Some Perspectives
2023 Workforce Watchpoints
As we look to emerge from the past few years of isolation and return to the new workplace, there's 5 things on our watch-list for employers....let us know if they're on your list as well!
1. Collaboration Mastery
The quality of conversation and purposeful dialogue largely remains in deficit or in short supply in today’s workplace. Overcoming this challenge calls for an intentional preference and approach to better forms of leader-led dialogue. Best to think of this as the means to influence and to improve decisions; an approach where teams begin to connect and align on new directions and commitments across the breadth of agendas, be that daily scenarios or bigger ticket reforms.
Some people refer to it as genuine dialogue, others compassionate (needs-based) conversations; labels aside progress will be visible when workplace leaders begin to leverage both collective know how and diversity that exists with and in other teams; change agents begin to deliver reforms by way of shorter transition cycles and at lower organizational risk, and executives will get a better connected and more sustainable high-performance culture.
2. Productive & Respectful Behaviour
The start-point for any discussion on behaviour is the recognition that as individuals, we have and will continue to deal with a raft of COVID -related pressures which remain largely untested and challenge us in different ways emotionally, socially, and professionally and this all takes place in a very different workplace setting.
It is only reasonable that individuals will react and at times “act out” in ways that is neither typical of them nor conducive to a productive workplace and will do so at a time where workplace expectations, new work models, new capability requirements and our very notions of the workplace continue to evolve.
Employers will need to be vigilant here in maintaining behavioural norms, investigating grievances, mediating relationship tensions, and otherwise taking proactive steps to keep relationships intact and functioning in accordance with their stated values, let alone in order to comply with evolving legal requirements and carrying associated onus of proof.
3. Hybrid Working Capabilities
With so many people expecting to spend part of their time working remotely or as part of a remote work team, executives now need to look beyond this initial period of pandemic goodwill and equip their leaders with the know-how to keep team members connected, to “manage” remote workers, and to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening.
And there’s no better place to start than by paying attention to the remote working capabilities that matter most and motivating your leaders (and their teams) to develop habits that will strengthen these capabilities moving forward. Thankfully, these have already been identified in our pre-COVID era and can be best described as falling into the following three domains - working remotely (personal productivity), staying connected (belonging & teamwork), and self-development (wellbeing and resilience) - so what are you doing to equip your leaders take these conversations with their teams.
4. Reinvestment in ER & IR Governance systems
2023 will bring with it new terrains and challenges in the industrial relations landscape; an environment characterised by a wave of improved, worker-friendly regulatory settings, emboldened unions, and labor governments (at both State & federal levels) committed to even further reforms in this space.
All this at a time when many industries significantly disrupted by COVID and more challenging economic conditions, so no matter which way you view it personally, we can be certain there will be new IR/ER risks and opportunities for enterprises at the local level. The size of the shift will again put a spotlight on concepts/strategies around industrial collaboration, workforce (as opposed to employee) engagement, consultation, bargaining, and dispute/issue resolution...but for many employers, these are practices or capabilities that have at the very least been dormant, or more likely downgraded in recent times and not easily "switched back on".
5. EVP Entitlements & Policy Re-sets
The pandemic has disrupted much of what we had come to expect as “the norms”” in how workplaces were structured and choose to operate. New expectations, particularly those related to flexibility, safety and wellbeing, equality & fairness are now more deeply rooted and are or will soon challenge employers, particularly those with aspirations to be recognized as “employers of choice” or at very least employers with very strong employee value propositions, to be courageous and to engage and experiment with new ways of working.
On top of this, we are witnessing far more volatility in the labor market with employees in some sectors voting with their feet and demonstrating an appetite to move in ways we have seen in recent decades. Some level of policy and entitlement reviews and refresh will be inevitable in this context and required to support the new models of work, to attract and retain a high calibre workforce, and to maintain a contemporary compliance regime.