Future of Work Trends 2022:: A New Era of Humanity
Future of Work Trends 2022:: A New Era of Humanity
Future of Work Trends 2022:: A New Era of Humanity
of work
trends
2022:
A new era of humanity
Work that works
for everyone
The last 24 months have changed everything. For
businesses. For leaders. For employees. Now, as
the dust settles, one fact becomes clear:
Scarcity
Surviving the big quit
Vitality
Give the people what they want
Sustainability
Time to walk the talk
Individuality
Do, well better
Inclusivity
The power of all
Accountability
Trust or bust
Reinvention REINVENTION
The flipside of disruption
How can you even think of moving forward?
The last two years have just been about
surviving. Change was forced, extreme,
reactive. Planning went out the window.
But out of all this disruption came
something incredible. We learned to work in
an entirely different way. Make connections
even when we were not in the office. We
collaborated, innovated, were agile and
flexible. All qualities we “as organizations”
need to reinvent ourselves.
01
“Platform and Talent implications
Spread Rapidly
the capabilities needed to win in their marketplace.
Through strategic modeling of future workforce
options, they clarify the future roles, skills, and
It’s been happening for years. Technology has mindsets to deliver their strategy. They then focus
enabled organizations to reinvent ways of doing on sourcing and developing these through reskilling,
business. Think of the platform and marketplace upskilling, recruitment or drawing on the wider
models adopted by Uber and Amazon. Or the “gig economy” of flexible workers.
way Airbnb has harnessed the sharing economy.
Or new ecosystems such as Apple’s App 64% of the world’s most
Store. In 2022, we expect many more sectors
admired companies say they
and organizations to follow suit, as digital
transformation continues to accelerate across all have a good understanding of
sectors and industries, resulting in new jobs, new workforce needs two or more
ways of working and new business models.
years into the future compared
to 54% of their peers.
02
Thinking fluid Talent implications
For decades, leadership has been seen in hierarchical
COVID-19 forced all of us to work in temporarily
terms—rising to the top of the “pipeline” that results
agile ways. In 2022, organizations will be looking
in Executive Leadership. In more fluid organizations,
to make it permanent. What does this look like?
this model is no longer fit for purpose. What is
Expect flatter, non-hierarchical structures (at the
needed are network leaders who perform and
extreme end, Chinese consumer electronics giant,
transform by working across the enterprise and the
Haier, encourages a network of interconnected
wider ecosystem. Executive Leadership needs to
small businesses). Expect more project-based
shift to “Enterprise Leadership”. Meanwhile, learning
working, where teams assemble to achieve
agility will become more important for everyone in
specific goals before dispersing back out into the
the organization (not just leaders) and performance
organization. Companies are also likely to reinvent
management will need to become more flexible,
where work gets done, with hub-and-spoke
project focused and “always on” to respond to
models and remote-only teams.
the more agile nature of people’s work. It is also
critical to ensure that increased fluidity does not
lead to greater fragmentation: connectivity and
collaboration are key.
03 to hiring.
Technology
+ Retail
= avatars go shopping together,
try on clothes in a virtual store –
then order the real clothes to be
hire 10,000 workers in Europe.
+ =
chain wants to attract shoppers of seasoned retail
back into its physical stores by executives for hospitality
incorporating flexible workspaces expertise to bring this
Retail Hospitality and exercise studios. vision to life.
+ =
autonomous driving and is key. Coding skills become as
personalized driving are important as engineering.
just a few of the big shifts in Major effort needed in re-skilling,
Automotive Technology automotive transformation. upskilling, and implementing
agile ways of working.
Big
+ Small
= sometimes between big pharma
and smaller companies that
have developed innovative new
culture of small companies
being bought by big
companies? So far, the
Pharma Pharma technologies and therapies. prevailing approach is to leave
the acquired company alone.
Media
+ Technology
= data science and machine learning
to make personalized movie
recommendations and display
they experience in their
personal lives.
SCARCITY
The crunch
in numbers
• July 2021 saw the highest
ever share of US employers
with unfilled positions
Implications
Attraction and retention used to be a
numbers game. 2022 calls for a much more
human approach. Organizations should
consider all the levers they have available
to them for building and strengthening
relationships with individual talent—from
compensation, rewards, and benefits to
learning and development, succession,
and DE&I.
New methods
Many companies are now offering sign-on bonuses
even at entry levels, with a clause that they must be
for incentivizing
paid back if the employee leaves within a matter of
months. Starting salaries are on the rise, as are long-
term incentives designed to get middle and senior
candidates to join managers to stay, such as employee stock options and
sabbaticals. Other benefits we expect to see more of
Solving the
With employers no longer able to rely on a steady
source of external talent, internal mobility becomes
shortage from
more important than ever. Not only can it help fill
talent gaps, especially for niche roles—it can also
prevent attrition by providing employees with
the inside out opportunities to learn, develop and grow.
Inclusion is
Inclusive hiring practices help you tap into a wider
talent pool, making it easier to hire quality candidates
the name of
quickly, even for niche or hard-to-source roles. This
could mean looking for talent in non-traditional places
or dropping traditional qualification requirements that
the game may disproportionately exclude underrepresented
talent. What is important now is how quickly a person
can learn and how agile they are to meet the evolving
needs of the marketplace—not where they studied for
their degree.
How top organizations are tackling the talent shortage
Enhanced
Candidates have been shown to accept substantially
lower pay offers if the offers come from companies
action on ESG
with a strong brand and a focus on sustainability. Time
to re-examine your employee value proposition (EVP)
and make sure it is as compelling and differentiating
as possible. But it’s not enough just to say it.
Candidates will do their due diligence to make sure a
perspective employer is living up to its commitments.
This means that taking tangible, meaningful action on
sustainability and weaving it into every aspect of the
business has become table stakes for organizations.
How top organizations are tackling the talent shortage
Making leaders
The pandemic has upended the entire world of
work, causing organizations to move into a highly
accountable
reactive mode. This has left leaders scrambling
to stay in front of the ever-changing business
environment, dealing with what’s in front of them
for easing the and not planning for the future.
talent shortage In 2022, the trend will be to step back and find out
why people are leaving organizations or even the
workforce. Is it the pay? The benefits? The culture?
The business model? The location? What types
of employees are leaving? Leaders will need to
be accountable for stemming the turnover in
their organizations.
Finding the
right talent
Transforming and optimizing the supply chain
also requires the right talent. Supply chain
leaders must be strategic thinkers, planners
and collaborators with a variety of strengths,
including vision, results orientation and a mix
of soft skills. They also need cross-functional
experience in product innovation, business
acumen, knowledge of current automation,
systems technologies and more. This is a
varied skill set that’s hard to identify—and
even harder to find.
VITALITY
WELL-BEING
Vitality
Do well better
Employee health and well-being were important long
before COVID-19. But it’s now front and center of every
organization’s plans. Companies face the economic
burden of sickness and stress, both in medical expenses
and lost productivity. And remote working has given
employees a greater understanding and concern for
their own well-being. They want companies to act
more human. To have a greater purpose that speaks
to connection and support. Meet their expectations
for flexible working, better healthcare, but most
importantly, help them keep the personal energy
they need to survive and thrive when times get
tough. Because the flipside of vitality is burnout.
It’s not just the human thing to do; it’s the right
thing to do. For people and organizations.
WELL-BEING
Economic burden of unwell workers is
10 to 15 percent of global economic output
Disengagement $550bn
Implications
To offset the negative impact of the pandemic on engagement and performance, organizations
need to put employee well-being center stage, and monitor and nurture it more seriously
than ever. In 2022, we expect to see more organizations move up the maturity levels when
it comes to well-being. Moving from compliance to embedding well-being into the purpose
of the organization.
Compliance
“Our workers compensation claims for stress-
related conditions are spiralling and we need
to start with understanding how we meet the
minimum standard and reduce our costs”
Productivity
“We know the design of some of our work
and jobs is having a detrimental impact on
the well-being of our people and driving
down productivity”
Well-being as a commercial imperative
High performance
“We have ambitions to be a high-performing
organization in order to gain market advantage
and know that if we focus on the well-being of
our people, we can unlock potential”
Purpose
“We believe we have an obligation as an employer
to have a positive impact on society by paying
attention to the well-being of our people”
Well-being for societal impact
Organizations that are leading the way in wellbeing embed it in all aspects of their people
strategy. Research shows that this has a positive impact on retention, absenteeism levels,
productivity, and overall satisfaction.
Conscious
Leadership
Wellbeing strategy,
accountability, governance,
role modeling
Structural Behavioral
Wellbeing Wellbeing
Enabling job and work Leadership behaviour,
design, performance targets, custom and practice,
reward, and cultural cues mindset, daily habits
T RACTI ON
AT
Talent
ADVAN
I ON
Lifecycle
NT
CE
TE
M
RE T
EN
Sustainable impact
Improved productivity, engagement, talent attraction, retention
Why it matters
Well-being is becoming a make-or-break issue The implications for companies that fail to
for many employees. It is also being placed address the issue could be huge. At the mild
under unprecedented pressure, as individuals, end: reduced levels of performance and
organizations and economies struggle to engagement, and real problems attracting and
readjust to post-COVID-19 life. In a recent retaining the best people. At the more severe
Korn Ferry study, 89% of professionals feel end: total workforce burnout. This is a talent
they are suffering from burnout and 81% say trend that organizations ignore at their peril.
they are more burned out now than at the
start of the pandemic.
What leaders and organizations
can do to support well-being
Community
Implications
We think the time has come for a more
people-focused approach to ESG.
Working tirelessly with environment
scientists to find a path to net zero is
important. But if you aren’t considering
how your people are going to take you
down that path, your efforts are bound to
fall short.
• Solutions-oriented mindset
• Empathy
05
The culture and mindset question
Building credibility
Consumers are 7x more likely to
buy from a brand they trust
Reducing costs
Sustainability initiatives help to increase
efficiency and lower the overall cost
of operations
INDIVIDUALITY
Individuality
Give the people what they want WORK/LIFE BALANCE
INDIVIDUALITY
Delivering customer
grade experiences at work
To attract, engage, retain and access the best talent, be given more freedom and support to do
organizations will need to meet these changing their jobs the way they want.
demands by delivering consumer-grade experiences
at work. It is also about democratization. Currently, just
over half of UK employees are satisfied with the
This is partly about personalization. Working amount of involvement they have in decision-making
arrangements. Career paths. Learning and while 41% believe that management is secretive.
development. All will need to be increasingly If organizations want to retain, engage and
tailored to the individual. Employees will need to motivate high-quality professionals, those
numbers need to change.
Product-driven Customer-centered
Laundry list of features and functionality Solving customer needs with products
and services
Process-driven Employee-centered
Laundry list of requirements and rewards Solving employee needs with process and policy
Implications
In the past, many organizations tried to personalize
the employee experience by creating personas based
on demographics. Young Engineering Grad. New
Mom Returner. Etc. The problem with this approach?
Career values and demographics are not one and the
same. Who’s to say that the new mom and young
engineering grad are not both wildly ambitious,
creative, and open to professional risk?
02
Reduce policy, process Many processes have been designed to be
“idiot proof”. That tends to result in lengthy
and bureaucracy to and complex compliance-driven exercises.
Instead, consider designing processes with
leave simple processes a fully achieving and motivated employee
that afford flexibility or manager at the center.
03
Build your managers’ The success of a leader-centric system
depends on the leaders’ capabilities to make
capability to deliver good decisions. Guardrails and compliance
checks are reduced.
04
Consider personalization From their online application to their
development journey, there are opportunities
opportunities at each to personalize the employee experience at
touchpoint
INCLUSIVITY
Rise of
The need for agility and rapid innovation has led
more and more organizations to deploy teams,
teams
in which employees with diverse backgrounds
collaborate to achieve short-term goals.
Organizations can no longer afford “collections
of individuals”. They must intentionally focus on
unlocking collective wisdom of teams to solve
complex problems.
Search for
Increasingly, people want to see the impact of
their collective efforts on accelerating progressive
purpose
change and driving towards a common purpose
of building a more sustainable and inclusive world
for current and future generations.
Implications
Companies have a lot to gain by becoming more “we” Here’s what our latest research uncovered:
than “me”. Research shows that diverse and inclusive
teams are better at solving complex problems and
Organizations still view DE&I
make better decisions 87% of the time.
in terms of risk rather than
But harnessing the collaborative power of diverse opportunity…
teams takes some doing. Leaders will need to
overcome bias, break down siloed working practices, • 77% have developed non-discrimination,
and build a culture of true inclusion, where everyone bullying and harassment policies compared to
has a voice and feels valued for who they are. 31% who have integrated DE&I into business
operations
So how is everyone doing?
…and remain low down on
Over the past year, we have seen many organizations
the DE&I maturity scale.
return to the issue of diversity, equity and inclusion
(DE&I) with renewed focus. But the actions they are
• The majority are still engaged in early-stage
taking are still very limited in scope and ambition,
activities, such as developing DE&I strategy
compared to the actions we know are needed to
(61%) and unconscious bias training (58%).
move the dial on DE&I.
Prediction:
In 2022, many organizations will take their DE&I efforts to the
next level of maturity, by embracing both structural and behavioral
interventions to ensure sustainability of their efforts.
Four ways to move the DE&I dial in 2022
01
Inclusive leaders embrace the full diversity of
today’s workforces and know how to create
a safe space where people feel accepted and
empowered to give their best. They are critical
for enabling effective collaboration. But they are
Develop inclusive also extremely rare. Our research shows that only
02
According to Korn Ferry research, only 1 in 4
(25%) of organizations currently have DE&I KPIs
in place for people managers, with a further 19%
planning to implement them within the next 18
months. This needs to change. One of the most
Hold leaders effective ways to integrate DE&I with talent
03
Tackling individual biases (behavioral inclusion)
is an important step on the way to creating a
diverse and inclusive organization. But it’s not
enough. For behavioral changes to stick, you
need structural inclusion too. This means re-
Build DE&I into examining your structures, processes, practices
04
Make DE&I part of
Companies with above-average diversity report
19% higher innovation revenue. To boost collective
intelligence and problem-solving, start deploying
diverse-by-design teams, particularly in areas
how you innovate such as R&D, marketing, and customer services.
Solve for one,
benefit all
Companies such as Microsoft,
Google, Adobe and Nike
are driving innovation and
better products through
the application of inclusive
design. They use inclusive,
open, and transparent design
processes, and co-design
with people who have a
diversity of perspective,
including those that can’t
use or have difficulty using
the current design. This
approach led Nike to develop
its famous shoes without
shoelaces. Nike designed
the shoes for and with
their customers who had
cerebral palsy, but many
other customers enjoyed
the outcomes – including
kids and pregnant women.
ACCOUNTABILITY
TRUST
Accountability
Trust or bust
Since the pandemic forced people home, you’ve
asked it, or at least thought it, “are my people
really working?”. Trust seems to be in short
supply. According to a recent survey, 78 percent
of firms are using software to measure employee
productivity. And it led to employees asking, “why
do you care as long as I do the job?”.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Implications
Accountability is nothing new. But what accountability means is
changing. It’s not just about getting things done anymore—it’s
also about how you do it.
At an organizational level…
…we expect to see increased transparency. Organizations will be
more willing to publicly admit their mistakes as well as celebrate
their achievements. This will help to build trust with customers,
stakeholders and—critically—employees (who, research shows,
are three times more likely to stay with a company that
embodies purpose). Organizations will also need to look again
at their operating models, KPIs and organization structures to
ensure they are enabling accountability company-wide.
At a leadership level…
…leaders will need to rethink what accountability means, as
they adjust to new forms of remote and hybrid working and
respond to the demands of leading more agile, fluid teams.
Think enterprise rather than vertical. Think responsibility to
the business, not the silo.
At an individual level…
…employees will be given more opportunities to make their
own decisions and find their best approach. Devolving
accountability further down the organization will only work
if individuals and teams have a clear shared purpose and
understand how their decisions contribute to overall success.s.
Five ways
leaders can create
accountability
01
It’s important that everyone in your organization
feels empowered to make decisions without
always passing up the chain of command. It’s only
possible, however, if you make your purpose and
Be clear
values crystal clear. If people understand what your
organization is trying to achieve, and how they are
accountable for it, they will know what to do in
about purpose most situations without having to be told.
02
Two-way communication is critical for creating
accountability, not just with customers and wider
society but with your workforce as well. Not only
do you need to make sure all your decisions and
Communicate
action plans are clearly understood—you also need
to get out there among employees, providing them
with an open channel for feedback and using their
and get involved input to course-correct where needed.
not “me”
action. In 2019, Southwest Airlines reported losses
of more than $800 million due to issues with the
Boeing 737 Max airplane. When Boeing agreed to
The best leaders don’t just take accountability for pay the company compensation, Southwest CEO
their own actions. They make others accountable Gary Kelly immediately announced that he was
for their actions as well. Teamwork and trust are “looking for ways to share proceeds as appropriate
critical here. Simple gestures, such as saying with all our employees”. Subsequently, nearly $100
“We” rather than “I”, can help team members feel million of the settlement money has gone directly
more responsible and valued. In the American into the employees’ profit-sharing plan. It is actions
Psychological Association’s 2016 Work and like this that have enabled Southwest to create
Well-Being Survey, 95% of respondents who their famously strong working culture and that
said they felt valued by their employer also explain why they have made Glassdoor’s list of
said they felt motivated to do their best. the best companies to work for ten years running.
Run effective
have four-hour meetings with his leadership team,
as he believes it is essential for company health
meetings
to prevent siloing and keep everyone on the same
page. At the opposite end of the spectrum, former
Yahoo! CEO and former Google employee, Marissa
Meetings are a tool for enabling higher Mayer, holds around 70 meetings a week, each
productivity, honest communication, stronger lasting around five to ten minutes, because she
team-building and better results. To show you believes micro-meetings keep things focused and
understand and respect this, make sure every solution-oriented. The key is to find the meeting
meeting has a clear purpose, starts and finishes length that suits your company culture and that
on time, and is followed up by an email senior management thinks is most effective for
summarizing work assignments and deadlines. keeping track of what’s going on in the business.
05
Accountability must not be something that
only happens after the fact. Make sure there is
constructive feedback and dialogue at all stages and
levels—not just when things go wrong.
problems into has always been projected down from the very
top of the organization into every single decision,
continuous
especially hiring, firing and compensation. In the
company’s fulfillment centers, they apply popular
improvement
CI methods with an emphasis on team-based
kaizen events—a great example of ongoing
accountability in action.
Why it matters
Trust
Those that are accountable are
trusted to deliver, whether they are
employees, leaders or organizations.
By emphasizing your commitment
to what you have pledged to do, you
can strengthen bonds with teams,
customers, and stakeholders.
Performance
Accountability reduces the tendency
towards ineffective behavior—and the
time and effort you have to spend
policing it. Organizations that have a
strong culture of accountability send
a clear message that they are serious
about excellent work.
Ownership
When people are made accountable,
they feel like valued and important
members of the organization. They
have a sense of ownership that drives
them to do higher-quality work.
Confidence
Some people mistake accountability
for control. In reality, it’s about giving
people the freedom and confidence to
make their own decisions, supported
by constructive feedback from their
managers and teams.
Korn Ferry is a global organizational
consulting firm. We work with our clients
to design optimal organization structures,
roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire
the right people and advise them on how to
reward and motivate their workforce while
developing professionals as they navigate and
advance their careers. Our 7,000 experts in
more than 50 countries deliver on five core
areas: Organization Strategy, Assessment and
Succession, Talent Acquisition, Leadership
Development, and Total Rewards.