From article: Top 8 Workplace Trends to Watch For In 2021 published by Human Resources Today

What a year! 2020 has changed and shaken up everything: the way we live, the way we communicate, and the way we work. It has completely transformed the workforce and workplace trends. Almost all organizations worldwide had to make rapid adaptations: fully distributed team, remote onboarding process, etc.

What does that mean for the future of the workplace? As a result of this, ‘the new normal’, workplace trends for 2021 are more difficult to predict than ever. However, we can take a careful look at top trends for the future of the workplace to keep our organizations healthy and productive.

Let’s dive right into the top workplace trends that will shape our working life in 2021.

1. Remote Mode

Only about 10 percent of workers in the US worked remotely before the pandemic. Nevertheless, COVID-19 showed us that remote work was possible. Possible, yet difficult. Many organizations were unprepared for mass remote work. No more office meetings and daily commute. Long live Zoom, new remote work ethics, and house slippers. It’s the biggest remote work experiment we have ever seen.

Obviously, remote work is a global rising long-term trend. How will that impact us? First, residents of the largest metropolitan areas are interested in living in the suburbs. They are relocating to feel safe and save money on real estate, either temporarily or permanently. Concurrently, rents in big cities are declining this year compared to last.

Large companies enact a complete work-from-home policy and even sell their headquarters. Some of them are adjusting pay like Stripe: their employees have to take a pay cut to work remotely. Alternatively, Reddit now offers a permanent work-from-home policy without localized compensation.

The issue every remote worker has faced is setting up a productive and comfortable workspace at home. Unfortunately, working from a sofa or even a bed is not an option. To take care of your physical and mental health whilst working remotely, make sure to prepare a dedicated workspace. This should be a comfortable chair, table, and all needed equipment like a laptop, web camera, earphones, etc. This will be your work ecosystem in the immediate future.

2. Deep Digital Transformation

To better maintain day-to-day business operations in the era of remote work, organizations need to embrace digital transformation. Quick and successful adoption of technologies for safety and efficiency is a game-changer across all sectors. 

Two studies by McKinsey and KPMG found that almost 80 percent of companies accelerated the implementation of technology due to the pandemic. We’ve discovered that there are many digital products and services that can enhance the way we work.

It would be impossible to go remote without the solid assistance of technologies, especially for large companies. With a dramatic shift to remote working, we’ve adopted lots of work management tools, but the question is: do they really help us be more productive?

Almost 100 years ago, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that the amount we work would gradually shrink to 15 hours a week with the help of technology. As we can see, it turned out to be exactly the other way around. Having the opportunities to work more effectively, we began to spend extra time at work.

In fact, digital transformation is not just about implementing technologies. It is a long and comprehensive process that requires a cultural and mindset shift. Your employees need to be ready to work with new technologies and processes. If they have skill gaps, more training is necessary to support the digital transformation in your company.

Another challenge for organizations during the new workplace trends is to choose the right set of trusted business applications that align with their existing corporate ecosystems. There are some types of useful applications available in the market to boost team productivity and deliver a streamlined end-to-end experience:

• Team communication tools with video and audio calls,
• Centralized file-sharing systems,
• Project and task management tools,
• Time tracking apps,
• Remote control and desktop sharing tools.

Also, employers are expected to support safer in-person collaboration in the office with the help of technologies. For instance, there are services that allow employees to see which collaboration pods are booked in advance.

As a result, they can plan which days they’ll work remotely and which days they’ll spend in the office. In addition, there are occupancy sensors that show how many more people can enter a room.

All these digital transformations point to one fact: our workplace trends will сhange dramatically in 2021.

3. The New Role of HR

2020 was the year when the importance of HR departments raised dramatically. And there is no surprise. Most of the current issues in the recent workplace trends are related to people. From effective remote management and health safety to adapting new recruitment tools and workflows, it is time to be the heroic leaders for HR.

Successfully managing the transformation of HR is a game-changer for all organizations, especially in these challenging times.

In 2021, there will be many new emerging responsibilities for human resources departments. They will be focused on keeping their workers safe, happy, healthy, and productive as well as taking workers’ needs into account. Organizations are striving to make employees as successful as possible and treat them as stakeholders. And nowadays it’s a real challenge.

How’s the new role of HR going to look? The main concept of a new type of communication between HR leaders and workers sounds like, It’s about people first. That’s a big fundamental shift. Now HR leaders need to see their colleagues as people rather than workers, listening and continuing the dialogue with workers. As a result, communication is expected to get more clear and sincere.

In addition, HR leaders have to deal with a larger talent pool that has emerged due to a global decentralized workforce. Recruitment is not tied to location-based work. Alternatively, nowadays organizations have access to talent from all around the world, without needing to relocate the workers they hire. 

As a result, some groups of talent like parents or those with disabilities now can compete on the labor market due to remote and flexible work. That broadens HR’s view on who can be considered for a given job, improving diversity and inclusion.

4. The Focus on Employee Mental and Physical Health

The focus on employee health isn’t new. Nevertheless, it’s not going anywhere. What’s more, the pandemic was a catalyst for ‘sustainable work-life’. Organizations start focusing on people’s safety, happiness, and physical and mental health. Let’s be honest, nowadays the level of our personal stress is increasing. We don’t know what to expect in the future, we are afraid to lose our job, we worry about loved ones’ wellbeing, etc.

• Workers believe this is ‘the most stressful year in history’. (Source)
• Three out of four workers have struggled at work due to anxiety caused by Covid-19. (Source)

Stress will definitely lead to a loss in productivity. So, employers want to ensure that employees’ stresses can be handled during these challenging times. Organizations take steps to ensure employees’ wellbeing including benefits, like for example, virtual seminars on stress, or childcare.

Also, some companies have bought corporate licenses of wellness apps like Calm, Fitbit, and BetterHelp to help workers meditate, stay fit, etc.

What’s more, organizations will ensure a safe return to the workplace. That includes automated elevator temperature detection solutions and contact tracing tools that notify workers who have been in contact with another Covid-positive worker.

Why is this trend so important for organizations? Nowadays employees choose safety and health over opportunities for professional growth when evaluating potential employers. Considering this, companies need to appreciate the importance of employees’ health and wellbeing to compete in the labor market.

5. The Right to Disconnect

Remote work has almost destroyed traditional offices, in-person meetings, and the daily commute. Now our nine to five schedule and private home lives are at risk. What’s the result? It turned out that remote work goes hand in hand with overwork and burnout. 

There are many reasons for this phenomenon. First, many feel working extra hours may secure their job during these challenging times. Second, we just don’t know how to achieve a work-life balance.

And there’s no surprise. Remote workers don’t have an obvious signal to end the working day. As a result, working hours and online searches on Google for ‘burnout’ are increasing significantly. Some people who work remotely even recreate mini ‘commutes’ to separate working hours and private life. It’s interesting since escaping the commute traditionally seems to be a key benefit of remote working.

Creating a clear division between work and home to maintain a work-life balance is recognized as a public health issue in 2021. When the boundary between work life and personal life is blurred, switching off after work is becoming crucial.

There are some ways you can support your team and yourself to avoid burnout while working remotely:

• Getting out in the fresh air for a walk and physical activities are some of the best things for mental health because it reduces the level of stress.
• To balance your workload, plan your working week in advance. It’s also a great idea to break your workload down into small achievable tasks.
• Pack away your work laptop, documents, and notes when you’ve finished for the day.
• Make post-work plans like an online workout or a call with a friend in the evening. This helps you mark the end of your day.
• Self-discipline and focus are strongly required to be a successful remote worker. Otherwise, burnout is followed.

6. The Changing Face of the Office

While many organizations go fully remote, some of them offer the flexibility of a hybrid workplace: employees can go into an office for a few days a week. That means an office is not dead. However, its role will change dramatically. Now an office isn’t about a desk—probably all employees have desks at home. 

Rather, the office’s new role is about creating social experiences and a collaborative environment. Workers will be able to interact, socialize, engage face-to-face, learn from one another, and develop their skills.

In the era of Covid-19, offices will provide employees with the thing we miss the most today—human interactions, social activities, corporate culture. We do need to interact with colleagues face-to-face, despite the fact that digital transformation and technologies bring us many useful methods to collaborate remotely. 

As a result, the office design will be focused rather on effective collaboration than the physical location of desks and laptops.

The solution to this issue is a hybrid workplace that allows for sociability (at an office) and flexibility (at home). That means employees come into the office for a few days a week and work remotely for the rest. 

Statistics show that more than 70 percent of workers want a hybrid remote-office model. Some companies split their workforce into ‘Team A’ and ‘Team B’ which switch off between office and remote work. That makes an office safer and work more flexible.

7. Location and Time Flexibility

2020 has accelerated the adoption of flexible working. It will definitely continue to form a part of our working lives in 2021 workplace trends — focus on flexibility as a whole. To boost employee productivity, our work will become a blend of different places, working hours, and even time zones.

And statistics show that it’s the right decision. Only 36 percent of employees were top performers working a standard 40-hour workweek. Alternatively, organizations that offer workers full flexibility, see 55 percent of their employees as top performers. As a result, in 2021, a rise of a trend to measure employees’ performance by their output, not by hours worked.

The workforce will continue to disperse and get unparalleled flexibility to decide their work hours and location. For instance, some companies adopt a hybrid approach where employees can both come into the office and work remotely.

• 62 percent of Google employees want to return to their offices, but not every day.
• 72 percent of Slack employees want a hybrid remote-office model instead of fully a work-from-home environment.

There is another side of flexibility and implementing new technologies in the era of remote work: companies can (or want) track their employees and their productivity. This practice often fuels tension within an organization. What’s more, employees stop trusting their companies.

Sure, employers need to make sure that workers are pushing their projects forward. Nevertheless, installing monitoring software won’t build trust. The better idea is to implement a platform for open discussions and allow your employees to have more personal freedom to act.

8. The Demand for Retraining and Reskilling

The pandemia changed the landscape of the labor market dramatically. As a result, the skills gaps are widening. Also, the digital transformation of organizations has catalyzed the demand for retraining. Employees need to obtain the skills required to do the new jobs as well as to do the jobs in a new way.  

• Only 16 percent of new hires possess the skills needed for their current jobs. (Gartner).
• More than 50 percent of employers say that half of their workforce will need to improve their skills in the next three years (Deloitte).
•  78 percent of workers believe the pandemic has increased the need for companies to support their educational needs. (Bright Horizons).

All the evidence suggests that upskilling and retraining employees will be a priority in 2021. That’s a win-win for everybody, both employers and employees. Speaking of the dominant trend of reskilling and retraining, we can highlight a few ‘mini’ trends that will define our work lives shortly:

• Among the most in-demand skills, we will find artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and healthcare IT, and UX design.
• Workers are planning to upskill themselves to remain a desired asset in the labor market because of the fear that automation technologies will replace them.
• Soft skills including written communication, verbal communication, analytical skills, etc. will be of prime importance.
•  The importance of retraining and reskilling will be a part of the corporate culture.
• Organizations will encourage self-directed learning.

Final Thoughts

2020 has changed the modern workplace trends dramatically, and many of these changes are here to stay.

The eight key trends below will define the way we work in 2021 and beyond:

• Remote work is a global rising long-term trend.
• Organizations need to embrace deep digital transformation.
• The importance of HR departments raised dramatically. They are shifting to a ‘person-centered’ approach.
• Organizations start focusing on people’s safety, happiness, and physical and mental health.
• Maintaining a work-life balance to avoid burnout while working remotely is more crucial than ever before.
• The offices are not dead. However, their role will change dramatically: now offices are about creating social experiences and a collaborative environment.
• Organizations will offer full flexibility: our work will become a blend of different places, working hours, and even time zones.
• Employees need to obtain the skills and focus on self-learning.

We have discussed just a few of the workplace trends that will shape the workplace in 2021. Obviously, there are many more workplace changes. However, now you are better prepared for 2021, which will be a whole new world.