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WORKER EFFECTIVENESS WORKFORCE EXPECTATIONS 1 WHITEPAPER IN THIS WHITEPAPER: Understanding the workforce – who they are, what motivates them, what makes them engaged – is critical in the creation of performance-driven workplaces. This snapshot provides high-level insights on shifting workforce expectations and translates these insights into the coming realities for the workplace. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: What trends are driving workforce expectations How these trends are changing the way we work today How workforce expectations are impacting the physical workplace What should be avoided when creating workplaces with the next generation in mind Shifting workforce, shifting expectations WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN THE PAST THREE YEARS ABOUT THE CHANGING WORKFORCE Over the past ten years, we have seen numerous articles and research perspectives on how the workforce is changing and what the implications might be for the workplace. Have we learned anything? Are we over “the millennials made me do it”? In this paper, we will assess our predictions from three years ago and the direction we believe certain workforce trends will take us as we continue toward the future of workplace change. By Eric D. Johnson, Senior Workplace Advisor, Allsteel; Chloe Simoneaux, Workplace Advisory Manager, Allsteel

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Page 1: Shifting workforce, shifting expectations Workplace Trends/Attachments/101/WPA...workforce with their well-honed interpersonal and soft skills may create a knowledge gap. As younger

WORKER EFFECT IVENESS WORKFORCE

E XPECTATIONS

1 WHITEPAPER

IN THIS WHITEPAPER:

Understanding the workforce – who they are, what motivates them, what makes them engaged – is critical in the creation of performance-driven workplaces. This snapshot provides high-level insights on shifting workforce expectations and translates these insights into the coming realities for the workplace.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

What trends are driving workforce expectations

How these trends are changing the way we work today

How workforce expectations are impacting the physical workplace What should be avoided when creating workplaces with the next generation in mind

Shifting workforce, shifting expectations WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN THE PAST THREE YEARS ABOUT THE CHANGING WORKFORCE Over the past ten years, we have seen numerous articles and research perspectives on how the workforce is changing and what the implications might be for the workplace. Have we learned anything? Are we over “the millennials made me do it”? In this paper, we will assess our predictions from three years ago and the direction we believe certain workforce trends will take us as we continue toward the future of workplace change.

By Eric D. Johnson, Senior Workplace Advisor, Allsteel; Chloe Simoneaux, Workplace Advisory Manager, Allsteel

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The five drivers that are (still) impacting workforce expectationsIn 2016, the Allsteel team took a close look at changing workforce expectations, distinguishing between prevalent stereotypes and real data.1 Today, more than three years later, we’re looking back on those predictions to better understand what has actually unfolded.

Let’s quickly recap the five drivers of workforce change we predicted three years ago and what has transpired since then:

The Generational Shift: The generational shift has continued as anticipated (see figure 1). Allsteel continues to believe that, when approaching generational differences, it’s most effective to focus first on the commonalities across all generations. Alan McGinty, the Senior Director of Cisco’s Global Workplace Innovation Group, will tell you when it comes to addressing the multiple generations that millennials aren’t all that different. And to better understand the differences that do exist, he recommends using feedback loops.2 That being said, mixed generations bring a variety of life experiences to work, which can, to some extent, define their expectations and overall perspective (see figure 2).

1.

FIGURE 1:

Five Generations of 2020 showing shift in generational mix over time.3 2020

2015

2010

2005

0% 20% 40% 60%

Gen Z

Millennials

Gen X

Baby Boomers

Traditionalists

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FIGURE 2:

Americans name the 10 most significant historic events of their lifetimes by generation.4

Modern historic events by generations

Q. Please name the 10 historic events that occurred in YOUR lifetime that you think have had the greatest impact on the country. This could be one specific event, a series of related events or any other historic development or change that had an important impact on the nation.

Millennials

September 11Obama electionIraq/Afghanistan warsGay marriageThe tech revolutionOrlando shootingHurricane KatrinaColumbine shootingBin LadenSandy HookBoston Marathon bombingGreat Recession

123456789101112

86%47%24%19%18%17%11%10%10%7%7%7%

Baby Boomers

September 11JFK assassinationVietnam WarObama electionMoon landingThe tech revolutionCivil rights movementFall of Berlin Wall/end of Cold WarMLK assassinationIraq/Afghanistan wars

12345678910

70%45%41%38%35%26%18%16%15%11%

Generation X

September 11Obama electionFall of Berlin Wall/end of Cold WarThe tech revolutionIraq/Afghanistan warsGulf WarChallenger disasterGay marriageHurricane KatrinaColumbine shootingOrlando shootingOklahoma City bombing

79%40%21%20%18%15%14%10%10%9%9%9%

123456789101112

Silent Generation

September 11WWIIJFK assassinationVietnam WarMoon landingObama electionThe tech revolutionCivil rights movement Korean WarIraq/Afghanistan wars

59%44%41%37%29%28%27%18%18%14%

12345678910

Diversity: The definition of workforce diversity is becoming more diverse, now including considerations of personality type, thinking style, cognitive differences, and other factors that influence how people engage with work and interact with the world. The business case is more defined for diverse organizations, as they continue to outperform organizations with less inclusion and diversity. It’s a strong competitive advantage and clears the path to growth.

One significant component of the increasingly diverse workforce is the growing number of women with graduate and postgraduate degrees. Today in the United States, women make up more than half of those getting undergraduate degrees as well as those getting graduate and postgraduate degrees.6 With technical, communication, and critical thinking skills, many of these women will be expected

Shown are the top 10 events mentioned, including numerical ties. While events are ranked numerically for ease of reading, not all differences between ranked events are statistically significant. Look to accompanying text to highlight significant differences. Source: Survey conducted June 16-July 4, 2016. “American’s Name the 10 Most Significant Historic Events of Their Lifetimes” PEW RESEARCH CENTER

2.PROOF POINT

Companies that exhibit gender and ethnic diversity

are, respectively, 15% and 35% more likely to outperform those that

don’t, according to a 2018 McKinsey report.

Additionally, organizations with more racial and gender diversity bring in more sales

revenue, more customers, and higher profits.5

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to fill the economic demand for skilled talent and workforce diversity. As diversity is increasingly seen as a source of business value, women will continue to grow their share of our labor economy.

Flexibility: We consider flexibility the bedrock of all expectations in the continuously changing world we’re all experiencing today. To the members of the workforce, flexibility is still about having choice and control over where, when, and how work is completed. From a recent survey of US workers, Unify found that 43% of those surveyed would prefer greater flexibility in the workplace over higher pay.8

Urbanization: In the US, 62% of millennials indicate they prefer to live in the type of mixed-use communities found in urban centers; they are currently living in these urban areas at a higher rate than any other generation.9 In fact, new terms such as ‘urban burbs’ or ‘surbans’ have emerged to define a new design strategy that brings more metropolitan-like features of cities to suburban locations to make them more attractive to younger generations.1 0

Technology: Finally, the elephant in the room. As technology changes, it changes work itself, which changes how we work, which in turn can change the analytical, communication, and technical skills we all need. The impact of technology on the workforce cannot readily be quantified, but what we do know is it’s not about the digital natives or the digitally innate – it’s about digital fluency. Digital fluency is not just using technology but seamlessly recognizing how it can be used to streamline, expand, and enrich what the work is. Because a majority of today’s incoming workforce is digitally fluent, their expectation is that they will have access to the best technology when they arrive at work.

3.

4.

5.

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%

1970 1979 1988 1997 2006 2015

Bachelor’s degree and higher

1 to 3 years of college

4 years of high school

Less than a high school diploma

FIGURE 3:

Women in the U.S. labor force, 25 to 64 years of age, by educational attainment 7

PROOF POINT

59% of today’s incoming workforce consider the

provision of state-of-the-art technology important when applying for jobs and expect social tools to be included in

the tech ecosystem.11

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What this means for the way we work today While these five drivers – the generational shift, diversity, flexibility, urbanization, and technology – remain at the heart of the conversation around our changing workforce, the specific impact on work is playing out differently than anticipated.

Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce more slowly than expected: This delay could limit a younger worker’s options for advancement and impact an organization’s ability to adapt if senior leaders who are more resistant to change are staying around longer. On the other hand, boomers leaving the workforce with their well-honed interpersonal and soft skills may create a knowledge gap. As younger generations move into leadership roles, they’re asking for more learning and development to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex environment. In this environment, it’s not just the hard, technical skills that are required to solve problems but also the ability to think critically and access a deep network of readily available resources.

Despite potential knowledge gaps, millennials are moving into leadership roles, and their life experiences and expectations about work are coming with them. The conversation is shifting from “how do we manage them” to “how do they manage others,” including employees who are older, more experienced, and more connected.1 3

Lifelong learning is becoming the norm: An attitude of lifetime learning is more and more crucial if only because work continues to change, often driven by technology (think AI or blockchain). Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends report found that 83% of executives rated the idea of linking careers with learning as important or very important to success.1 4

The days of completing a four-year undergraduate degree that will provide the necessary knowledge and skills for your entire career are fast disappearing. While having some type of postsecondary degree is still very important (99% if the 11.6 million jobs added after the recession have gone to workers with at least some college or higher education), it is not possible to train individuals today for the jobs that will be created tomorrow.1 5 If nothing else, workers will need ongoing skills training to maintain their digital fluency.

Organizations are embracing new talent models: To remain agile and avoid silos, organizations are seizing opportunities to explore new talent models and hopefully make decisions based on value rather than risk aversion. New talent models for many organizations represent the potential for increased diversity of both culture and thought, which could predict greater innovation. And these models can help expand the pool for talent, as Microsoft and other organizations are doing through the Autism at Work Employer Roundtable.1 7 Hiring those diagnosed on the autism spectrum is a great example of engaging a previously underappreciated but uniquely skilled pool of workers.

PROOF POINT

It’s been estimated that building out the virtualized

infrastructure – cloud computing, Big Data, and

the Internet of Things (IoT) – could create 25 million new

US jobs in the next 15 years.16

PROOF POINT

Given that collaboration has become a paradigm of the 21st century workplace, the right mix of individuals

working on teams in conditions in which they can

excel is a key business goal for today’s leaders.18

“The property management community is seeing a tremendous shift. Gee-whiz concepts, such as coworking, optionality, the Internet of Things and cybersecurity, are wreaking havoc on the traditional knowledge base of the industry, particularly for those in operations and management. Meanwhile, a younger and more diverse population is taking over the workforce (meaning, both our tenancies and our companies), with different needs and different professional expectations.” 12

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New flexible models are leading organizations to look at their assets differently, whether the assets are people, space, or technology. There are, of course, challenges inherent in creating a flexible workforce; for example, it’s difficult to determine the most effective approach to integrating the sharing economy’s contractual workers into your organization’s work processes and cultural norms. Many of the legalities regarding those in the sharing economy still need to be determined, but we anticipate it will become part of a new normal over time.

The relationship between workforce and workplace The workplace is in the midst of a paradigm shift in that the focus is no longer just on the space but more on the people using the space. There is a broader recognition of the positive impact the workplace can have on workers’ engagement, health, performance, and, therefore, the overall success of the organization. Understanding the workforce – what motivates, engages, and enables their work – is even more important.

As we see it today, there are several ways the changing workforce is already impacting the workplace.

Workplace design will be more defined by data about the people using the space and their work processes.

Much of the workforce data today relies on larger trends and benchmarks that are happening within a certain geography, industry, or demographic. But what if your organization could continuously measure your workforce and improve the workplace in a way that is specific to their needs? Some data about your workforce – such as work process, social norms, overall well-being, leadership skills, and communication styles – require thoughtful, multimodal approaches to measurement and analysis. Allsteel’s Measuring What Matters paper summarizes new types of people-centered workplace metrics. Using new IoT-enabled technology, other data about your workforce can be relatively easy to measure such as which technologies are used and when, or how much time is spent working in different locations or settings.1 9

Our workplaces will become seamless user experiences

Today’s workforce already expects to have the same well-designed, frictionless user experience in the workplace that is found on their smartphones and in their connected homes. User experience in the workplace encompasses many factors related to workers’ use of the workspace, their response to and impressions of the workspace, and workplace support of their needs as human beings. Physical, organizational, and technological components all feed into creating a positive user experience. Some examples include:

Our workplaces will achieve new levels of flexibility

As we noted earlier, flexibility remains at the core of workforce expectations. We see the most successful workplace flexibility initiatives playing out simultaneously across three distinct levels:

Physical user experience: access to natural light, multiple work settings, and appropriate ergonomics

Organizational user experience: the agency to choose where, when, and how to work, purposely driving individual and team effectiveness, and supporting risk

Technological user experience: readily accessible, user-friendly, and up-to-date communication, collaboration, presence, and data analysis tools

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Organizations will take different approaches to enabling flexibility; our experience shows that flexibility is most effectively supported by intentional zoning of different activity settings, modular planning, and kit-of-parts components. This requires a thoughtful and strategic approach to workplace design at the outset of the project.

Across all these predictions, what’s becoming apparent is the intrinsic exchange between people and place. The people inform the place, and the place informs the people. This way of thinking requires us to look at the workplace in an entirely new way, breaking down existing silos for those who manage the physical environments and those who manage human resources.

Organizational flexibility: being able to anticipate and quickly respond to changes in the global business market

Facilities flexibility: responding to and accommodating changes in staffing levels, growth, reorganizations, etc.

Individual flexibility: having a range of work settings that are readily accessible and support a variety of work processes and activities. It also means employing furniture components that are designed for quick adjustment or reconfiguration, allowing workers the agency to make changes based on their fluctuating work processes.

1.

2.

3.

The Takeaways: What not to do when creating a next-gen workplace

Limit flexibility:

If an organization does not acknowledge and design spaces based on expectations for flexibility, attracting and retaining skilled talent will be challenging, and it will be increasingly difficult, time consuming, and costly to anticipate and respond to changes in an uncertain business environment. Ignore the importance of user workplace experience:

Workers demand positive, frictionless experiences, regardless of whether they

are at work or home. Great user workplace experiences have the potential to translate into measurable increases in employee engagement and effectiveness of the workforce.20

Limit learning to the training rooms:

A risk averse, siloed culture that still considers learning an annual event will not have a workforce with the skills required to be agile and work more collaboratively, both of which are critical to business success today.

Contradicting your culture with your workplace.

Many organizations actively promote their focus on diversity, agility, sustainability, and other core beliefs. However, if your workplace does not authentically align with those beliefs, the next generation of talent will not help your organization work toward achieving your vision. For example, an organization that touts an open, collaborative culture but works in enclosed private offices is not walking the talk.

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Allsteel is partnering with Sally Augustin, PhD, an environmental psychologist, to develop an observational tool to assess organizational, cognitive, and behavioral norms in the workplace. It is designed to compile data based on Individual Factors (commitment, belonging, lighting, temperature, hydration, and so on) with Team Factors (the Six Factors) and Team + Individual Factors (mood, job satisfaction, organizational alignment, and so on).

If you’re interested in being the first to know when we launch this tool, please contact [email protected] to get on our mailing list.

Insights to Action

Worker Effectiveness Slide SummaryWorker Effectiveness: Shifting Workforce, Shifting Expectations Understanding the workforce – who they are, what motivates them, what makes them engaged – is critical in the creation of performance – driven workplaces. This snapshot provides high-level insights on shifitng workforce expectations and translates these insights into the coming realities for the workplace.

5 Key Trends... 1. The Generational Shift 4. Urbanization 2. Diversity 5. Technology 3. Flexibility

The Impact on the Physical Space Design will be more defined by data about the people using the space and their work processes. Workplaces will become seamless user experiences with physical, organizational and technological components. We will achieve new levels of flexibility supported by activity-based design, intentional zoning and modular planning.

Takeaways What NOT to do when creating a next-gen workplace: limit flexibility, ignore the importance of user experience, limit learning to the training room, or contradict your culture with your workplace.

The Impact on the Way We Work Boomers are leaving sooner than expected, which impacts the younger generation leadership and highlights a skills gap. Lifelong learning is the new norm, as well as staying digitally fluent. Organizations are also embracing new talent models – more about value than risk adversion, with the goal to find potential for greater innovation.

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... Driving Workforce Expectations So what do these factors mean for the way we work today? How are they changing the way we work? By addressing these shifts workforces we are able to better understand the needs of our members in order to provide a solution to fit the workforce expecations.

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Workplace Advisory at Allsteel The Workplace Advisory team listens. We apply research and our extensive workplace experience to assist organizations in the development and implementation of situationally appropriate workplace strategies. Strategies that align with organizational culture and business goals, support the ability to work effectively, utilize real estate assets as efficiently as possible, and adapt to changing business and work practice requirements.

Chloe Simoneaux is dedicated to guiding and supporting organizations looking to engage their employees in meaningful ways in workplace. Taking a fresh, empathetic approach to work and the individuals that make up each organization's unique workforce, Chloe works closely with clients to help increase the performance of their workplace while simultaneously improving the quality of the user experience.

1 Hill, Amy. “Shifting Workforce, Shifting Expectations.” Allsteel, 2016.

2 “What’s Next with Alan McGinty and Peter Miscovich: Exploring the Future of Work.” Part 2. CoreNet Global’s What’s Next Podcast, 2017.

3 “How to communicate compensation plans to differing generations.” BambooHR and PayScale, July 2017.

4 Deane, C., Duggan, M., Morin, R. “Americans Name the 10 Most Significant Historic Events of Their Lifetime.” Pew Research Center, December 2016.

5 Hunt, V., Prince, S., Dixon-Fyle, S., & Yee, L. “Delivering through Diversity.” McKinsey & Company, January 2018.

6 Digest of Education Statistics. National Center for Education Statistics, 2017.

7 “The Economics Daily: A look at women's education and earnings since the 1970s.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, December 2017.

8 Lipman, V. “How Important Is Flexible Work? 43% Choose It Over Pay Raise.” Forbes, October 2014.

9 “Millennials Prefer Cities to Suburbs, Subways to Driveways.” Nielsen, October 2014.

10 “Millennials at Work: Reshaping the workplace.” PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwCIL), 2011.

11 Salustri, John. “Talent: Commercial Real Estate’s Other Sustainability Issue.” BOMA Magazine, March-April 2018.

12 Folkman, J. & Zenger, J. “What Younger Managers Should Know About How They’re Perceived.” Harvard Business Review, September 2015.

13 “Rewriting the rules for the digital age: 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends.” Deloitte University Press, 2017.

14 Carnevale, A.P., Jayasundera, T., & Gulish, A. “America’s Divided Recovery: College Haves and Have-Nots.” Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2016

15 Wartzman, Rick. “25 Million New Jobs Coming to America, Thanks to Technology.” Fortune, January 2016.

16 “DXC Technology, EY, Ford Motor Company, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Microsoft, and SAP launch the ‘Autism @ Work Employer Roundtable’.” Disability:IN, October 2017.

17 Parsi, Novid. “Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Gets Innovative.” Society for Human Resource Management, January 2016.

18 Johnson, Eric. “FROM SENSORS TO SENSE-MAKING: How connected technology is changing the way we experience, measure, and adapt the workplace.” Allsteel, 2018.

19 Johnson, Eric. “Measuring What Matters.” Allsteel, 2018

20 Johnson, Eric. “Measuring What Matters.” Allsteel, 2018 ??????????

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