The last few years have profoundly changed how we see work and what work we are willing to do. The status quo has been, in many ways, laid bare for all to see and many people did not like what they saw. This, and many other reasons, is why work is changing so rapidly. From remote work to vaccine mandates, the world of employment and business management is changing fast. So here are some possible changes and challenges of 2022.
Diversity remains a challenge
While many CEOs and managers now have to think much harder about diversity in their companies, it still remains an uphill battle. This is clear when looking at the recent changes. When employees return from the home office into a hybrid work scenario, women and people of colour are more likely to stay at home (with no impact on their performance, it needs to be stressed).
The traditional office continues to be a difficult place for people of minority groups, and it will be the challenge of 2022’s entrepreneurs and bosses to find better, more inclusive, and more comfortable solutions for their businesses. Working with sensitivity groups and activists as well as seeing government recommendations may be the first steps towards a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
Vaccines or tests?
Despite the clear advantage of vaccines and their ability to move COVID-19 away from a deadly pandemic to a sickness that’s manageable by most people in society, many people are unlikely to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons. And their employers are listening to them as well. The push from employers to return to the office has prompted many companies to abolish vaccine mandates for their workers and focus instead on continuous testing and tracking.
The impact of this will be twofold: firstly, it will take much longer for the coronavirus to be less destructive and secondly, it will keep many workers in a hybrid or fully remote working situation so as to avoid potential infection. This brings us to remote work in 2022.
Remote work and remote management
Remote work is here to stay. Whether a full-time employee will now work entirely from home or they will have some sort of a hybrid work set-up, employees are unlikely to return to the office at the same scale as they were before the pandemic.
This, however, brings several problems. As stated above, working from home and working from the office don’t see any drastic difference in the performance of an employee, as long as remote work remains a choice for them. However, many managers and bosses still see remote work as less valuable and are hence less likely to give promotions or pay raises to remote workers.
What’s more, as tools for remote work from home accommodation become more and more sophisticated, so do tools for employee monitoring. Oftentimes they are the same software. As more and more managerial work will be relegated to automated software, there is a real opportunity for them to either build better relationships with their employees or to depend on monitoring tools instead, further isolating themselves from their employees’ potential.
Only 2022 will tell where each company will turn, but these are among the most likely ways in which work will be changed this year.
