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It’s nearly the middle of 2021, and, thankfully, we appear to be coming to the end of what has been a horrific and deadly global health pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown many people what they truly value in life, and that elusive work-life balance has taken a big hit for many as the reliance on employees and income has shown some businesses to be incredibly kind to their employees, and other businesses to treat their employees with contempt.
Working Through Life Changes
Working through the covid-19 global pandemic has been seen as a privilege for many, and many more thousands have lost their jobs or have to take drastically reduced hours because of cutbacks.
Just because having a job and an income has been seen as a privilege in the last 12-months, it doesn’t mean that this will continue, and many employees are now looking towards the future and their future in work to see how they can change their lives to ensure that they are happy and secure at work and that their work can still provide the income and flexibility they need to support their family’s financial and social health.
Employers and Employees Working Together
From an employee and business perspective, working through the pandemic has been a great challenge, and it’s in times of great adversity that businesses tend to rely on their employees more and more to do jobs that may be out of the spec.
With the changing role of work in life just over the horizon, here are five trends that are expected to change the world of work in a post-COVID-19 world.
The Rise Of Co-Working
Remote working and co-working were already gaining in great popularity before the covid-19 health pandemic hit, but now that more businesses have shown that working from home is not only a possibility but is actually completely viable as a long-term solution, more employees will want this to continue.
Once employees are able to socialize fully again, there will be another increase in the world of co-working, where employees from all kinds of businesses work together in a remote location.
This gives businesses a great opportunity to allow their employees to network and learn from each other, possibly gaining new skills and meeting new people such as employees doing the same job for a different company or employees doing an entirely different job for a different company.
Networking will be vital to businesses in the coming years as the world tries to recover from the covid-19 health pandemic, and many businesses will be looking for ways to expand their offering with trusted partner organizations.
They may choose to partner with a startup to boost innovation or even tender out options for supply and delivery to companies with whom they have met in person and have built a trusting relationship.
Less Job Movement
One of the trends that businesses will be pleased about is losing job movement between employees in a post-pandemic world.
While many employees were unlucky enough to lose their jobs during the pandemic, those that have a job and those who have been able to find a new job will be looking towards the future with their current company.
Before the pandemic, moving jobs every 2-5 years was quite common in most industries, but after the pandemic, people will be looking for stability, and they will be considering the long-term benefits of having a career in a company they plan to stay with for longer than they may have done pre-pandemic.
Mental Health Support Will Change
The global health crisis has shone a light on the need for better mental health support within businesses, and this is a trend that so many people are actually embracing.
It’s time that businesses stopped treating people like human resources rather than human beings. In addition, the support for mental health and emotional well-being both inside work and outside work needs to be put in place to ensure that all employees are working to the best of their abilities at all times.
Wholistic Approach To Work and Life
As well as mental health support, the focus on well-being and social responsibility for businesses will also increase over the next few years.
Workers and businesses have been through horrific times in the last 12-18 months, and those businesses who have focused on supporting not only their employees but also their families will be rewarded with greater loyalty and greater effort from their employees.
Increasingly we are seeing companies put safeguards into place to look after their employees’ well-being with mental health support, physical health support, and even emotional support during crisis, but this will increase to include the wider families of employees to ensure that everyone is being supported in the best way possible.
Increase In Focused Skills
There has been a great change in the world of work over the last decade, especially in areas of technology.
These great swathes of change will mean that more employers are looking for focused skill sets rather than generic skills so that they can improve efficiencies and innovations in their own business.
While it may have been traditional for kids to leave school and go to college to get a generic degree before entering the world of work, these days, more and more employers are looking for employees who have demonstrable skills in their line of work, and more employers are looking to train those skills from day one.
This will hopefully lead to an increase in offerings for apprenticeships and paid internships.
More businesses understand the need for highly skilled and focused skilled employees and the reality that employees cannot work for free during an unpaid internship or apprenticeship.
It’s an understanding that you get the best out of people when you give them the right help and support (and monetary support included) to support themselves and their families from day one of working within your industry and within your organization.
