Work Beyond 2023
An analysis of a Harvard Business Review post that examines nine key trends that will shape work in 2023 and beyond!
Employers are facing multiple workforce-management challenges and are having difficulties coming up with novel strategies to attract and retain top talent. Gartner published a report highlighting the nine trends that will shape work in the future. Refer to Figure 1, below.
Figure 1- Source: Gartner
The report was further analyzed by HBR, and it presents a very interesting perspective on what employers need to do in 2023 and beyond to develop better, happier, and more dedicated workforces.
Facts That Matter:
- 58% of organizations that employ frontline workers have invested in improving their employee experience in the past year; about one-third of those who haven’t made such investments said that they intend to do so over the next twelve months.
- Employees’ stress and worry in 2022 grew above even 2020 peaks—nearly 60% of employees report that they are stressed at their jobs every day.
- Many new-to-the-workforce employees are struggling: 51% of Gen-Z employees say that their education has not prepared them to enter the workforce.
- A 2022 Gartner survey of nearly 3,500 employees found that when organizations help employees build connections intentionally, their employees are five times as likely to be on a high-performing team and twelve times as likely to feel connected to their colleagues.
The Harvard post further explains how companies can position themselves as employers of choice by getting ahead of the trends presented by Gartner and performing better than competitors. Employers must consider upskilling, inclusion, connections, and diversity as the major deliverables from the Gartner report and the Harvard review. Reducing stress, acclimatizing new workers, and creating a sense of community will prove to be game changers for modern organizations.
But how do organizations address these trends? What must change, and how? Does the modern technology gamut have the answers to the questions posed by the Gartner report? What about achieving better results while facilitating employee needs with hybrid work and better facilities? What role does data collection play, and how do companies ensure it is perceived not as a tool of manipulation and policing but as a way to collectively improve workforce performance and quality of work life?
The way an organization collects data, connects its employees, and creates a better workplace will determine its future, and we believe the answer is digital. Let’s take a closer look.
A Digital Workforce is a Future-Ready Workforce:
Companies must look toward innovative ways of providing engagement, training, performance improvement, monitoring, and control. All of this can be achieved with the right platform. Webalo is an industry-leading frontline-workforce digitization platform that can help companies get ahead of the curve of the trends highlighted by Gartner.
Performance Improvement- Webalo connects the frontline workforce with other organizational IT platforms, be they the ERP or the MES or any other enterprise-level application. In doing so, Webalo bridges the dark-data gap and allows workers to focus on their jobs and use mobile apps to access and disseminate relevant data. With Webalo, the information circle is complete and every relevant transaction is captured and reported.
When all data is available, it becomes easier for management to understand which areas need to improve in a given process and what the frontline’s training needs are. Performance improvement is a direct result of better and ethical data capturing, which Webalo makes possible. When the frontline sees how their captured data is being used to create a better workplace through enhanced training modules and improved processes, they not only adopt the platform but they also begin to rely on it, and that’s where the organization stands to benefit.
Enhanced Training and Engagement- Gen-Z employees feel that they are not ready for work and that their formal education did not prepare them to perform well at their jobs. This reality, when coupled with the effects that COVID-19 had on people gearing up to take jobs, means organizations must figure out how to make their new recruits feel accustomed to their jobs more quickly and in a meaningful manner.
Webalo comes to the rescue again! With Webalo, new employees can download the necessary apps to do their jobs and they are trained through their mobile devices. This experience can be truly engaging and drives better results from day one. Webalo passes job-specific standard operating procedures and work instructions directly to the worker executing said job. What’s more, the platform can be used to provide instructional videos, group chats, or video calls with experts, which makes training less monotonous and more engaging.
With Webalo, AR and VR, the two most effective training and engagement technologies, become available to manufacturers. This has a direct impact on how the workforce feels about accepting their tasks and how they understand their roles within overall processes.
Collaborative Workplace- With COVID-19 came the concept of hybrid work, and it has now become the norm. For manufacturers, this means their managers and staff members will occasionally engage with their workforce and operations digitally.
The Webalo Platform allows internal and external experts to connect with the frontline workforce and collaborate in a highly effective and rewarding manner. With collaboration come results, and with results comes resilience and enhanced profitability. When hybrid work allows for a closer working environment and faster resolution of issues, from breakdowns to job reschedules and everything in between, that’s when a company knows it is ahead of the trends and making strides toward a more sustainable future and a happier workforce.
