2023 Workplace Trends

Secondary Research Findings

Here is the universal list of trends that we collected going through published reports.

1. 1. Healing pandemic trauma opens path to sustainable performance
2. 2. An Emphasis on Strategic Transformation including Change Management & Organizational Design
3. 3. Leadership investment – for e.g., leadership courses, empathetic, authentic, and adaptive leadership
4. 4. Workplace surveillance / Performance management
5. 5. Increased Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Efforts
6. 6. Employee Experience and Engagement
7. 7. Retention over recruiting
8. 8. An Emphasis on Continued Employee Growth
9. 9. Going back to the office for friendships
10. 10. People want more autonomy
11. 11. Commute-worthy Workspaces
12. 12. Finding company culture in hybrid work
13. 13. Pay transparency gathers momentum
14. 14. Focus on Flexibility
15. 15. “Quiet hiring” offers new ways to snag in-demand talent
16. 16. Pursuit of non-traditional candidates expands talent pipelines
17. 17. Talent Shortages and Widening Skills Gaps
18. 18. A Continued Focus on Skills Over Jobs
19. 19. Emphasis on Soft Skills
20. 20. The balance of power shifts again in the war for talent/ Workers continue to have leverage
21. 21. Getting personal with employee support creates new data risks/ adequate privacy and cybersecurity features
22. 22. Algorithmic bias concerns lead to more transparency in recruiting tech
23. 23. Greater Use of AI, Automation, new tools/software including the Metaverse
24. 24. Transformation of HR Using Tech and Data using data strategy, data governance, data storytelling, a solid data architecture, and advanced analytics
25. 25. Mobile app integration
26. 26. Squeezed by competing leader and employee expectations, managers need support
27. 27. Prioritization of Employee Well-Being/ Mental wellbeing
28. 28. Renewed Focus on Sustainability

Sthir Primary Research

Based on our findings from the secondary research, we put together all these trends in 5 broad buckets and decided to put them to vote. These were –

1. 1. Business Performance
2. 2. Employee Experience
3. 3. Leveraging Technology
4. 4. Talent Management (Acquisition & Retention)
5. 5. Workplace Wellbeing
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To these responses, we added what our experience has been engaging with our clients and prospective clients. You may look at it as our qualitative primary research. Based on the inputs that we got from business leaders and our experience, this is what we at Sthir think will be the 2023 trends at the workplace.

Trend #1. The most important trend that will characterize every workplace is a renewed stress on employee health and wellbeing. Organizations will move away from traditional methods of looking at health and wellbeing like physical wellbeing (through menus in the cafeteria, healthy snacks, exercise regimens) and mental health to an integrated look at the total wellbeing of an employee. This is increasingly being referred to as happiness.

Trend #2 Employee experience is increasingly becoming the differentiator in a heavily contested war for talent. In terms of experience here are the 3 things from our findings

• Willingness of workplaces to go beyond the lip service to DEI and actually work on getting the diverse voice heard and amplified.
• The advent of cutting-edge technology in making experience high tech, but workplaces continue to work on keeping it high touch. And therefore, all technologies which can humanize the experience will get more attention and buyers too.
• The hybrid workplace is here to stay and for this reason, flexibility at the workplace will be a need to have and no longer a nice to have. A lot of thought will go into finding new ways to monitor and leverage this phenomenon rather than being prey to it in terms of performance leakages.
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Trend #3 Technology has become all pervasive. Data analytics has actually become passe. What we are looking at now is artificial intelligence and similar technologies to humanize the employee experience in a bid to enhance the ‘feel good factor’. While all this is happening, privacy breaches are being viewed unkindly making organizations look at their technology adoptions with some amount of caution. The CIO will have to work hand-in-hand with the CHRO to ensure that the organization takes care of this risk prudently. With virtual reality getting into the employee experience space, employee privacy, data protection, data privacy will occupy a larger mindshare of the leadership.

Trend #4 Talent Management will occupy the largest mind share in the mind of leaders and all the previously mentioned trends will be given priority on how it influences the employer brand in the eyes of the current employee and the prospective employee. Add to this workplaces continue to struggle with  functional skills and behavioural skills (especially in the Gen Z) and therefore L&D will continue.

Trend #5 Business Performance concerns. Our research tells us that there are 2 areas which are of concern to leaders today.

• One is the issue of business culture. How to create one and how to sustain one? In the face of the new way of working (hybrid workplace), organizations are still struggling between online meetings, 3 days at work, chai & coffee catch ups to find their natural rhythm. We think 2023 should see a year where organizations will discover their natural rhythm. 
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• The other issue is of performance management. The workplace is seeing both extremes – white collar lethargy, moonlighting as well as burn outs and often in the same organization. This year will see a lot of experimentation, a lot of different sands that organizations will take to see if it works. And as said earlier hopefully they will find their own rhythm, but this is going to take time as we see taking a ringside view.