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2021 Work Trends: Should We Continue to Be Surprised?

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Over the last ten months, the entire workplace changed, as did the expectations of employees and contractors. But not everything that happened last year was a total shock — so why should we allow 2021 work trends to surprise us?

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about the workplace trends we would most likely see in 2020. Of course, when that post went live no one could have predicted the impact a global pandemic would have on the future of work. Still, as you’ll see below, we shouldn’t have been too surprised by how much the workplace changed.

In fact, maybe we should be proud of our ability to anticipate, accept, and adapt…

The Death of the Office

Our 2020 Prediction:

“It’s official: the office is dead. The office your parents knew, that is.

2020 will build on a trend that’s been on the rise in 2018 and 2019. More employees rely on technology to do their jobs and keep up with their teams. This means that more employees know they can do their jobs from anywhere–and they’re not afraid to ask the boss for that benefit. According to the Society for Human Resources Management, 69% of organizations allow their employees to work from home at least some of the time, and 27% of organizations allowed full-time remote work arrangements.”

Our 2020 Reality:

In our “now normal,” far more than 69% of organizations allow their employees to work from home.

The real question is: How many of those companies — once we start to put the pandemic behind us — will let the majority of their employees continue to work from home? And how many will want business environments to revert to our “old normal”?

Our 2021 Work Trends Forecast:

As Mark S. Babbitt says, “‘We know we gave you all that freedom, but now we’re taking it back — said no good employer, ever.'” Companies that want to retain the best of their talent will work hard to co-create a “new normal” that keeps the good aspects of the pandemic workplace. That most certainly includes working from home.

The Rise of Employee Activism

Our 2020 Prediction:

“Nothing seems to be holding employees back from pursuing what matters to them, even if it means speaking up against their own employer.

Half of all millennial employees have spoken out about employer actions about a controversial societal issue. The same Bloomberg study found that younger employees are more likely to be activists, though millennials are the biggest activist generation. In 2019, we saw countless examples of employee activism instigated by a sensational (and divisive) political climate. For example, hundreds of Wayfair employees walked out after learning that the company sold furniture to a Texas detention center for migrant children.”

Our 2020 Reality:

Like the pandemic, no one could have predicted the intensity demonstrated during the Black Lives Matter protests and — on the far other ends of the spectrum — the MAGA rallies that took place in 2020 and early 2021. Along the way, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and many other companies faced employee walk-outs in 2021.

Our 2021 Work Trends Forecast:

One would like to think companies would go into 2021 with eyes (and minds) wide open. However, already this year, we’ve seen employees take a stand against the positions of their employers, including insisting that corporations suspend donations to certain politicians, political parties, and PACs.

A Workplace That Stands for Something

Our 2020 Prediction:

“Millennials need to work for a purpose, not just money or a career.

A CNBC survey found that 69% of employees want to work for a company with clearly-stated values, and 35% stated that the most critical factor in their workplace happiness was the feeling that their work is meaningful. And these days, employees are willing to trade money for a purpose, with 9 in 10 employees stating that they would take a pay cut if it meant they could do meaningful work. In fact, when employees were asked to rank what matters most to them in their work, money was a distant second to workplace purpose.”

Our 2020 Reality

The only aspect of this prediction that changed? We need to add Gen Z to the discussion. For younger generations in the workforce, the concept of trading work hours for dollars and going home feeling fulfilled is now completely outdated. And employers are best served by seeing the writing on the wall.

Our 2021 Work Trends Forecast:

Employers will have no choice in 2021: In large part, performance and profits will be determined by an employees’ alignment to the company’s purpose.

The Changing Definition of Benefits

Our 2020 Prediction:

“Employees (especially millennials) won’t turn their nose up at decent benefits.

Millennials are the job-hopping generation, with half of all millennials (compared to 60% of all non-millennials) stating that they plan to be working at a different company than their current one by next year. But for the few years you do have your employees, they want that time to be worth their while. Younger workers are pushing back against the idea of work as a constant obsession. More of them demand increasing flexibility and benefits that reflect it, such as more paid leave after having a baby, the ability to work remotely, or allowances for breaks during the day.”

Our 2020 Reality

Bingo! The pandemic forced employers to consider not-so-common benefits like in-home child care, elderly parent care, mental health and wellness, virtual therapy, and so much more. In addition, the “always-on” aspect of working from home made the setting of boundaries — and taking real breaks from work — a real issue for remote workers.

Our 2021 Work Trends Forecast:

As we said just a moment ago: “Companies… will work hard to co-create a ‘new normal’ that takes into consideration all the good aspects of the pandemic workplace.” Like our freedom, employers can’t give us something that makes our lives better and then take it back. Right?

What Surprises Will 2021 Bring?

Experts like to say the workplace trends of 2020 caught us by surprise. But did they? Did they really?

Keep a close eye on 2021 work trends and surprises. And see how many of them — just like the trends and “surprises” of 2020 did  — will make work, and our lives, better.

 

Rise Above the Waiting For Godot Workplace Standard

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“Hold your fire —
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame
’til the dream ignites —
A spirit with a vision
Is a dream with a mission…”

—Neil Peart, Mission

It’s like every company meeting you’ve ever been in is a contemporary retelling of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Repetitive 20th century tragicomedies in continuous incremental acts. Painfully existential 30 to 60 to 90+ minutes blocks of time that makes you question why you’re there, along with the why of humanity and your very own soul.

You gather in conference rooms in pairs or teams, young and old, from diverse backgrounds and possibly a different country or three. More than likely somebody next to you is pretty new, whether co-worker or manager.

Some of you wait in the rooms, some of you on the conference phone lines, only to hear every other word during the meeting, if you’re lucky, with no video conferencing in sight.

Maybe there’s a formal agenda. Or a poorly written e-mail resent so many times you’re not sure which version you’re supposed to be referencing. Or there’s someone’s notes that loosely resembles one of your mother’s crumpled undecipherable to-do lists from childhood.

The leader, whoever that is at whatever level, arrives 5 to 10 minutes late, as always. He or she then opens up with an unrelated anecdote, interrupting those of you discussing what you did over the weekend, or the night before.

Stuff is discussed. Progress reviewed. Deliverables assigned. Subordinates undermined. Contradictions intertwined. Yet another reorg announced. A new CEO coming on board. Another round of investment coming in if your founders agree to switch from making X’s to making Y’s. And now you know you’ll have to work late every single night for the next three weeks.

You all adjourn to meet again a week or so later to find out that not much if anything had moved. Then you’ll have to relive it all while defending yourself during your annual performance review.

Let’s go; everything changes; nobody moves. The old “Godot” standard.

This isn’t all fair, I know. There are many companies and business leaders who rise above the painful ambiguity and actually get stuff done. But it’s still a top-down hierarchical hailstorm of old-school motivation, engagement and productivity. Even in global multi-national companies where progress is glacial until a dramatic upheaval of some kind, and where employees and leaders come and go, the world creates, innovates and moves products and services.

And now that Millennials are pretty much the majority of the workforce today, they’re aspiring for something different than the status quo, and inspiring in every generation something more. Weber Shandwick, in partnership with KRC Research, recently released Employees Rising: Seizing the Opportunity in Employee Activism. First, they remind us that more than 8 in 10 employees (84%) have experienced some kind of employer change in the past few years — most typically a leadership change (45%). And only 3 of 10 employees are deeply engaged with their employers (we’ve heard that over and over again, haven’t we?).

Activism isn’t new, but employee activism as explained in the above research and discussed with Jon Mertz and Danny Rubin on the TalentCulture #TChat Show is gaining traction. Every new generation pokes and prods at the status quo and thank goodness for that.

Employee engagement is the old Godot standard. However, employee activism today takes a more elevated mindset and initiates and executes positive actions with usually little to no negative reactions. This extends from leadership to human resources to front-line employees and all communication points in between. This workplace activism embraces a greater calling for businesses today, think corporate social responsibility, yet still drives new revenue growth, new customers, new products, better relationships in the workplace with leadership and employees.

Let’s go; everything changes; everybody moves and makes magic and a living. The new activist standard.

So leadership today please take note from the workforce majority: focus on the people first. Not just the other stuff that’s just about growth and return at the expense of people. Now more than ever many of us both young and old want employee well-being, employee growth and development, and a higher sense of purpose for the work we choose to do and the employee we choose to do it with. This all underscored by Deloitte’s fourth annual Millennial Survey.

We all long for flexibility and fun and greater purpose, but work is actually really hard at times, and it will be stressful and mind-numbing and even a little soul-sucking, especially when we’re working in a job that’s maybe not so higher purpose because we need the work. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again a thousand times – making a living plus an elevated mindset is all hard work.

We all still aspire to do the things we love to do for a higher purpose. And when these opportunities present themselves (and hopefully more businesses are helping present them), the power grid switch from passive to active flips on and every point in the pre-hire and post-hire experience lights us up like a summer county fair.

Because if we can, we all must rise above waiting for Godot workplace standard to do the same. That’s the part when we wink and smile and hold our fires burning bright.

I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined the Talent Board, the organization behind the Candidate Experience Awards. I will help lead and further their mission of benchmarking and elevating the candidate experience and recruiting performance, from the first job post to the final onboarding and beyond in North America and around the world. Join us and the 2015 CandE Winners at the 2nd Annual Candidate Experience Symposium September 30 – October 2 in Fort Worth, TX.  Connect with me to learn more.