ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Productivity , employee experience and serendipity : 2021 FUTURE OF WORK PREDICTIONS
Kristine Dahl Steidel , Vice President EUC EMEA , VMware
The pandemic has changed the way people work across the world with some of the changes here to stay . Kristine Dahl Steidel , Vice President EUC EMEA , VMware , explains how companies need to embrace these changes and build mutual trust with employees as they work from anywhere . She includes insights from Dr Carl Benedikt Frey , Director of the Future of Work Programme , Oxford University .
Unquestionably , 2020 has been the
year of change . We ’ ve changed how we work , where we work , when we work , even to some extent why we work . And it ’ s happened , but at a pace few would ever have imagined . This has given rise to the ‘ distributed anywhere ’ workforce , with early signs from organisations globally that there could be a permanency with it . As businesses begin to prepare for what the workforce of the future looks like , can we learn anything from the past year to inform future plans ?
I recently spoke to Dr Carl Benedikt Frey , Director , Future of Work Programme at the University of Oxford , about the biggest workforce trends to look out for in 2021 . Here are some of our mutual observations :
Prediction # 1 : Employee productivity measurement will shift from inputs to outputs
Dr Frey said : “ There ’ ll be no more brownie points for just showing up to the office and putting in the hours . We ’ re going to see less focus on input , more focus on output . In 2021 we ’ re going to see this change in mindset accelerating . Innovative , competitive organisations are going to move to a measure of outputs and deliverables , rather than mere presenteeism .”
For too long managers have been trusting inputs , such as time spent in the office , rather than outputs , such as deliverables , when overseeing teams . The rise of a more distributed workforce model , where employees have greater freedom to work in multiple locations – be it the home , the office or a café – I see as being with us for the foreseeable future . Gone are the days of looking out to a group of employees working late in the office to judge productivity and dedication . But don ’ t just take my word for it , Netflix has subscribed to this outlook for a while , with CEO , Reed Hastings , writing : “ Today , in the information age , what matters is what you achieve , not how many hours you clock . I have never paid attention to how many hours people are working . . .”
For employees , this really is a seismic change and a real opportunity , offering greater work flexibility and encouraging a greater degree of trust between them and their employer . Are they hitting their KPIs and being responsive to clients and
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