Top 5 Workplace Trends for 2018

The workplace isn’t what it used to be. Globalization, politics, engineering, and cultural changes are changing not just what employees do, but where they do it, and how they would like to get paid for it.

Consider these 5 workplace tendencies for 2018 likely to affect businesses as unemployment stays low, competition for top talent gains, and workers ask for more work-life equilibrium.

Savvy companies who wish to keep their top talent should embrace policies and redesign their offices to adopt these trends.

1. Not Providing Flexible Work is Now a Competitive Disadvantage

Based on a 2016 Gallup survey, 51 percent of employees said they’d change jobs for one that enabled them to work more flexible hourswhile 37% would change jobs when they could work from where they need at least aspect of the time. Job seekers are demanding a flexible work environment, and if you do not offer that in 2018, you will eliminate talent to your opponents who are.

It’s simpler than ever to provide flexible hours and remote work options. As a result of video conferencing, CRM applications, project management applications, group chat applications, and smartphones, you do not need to watch people work to know they are producing.

Below is a graph using data from Gallup revealing the 20 year trend of telecommuting, together with the only recession being during the 2008 recession. The New York Times, also referencing Gallup data, reported that 43% of working Americans worked offsite at some time last year. We can reach a milestone in 2018 where half the American workforce is distant, at least some of this time.

Even jobs which were traditionally thought of as in-office jobs are now more flexible. According to International Workplace Analytics, “50% of the US work force retains a job that’s compatible with at least partial telework.” The Wall Street Journal printed census data demonstrating the largest jumps in distant work are at the health care and construction industries. For instance, 71 percent of doctors and health providers currently diagnose as well as treat health conditions over the phone or video, so they do not have to be at the office. Acknowledging that customer relationships are central to the achievement of construction businesses, many construction workers no longer have a’home base’ office and traveling between different construction sites.

2. Hybrid Live-Work Spaces Are on the Rise

Even though more and more workers are working away from the workplace, some companies are trying to keep people at the office by blurring the lines between living and office area.

Urban-based companies such as WeLive and WeWork are blending work and living room to make it much easier for employees to have work lifestyle with adaptive shared office space adjacent to residential units.  WeWork just announced a $20 billion valuation, bringing its value to over Twitter, Box, and Blue Apron combined! Some companies with co-living and co-working spaces such as Frequent receive as many as 500 -700 applications per month for a flat.

We are most likely to see more co-living and co-working spaces later on since they cater to millennials, who wish to save cash (by closely melding their living and working spaces) but also maximize flexibility and convenience in their living circumstances.

Co-living and co-working spaces will also be having an impact on commercial real estate (CRE) development:

“Startups dependent on the collaborative or sharing economy, like Airbnb or WeWork, are interrupting how organizations rent and utilize CRE. Companies face challenges from new competitors that are providing dynamically configurable spaces and flexible rentals. Owners need to rethink their strategy toward space design, lease management, and lease length.”

Mixed rentals have increased by about 25% within the past 7 decades and appear to be a good option for workers who want to have more work life balance, because if they can not work from their house, at least they have a brief commute to the office upstairs in precisely the exact same building.

Here are a couple examples of tropical living-working spaces:

3. Employees Want Pricey Human-Centered Perks

As unemployment rates drop in the US and competition for workers increases, employees are demanding more human-centered perks. Snacks and coffee are fine and possibly even anticipated in 2018, but it’s the pricier advantages that workers are asking for today which may set businesses apart from rivals.

Research done by Harvard Business Review (HBR) shows precisely what sorts of benefits employees need. Expensive positive aspects, such as company-paid medical insurance, student loan support, and parental leave high inexpensive perks such as free snacks and team outings.

Huge organizations are already offering many of these advantages. For example Starbucks pays tuition for employees to attend Arizona State University (ASU) at $6 to $12K a year, also Etsy pays around 6 months of paid parental leave to mothers and dads, such as adoptive parents, which for a $60K/year worker could cost $30K. Goldman Sachs even offers to pay for gender-reassignment surgery which may cost up to $50K, based on CostHelper. HR/payroll software vendors are even adding attributes to allow companies to loan money to their employees.

Based on Gallup, “The advantages and perks that employees truly care about are those that offer them greater flexibility, autonomy and the ability to lead a better life”

The political environment might explain why specific benefits, such as parental leave and student loan support, have come to the forefront. Both of these topics were debated during the last presidential election.

Three states already offer paid parental leave–California, New Jersey and Rhode Island–for workers who meet certain eligibility requirements. New York only passed a paid family leave law which will take effect January 1, 2018. Government workers have accessibility to 6 weeks of paid parental leave and many nations are looking at changing their legislation. The tipping point for a national paid parental leave policy could be this year.

And according to Student Debt Relief, loan forgiveness programs may also be changing this year. So companies wanting to retain the best talent in 2018, might need to pony up for some larger human-centered perks.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Continues to Alter Entry Level Workers

At the 70s and 80s, high school and college grads frequently accepted entry level tasks like answering phones or sweeping up after clients in a salon, just to get their foot in the door. But these jobs are now being performed by AI programs and robots, such as site chatbots that may answer fundamental queries and route your query to the right individual and robots which do basic chores like vacuuming.

Credence Research predicts that the trend will continue looking at the way the Chatbot market may grow during the next several years.

Chatbots, as only one instance of AI technology in the workplace, are replacing entry-level worker jobs like telephone receptionists, advertising assistants, and level 1 help desk staff.   Just take a look at the gain in shipments of consumer and office robots.

Business Insider shows from the graph under these tasks most likely to be substituted by AI. The boost in robots and AI at the workforce doesn’t necessarily mean that more individuals will be jobless. This means that people’s functions will change to jobs that require more cognitive, managerial, or planning skills that can not be performed by today’s robotic technologies. By way of example, Amazon employees who used to perform repetitive jobs, like piling boxes, are currently managing robots that lift the boxes.

All these changes mean that millenials along with other entry level employees will have to look elsewhere and adapt their skill sets to get their foot in the doorway.

5. Employers Can Hire Fewer Direct Employees

2018 will see fewer direct hire employees as a percentage of the general workforce. Deloitte Insights sees expansion in what they call an augmented workforce. “The shift from full-time employees to an augmented workforce (augmented by both tech and crowds) is among the harder of their human capital trends on the horizon.”

Employers are supplementing or augmenting their work with contingent workers — if they’re referred to as gig workers, which is slang for self reliant, freelance or independent contractors, — or outsourcing their work entirely through co-employment, with temp agencies now commonly referred to as Professional Employer Organizations or PEOs.

PEOs are leading the way in providing co-employment. Employees are lawfully employed by the PEO, but their work is led by the company client. PEOs will pool their employee population and offer big-company advantages like health insurance to employees of even the smallest employers, while taking away the day-to-day human resource and payroll administrative job, and ensuring business compliance with national, state and local laws.

You are able to observe the trendline with this graph below showing that temporary and PEO tasks are going up up up. In fact PEOs like TriNet and Justworks, likely do not even know what most of the’employees’ do on a daily basis, because though the PEO is your employer of record, it’s their customers, the company owners, who guide employees’ daily activities.

Expert360 says that over 40 percent of US employees are now contingent and fall into the categories shown below.

The Wall Street Journal reports that gig work takes around 35 percent of jobs in certain sectors like media, and girls are more prone than men to support themselves with temporary work.   Other sources agree:

• Recently Forbes article Josh Bersin says ,”we’re in an economic cycle where occupations, as we understand them, are rapidly changing. In fact, I’d venture to say we are reaching a time when jobs, as we understand them, are going away.”
  
• 350K workers have combined the Freelancers marriage and we envision this shift toward utilization of salespeople, that do not always have the protection of traditional’workers’, will bring with it further labour regulations.

Bottom Line on 2018 Workplace Trends

In 2018, it looks like the workplace, worker benefits, and even the character of jobs is changing. Old-fashioned top down management with industrial style office areas and conventional employees are going away.

The job will still get done. It’s just it will get done nearer to where folks live, like in their own kitchen. And it will be done by men and women who not only request time to take care of family needs, but anticipate it. Those folks may be contingent workers, freelancers, or personnel employees. And if business leaders really want the very best ability to work on them, they have to spend a bit more on human-centered perks, and make work fit into people’s lives.