A workplace where people and robots collaborate, employees’ personal brands are bigger than their employers’ and the office is a destination for wellness are rapidly emerging trends that are set to transform the way we work.
As an HR professional, I am responsible for providing strategic HR leadership to more than 34,000 employees who deliver quality of life services to clients at more than 1,800 locations across a variety of sectors, so I am very aware of how such changes can impact employee performance.
Our Workplace Trends report builds on academic research to uncover the trends that will impact the nature of the workforce and influence future leaders.
Engaging employees
A company’s success depends on a passion for employee engagement and despite robots creating more than two million jobs in the next eight years, some uncertainty still exists about their impact on jobs. It will certainly be interesting to see how leaders adapt to directing their businesses over the next 25 years in terms of the relationship between human and robot.
Integrating millennials
The emergence of millennials in the workplace adds a new dimension and a new skillset to the workplace and this continues to be an ever-changing phenomenon. It would be naïve for employers not to adapt training schemes and share expertise amongst young and old alike.
Learning across generations
The prospect of intergenerational learning is both exciting and potentially game changing and one we at Sodexo are already embracing. We have a particular focus on employee engagement and fostering intergenerational working within Sodexo because of the make-up of our organisation and the way we deliver services.
Creating happier teams
The majority of our workforce, are in customer facing roles serving and in some cases interacting with our customers and clients’ customers. We believe that by ensuring our employees are engaged and understanding of each other’s values and behaviours which may be affected by your generation or any of our other diversity and inclusion areas such as sexual orientation or ethnicity then we will create happier teams which obviously mean better service for our customers.
Sharing ideas
Another interesting trend which this research has identified is the emergence of cross-workplaces and a shared pool of talent coming together to share ideas, specialisms and resources is changing the workplace as we know it.
Business leaders and HR practitioners need to be wary of these emerging trends and be forward thinking to respond accordingly to the changing demands of not only their employees.
Corporate cultures that prioritise the employee experience, with a strong focus on individual health and well-being, the realisation of personal brand potential and a commitment to diversity and good corporate citizenship will play a huge part in the workplaces of the future.
After all, the generation of millennials want to be ahead of the curve, not level with it, therefore it is imperative that as HR professionals, we drive employee engagement and lead from the front.
Download the 2017 Sodexo Global Workplace Trends Report here