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The modern workplace is undergoing profound transformation due to many factors including technological advances, work design innovation, shifting generational attitudes, and evolving employee expectations. This is confronting employers with a series of complex, interconnected challenges. Key among these, is how to serve the business, productivity, and cost objectives of today, while delivering an employment proposition that attracts, retains, and motivates key talent into the future.
In this article, we explore the paradox of the future of work, including the problems facing businesses, the demands of an evolving workforce, and how employers can redefine their employment proposition.
What’s the problem?
Recent disruptions to how work is organised and delivered is challenging traditional workforce planning and talent models. For employers, this has created a tension between potentially conflicting goals: aiming for commercial success, while striving to be an attractive, future-oriented employer.
Take the topic of hybrid working as one example. We know that employees are increasingly seeking flexibility and a healthy work-life experience. A survey by talent services company Morgan McKinley has shown that 92% of respondents in Ireland (opens a new window) express a strong preference for continuing in a hybrid or remote work model. In a separate survey by the University of Galway (opens a new window), 92% of respondents indicated that remote or hybrid working would be a key factor in their decision to change employer.
In parallel, organisations are facing a series of external pressures, including economic disruption, inflationary cost increases, and various emerging risks. For many, the primary focus is to manage costs, enhance productivity, maintain workforce agility, and drive innovation to remain competitive. This is reflected in their attitude towards hybrid working: despite employee preferences, 56% of companies globally (with 42% in Ireland) are urging staff to increase their in-office presence (opens a new window).
This “gap” between employer priorities and employee expectations goes well beyond hybrid work arrangements, also including the opportunity to do meaningful work, and clear avenues of career progression. And while not new, it is, arguably, wider than ever before:
Organisational objectives | Employee and talent priorities |
Develop agility and resilience: adopting strategies that respond swiftly to market changes and evolving customer, talent and skills needs. This may limit the flexibilities and assurances that employees demand. | Offer employees opportunities for career growth and advancement, enabling employees to find long-term fulfilment in the job, creating a pleasant working environment with attractive employee benefit programmes. |
Prioritise cost management: navigate economic inflation, rising labour costs, and increased cash-flow risks. | Redesign work: embrace fragmented and hybrid working models that facilitate work-life balance and meet employee expectations regarding pay and career security |
Pursue growth: by investing in and developing new, innovative technologies to increase productivity and efficiency. | Maintaining an organisational reputation that continues to make a meaningful, positive contribution to society. |
Navigating the employment deal paradox
There are many things an organisation can do to reduce the employer/employee priority gap. But there is one clear action that will help to address these competing demands: developing a refreshed, transparent, and future-fit employer proposition that recognises the realities of changing business and employee priorities.
As a starting point, a 21st-century employer proposition needs to begin with a few core principles:
Alignment with business goals and realities, with any proposition tailored to the particular needs and demands of an organisation and its workforce now and into the future.
Cost-effectiveness that strikes a balance between financial sustainability and the need to attract talent.
Scalability and flexibility to changing circumstances and future of work realities.
Simple to deliver: making effective use of technology and partners to minimise the administrative and management burden, while delivering impactful benefits for employees.
Mutual understanding: in which both employer and employee understand their ongoing role in making the employment deal a success for all.
The new approach is more than a HR challenge. It requires organisations to place more focus on cross-functional collaboration, programme integration, and innovation than ever before. To be successful, business and HR leaders must balance short-term, high-impact decisions and actions with a longer-term vision for what will make them a compelling employer of choice into the future.
Importantly, organisations must also challenge their employees to shape the employment proposition for themselves. This will involve recognising the critical efforts of people managers to clearly articulate each element and opportunity within the total employment offering, not only those limited to pay or the next job move. In this way, organisations can foster a culture of honesty and accountability that recognises an employee's changing needs and allows all parties to thrive.
Take the New Employment Deal test
As a useful starting point, organisations can assess their strategies through five strategic questions:
Attract talent: does our business strategy, workforce plan, and employer story convey a compelling employment proposition to current and prospective employees?
Build a great offering: is our benefits, recognition and rewards offering cost-effective, joined-up, impactful, and adaptable?
Create work flexibility and adaptability: does our work model and ways of working meet employees’ flexibility and day-to-day experience needs while also optimising business longevity, productivity, and adaptability?
Design future-proof careers: are we equipping employees with skills for the future while meeting current needs?
Enable quality and consistent delivery: are we providing a sustainable, cost-effective, and personalised employee experience?
By addressing these questions with the right stakeholders, organisations can begin to identify where their potential gaps might be, and what practically can be done in the short- and long-term to enhance and future-proof their employer proposition.
We’re here to help
As the workplace evolves, so organisations must reimagine and refresh their employer proposition. Employers who successfully embrace a holistic employment deal, designed for the realities of the 21st century working world, will be the ones to attract, retain, and develop the talent needed for long-term success.
We help organisations on this journey. We provide the expertise, tools, and flexible support needed to design employer proposition strategies and solutions that meet emerging issues and opportunities in a rapidly changing world of work – from the provision of benefits and healthcare, to career development and ways of working strategy.
For more information, reach out to a member of our team.
Disclaimer: this topic relates to unregulated products and services.
