusing on developing their skills rather than further developing their ability to perform their duties enables them to make better use of new career opportunities. This shift in focus from roles to skills is likely to become the main trend for organizations and employees in 2022.  

Although there may be controversy, research shows that employers are increasingly investing in technology designed to monitor and track employee behavior to improve efficiency. Platforms such as Aware allow companies to monitor behavior through tools such as email and Slack to measure productivity, and are viewed as particularly useful by managers who manage remote workforces. It builds on the functions created by earlier products (such as Hitachi's Business Microscope), which can track employees' activities around physical office buildings, and can be used to monitor the frequency of going to the toilet and which employees spend the most time talking. To other people, instead of sitting at their workstations.

Of course, it seems easy for companies to use these tools in a way that employees see as bossy or intrusive, which, in my opinion, obviously leads to disaster. However, on the surface at least, the idea is to use them for extensive supervision of labor behavior, rather than focusing on individual activities and using them as a discipline tool. Companies investing in this technology have a fine line to go. It remains to be seen whether the net effect will increase productivity or the "chilling effect" on personal freedom. If it is the latter, the company involved is unlikely to have a good ending. However, for better or worse, this technology seems likely to play an increasing role in the workplace in 2022.

Read more about these and other future trends in my new book "Business Trends in Practice: Over 25 Trends to Redefine Organizations."