Step into your future workplace: Five insights for the year ahead
When we work, how we work and why we work in the first place, the past few years have brought it all into question. And while employee attitudes and outlooks continued to change and evolve, 2022 was the year in which it started to stabilize, where new expectations became more tangible and defined.
With it came a clearer picture of what our new and improved work environments should look like, a welcome reprieve for many organizations who have been grappling to find workable solutions (pun intended) to the sudden emergence of great new employee expectations.
And while much has already changed, the future of work is still evolving, and we explored many of these topics in 2022. Here are our top five insights of the year.
Hybrid working: the balancing act
Hybrid working has become non-negotiable for many employees and most believe that post-pandemic remote working habits are here to stay (as many as six in ten of us). And while this global evolution is still relatively new, many optimists are already anticipating the next wave of transformation where digital workstations will enable virtual and sensory interaction with colleagues and even objects in a virtual workplace (as many as four in ten of us).
Within these new workplace realities, it will become key to establish sustainable models that balance business needs, with team-specific requirements, with individual and family situations. Great strides are already being made, and 2022 saw a particular commitment from both employer and employee to meet one another halfway and collaboratively tackle the hybrid working balancing act.
Explore the post: Hybrid working: five ways to create a powerful hybrid office by Peter Linder, our Head of 5G Marketing in North America.
The rising gig economy: a new era of work
The near overnight shift to digital platform-based work in 2020 gave the gig economy – a labor market that focuses primarily on short-term job assignments – an impressive boost. Fast forward to 2022 and this form of employment continues to evolve and usher in a new era of work.
For the most part, it’s unchartered territory but a clearer picture is starting to emerge of the challenges, opportunities and powerful technology that fuels this growing labor market.
Explore the post: What is the gig economy and how will it change the future of work? by Patrik Hedlund, a senior advisor at Ericsson IndustryLab.
Video source: The future of enterprises
From quiet quitting to meaningful living
Working without passion, only doing the bare minimum, or just earning a paycheck. It’s called quiet quitting, a not-so-new phenomenon that has gained popularity in the aftermath of the pandemic. In truth, people have yearned for more meaning in their lives, and more life beyond the office since the dawn of work.
So how do you change the narrative, transform a nine-to-five into a purposeful, meaningful passion? Our strategic marketing director, Heraldo Sales-Cavalcante, took an introspective journey about why we work, finding our purpose, and making that pivotal shift from making a living to purpose-driven working.
Explore the post: The meaning of Quiet Quitting by Heraldo Sales-Cavalcante, our Strategic Marketing Director.
Digital transformation brings back jobs
From laying the groundwork to reshoring jobs and closing efficiency gaps, to redefining what it means to be a “blue collar worker” and increasing competitiveness, digitalization continues to transform the manufacturing industry in unexpected ways. The future of work in this sector is looking equally bright with intelligence-driven, efficiency-boosting, and robot-friendly technologies spreading further across the value chain with more and more industries catching on to the immense potential of smart factories.
Explore the post: Reshoring manufacturing: How digital transformation is bringing back jobs by Per Treven, our Manufacturing Business Development Director for Ericsson North America, and 5 factory technologies to look out for in 2022 by Carlos H Torres, our Head of Industry 4.0.
Doing business in the metaverse
What does the wireless, untethered, and unwired metaverse mean for our working environments and how we do business? As the next-generation (3D) Internet moves beyond science fiction, with virtual- and augmented reality (VR and AR) becoming more mainstream, the office of the future is expected to look very different to what we know today. Think multi-party collaborations where we feel socially and productively together in one place, geographically separated offices that are linked via AR portals, and even holographic communications!
Explore the post: An exploration of 12 metaverse use cases, one exciting use place at a time by Peter Linder, our Head of 5G Marketing North America, Timothy Murphy, a researcher in BCSS Common R&D, Yashar Nezami, Ecosystem Co-creation Director at Ericsson, and Mischa Dohler, VP Emerging Technologies.
For 2023, both employer and employee will continue to write, and perhaps finalize, their playbooks. Informed by lessons from the past, insights from the future and collaboratively Imagining Possible, the future of work is looking far more relatable and sustainable than ever before. Make sure you never miss out on key moments of this journey by subscribing to the Ericsson Blog.