Work In 2022: What's Next

Businesses have a rare opportunity to seize the moment for the long term taking into consideration the broader drivers of value including talent management, customer acquisition, productivity, and revenue.

Work in 2022: What's Next?

2021 was filled with the shifts and uncertainties of the pandemic. It’s time to build upon the positive transformations and prepare for the challenges ahead to shape a meaningful pathway into the coming year

2021 has been a year of ups and downs, as the pandemic seemed about to end only to resurge in new and more worrisome ways. Looking back at the months that have passed, it's clear that the world of work has not only permanently changed, but will continue to change well into the future.

Employment still has not recovered from the massive losses of jobs and working hours seen in 2020. Lower-income jobs have been disproportionately affected, and a growing skills mismatch has shut off many paths for these workers. The burden of unpaid labour has fallen even more heavily on women than before, often forcing them out of the job market.

At the same time, massive shifts are ongoing in work, work culture, and workers' expectations. Last year's global work-from home experiment has borne fruit in the form of increased hybridisation, flexibility in workforce management, the integration of work and life, and an ever-growing emphasis on well-being as a holistic provision extending beyond the physical and into the realm of mental/emotional and even financial.

Digital acceleration has similarly driven a surge of revised business strategies and operational approaches. Years of investment were compressed into months, and now leaders and the workforce alike are fast-forwarding into a future that is much closer than expected.