What Will the Future Workplace Look Like in 5 Years?

There’s been a lot written about remote work, hybrid work, and the gig economy. While the future workplace certainly will allow more flexibility for workers, there are some fundamental changes to the way companies are approaching the future of work.

General Motors has announced it will hire 8,000 technical workers.  Most of them will be full-time employees working remotely. Ford and other automakers are also adding to remote teams to their ranks. Stellnis NV anticipates hiring another 4,500 software engineers with talent hubs globally — eclipsing the number of internal tech workers by a factor of 4.5 to 1 by 2024.

Are workers ready for the shift? Nearly 60% of employees in a recent survey said they are confident they thrive amid significant workplace changes and adapt to new strategies and technology. That’s good news because nearly a third of companies say they expect a major reorganization to the current operating model.

Predicting the future of work is always tricky. A lot can happen between now and then. The Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Council in 2018 barely mentioned remote work, instead focusing on automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics as key changes ahead.

So, what will the future of work look like in 5 years? Here’s some of what we see is possible.

Remote and Hybrid Work, Flex Scheduling

About half of all knowledge workers worldwide are already working remotely, according to Gartner, representing a third of all workers globally.

Amid a continued shortage of skilled workers, organizations are now more comfortable finding employees outside of their previous geographic limitations. However, companies are looking at remote work differently these days. Based on their experience over the past two years, remote work is no longer about outsourcing, part-time work, or engaging freelancers. It’s now about finding the best talent available globally for full-time remote work.

Companies will also embrace flexible scheduling to accommodate workers. Working parents, for example, will be able to stagger schedules to deal with the demands of child care. Organizations will become less tied to the five-day, 40-hour workweek as long as the work gets done.

Focus on Skills, Not Roles

Companies leveraging remote or hybrid work will focus more on skills and less on roles. Roles tend to describe how team members fit within a hierarchy. In a move towards a more flat org structure, companies will care more about the skills it takes to get the job done.

This allows for greater specialization and provides opportunities for workers with deep expertise in key areas that drive business. At the same time, businesses will evaluate employees more based on deliverables and task completion rather than subjective productivity models.

Pay scales will require re-evaluation with salaries based on the quality of work rather than employee experience, longevity or location.

The Role of the Office

The office itself is changing, too. With more remote and hybrid teams, the office environment becomes a gathering spot to interact and exchange ideas rather than focus on task work. “Offices are going to be hubs of innovation and social interaction,” said Bhuysan Sethi at global consulting firm PwC.

This more closely aligns with what employees say they want in hybrid environments: remote and at-home work for tasks with in-office time focusing on building relationships and collaboration.

Offices also become a place to train less seasoned employees, providing them more structure and guidance until they can work more independently.

Plan for Resilience

One thing organizations found during the pandemic was that having a distributed workforce working remotely allowed them to continue to operate regardless of local conditions or concerns about in-person contact.

Smart companies have learned from that. Rather than viewing remote work as a temporary situation, organizations are viewing remote work as a business continuity imperative. With a globally-distributed workforce, companies are better able to overcome talent shortages and reliance on localized labor pools.

Distributing the workforce also helps with risk mitigation. If there’s severe weather, natural disasters, power outages, or cyberattacks that shut down office networks, it can cripple geographically-concentrated businesses. With a distributed workforce, many operations can continue as normal.

AI, RPA, and Robotics in the Workplace

One thing the Future of Jobs Report in 2018 did get right is the escalating impact of artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and robotics in the workplace. As AI, machine learning, and deep learning tools become smarter and more efficient, many of the routine and manual tasks can be automated, freeing up workers to handle higher-level tasks.

AI and robotics will certainly displace some workers, but they will also create new roles to manage and leverage technology.

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Crossover is a visionary - we saw the future workplace was 100% remote back in 2014. Now we connect the world's top 1% of professionals with high-performing organizations offering full-time remote positions.

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