By Khadim Batti, CEO and Co-founder at Whatfix
We just recently passed two full years of many companies mandating their employees to work from home due to the pandemic, but businesses have been slowly moving back into an office, with some even planning to go back full time in the coming months. These changes may come as a shock to many employees, especially for Gen Z who joined the workforce during the pandemic and working from home is the only professional experience they may have. However, many employers feel the need to go back in-person for better collaboration, and to create and maintain a healthy workplace culture, which may have been lost with everyone working remotely for so long. With this sudden change from remote to hybrid on top of the Great Resignation and skill shortage, how can employers plan for the future of work in 2022 and beyond?
Having the Right Technologies to Support a Hybrid Workforce
While the hybrid model is a current reality for many companies, it is imperative to have the right technologies and tools in place to drive collaboration, information exchanges and transparency in all sorts of communications. Leaders and companies should aim at having more informal channels of communication instead of just depending on formal town halls and all-hands meetings to share information on a more regular basis. The hybrid model also relies on not bogging down your employees with tedious approval processes. This is where workflow apps like Asana can come in handy to streamline tasks and ensure your teams know the status of projects without bugging each person individually.
Using these technologies in the right way can ease out the change management process for teams and organizations. For example, using Slack to indicate whether you are in the office or working from home will help people to connect easily as they know where you are working on specific days and can plan meetings accordingly. Taking actual, quality time to check in regularly with your team members to see how they feel is also a critical step. With mental health being top of mind for many employees over the past few years, it’s important for senior leadership to create a safe space where employees feel appreciated and seen.
Handling The Great Resignation with Great Onboarding
While The Great Resignation is a worldwide phenomenon, it has mainly been driven by how strongly employees feel connected, valued and cared for by their leaders and managers. To compensate for staff shortages, companies have incorporated more AI and automation capabilities for mundane tasks, but in the end, we still need human beings in the workforce to do meaningful work. It is a challenging time for many businesses, but here are some things to keep in mind when hiring and retaining new talent.
Having a strong pre-onboarding engagement plan can foster strong bonds between employer and employee and will help ensure they’re feeling valued from the start. This could include ensuring the new employee has all their equipment like work laptop and other accessories ready on day one and offering personalized training and troubleshooting if needed. Learning new applications at a new job can be daunting, and providing contextualized training for software an employee will be using regularly is critical for a successful onboarding.
To compliment this, having a structured onboarding plan for all newcomers should also include a 30, 60 and 90 day check-in with HR to ensure employees are getting the training and onboarding attention they need to succeed in their new position. During this onboarding time and throughout their entire time at the company, it’s important to make sure the employee feels safe to express their opinions on what could be improved with their experience.
Catering to the Gen Z Workforce
Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge to say the least, but Gen Z employees who just recently graduated college are entering the workforce at an unprecedented time. Over the past two years, remote work is all Gen Z has experienced in their professional career, and may not be too keen on going into an office, spending time and money on commuting to get a real “office experience” when they’ve been able to do their jobs from home just fine.
Luckily, Gen Z grew up in the digital age and more often than not are eager self-learners with so many resources at their fingertips. From LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or TikTok, there are countless sources of information to learn or improve virtually any skill, and this of course can also be applied at the workplace.
While we encourage all people to leverage work training opportunities across our organization, Gen Z appears to be taking advantage of this benefit more so than other employees. The format of these trainings also plays a big role in how effective they are. For example, we found that short-form content such as bite-sized videos were very effective in terms of participation and information retention.
Looking Ahead at the Future of Work
While the last two years have changed the way we approach work, it’s clear that it has put us on a path of accelerated digital transformation, embracing technologies such as digital adoption platforms and collaboration tools, and appreciating the value of each and every employee. Even with the Great Resignation and skill shortage affecting nearly all businesses, applying these best practices can help retain talent and find new talent for your hybrid workforce.
##
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Khadim Batti, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Khadim Batti is the Co-founder and CEO of Whatfix. Khadim co-founded Whatfix with Vara Kumar in 2014 with the mission of empowering individuals and organizations to freely use and experience the maximum benefits of technology. An entrepreneur at heart with an engineer’s mind, Khadim is also giving back to the start-up community by sharing his passion, knowledge, and mentorship with aspiring talent for over a decade and a half. Khadim also acts as the Grievance Redressal Officer for Whatfix.
