TalentCulture #WorkTrends

In today's workplace, the pressure is on—to be a perfect employee, to always be available, to exceed last week's exceeded expectations. In short, the modern workplace is a pressure cooker. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, stress and pressure are both critical motivators at work. Without a little pressure, you can't perform at your best. The key is leveraging pressure as a tool of success rather than a weight on your shoulders. The first step is mindset, figuring out how to think of pressure in a way that serves you. From there, you have to learn how to build up your resilience and learn how to use pressure as a structuring tool when you're facing uncertainty.

With more employees able to work from home than ever before, and the coronavirus pandemic still dictating the terms of where and how we work, employees are settling into work from home. Just...not their current home. These days, more employees are considering the possibility of relocating to a cheaper area if work from home options become permanent. That introduces new challenges for employers—beyond remote work functionality. Companies have to consider how the trend toward relocation will impact their recruitment and retention, how they can educate employees, and how they can set up managers and employees for realistic, fulfilling remote work experiences.

Employees are demanding hybrid work. Managers are stressed about hybrid work. And since the confusion often comes from a lack of cohesive hybrid work planning, it's time to take the stress off everyone's plates and start planning for the future of hybrid work. For managers, mastering the art of hybrid work is all about communication, learning how to maintain productivity, sustaining your workplace culture in a hybrid environment, and, of course, safety.

COVID-19 changed the world of work--and the world of hiring--forever. And in today's digital-first recruiting environment, recruiters have challenges unlike anything they've faced in previous decades. Fortunately, modern recruiting technology also offers tools to mitigate those challenges. Because the recruiting landscape is now built around finding the right candidate in a sea of options, recruiting technology equips hiring managers with smart analytic tools so that they can make informed, data-driven decisions to improve hiring.

As of March 2020, HR managers and company leaders have been laser-focused on COVID-19. As of January 2022, the federal vaccination mandate for all businesses with 100 or more employees brought COVID-19 back to the center of your business discussions. But the more time you waste arguing about the mandate, the less time you have to focus on staying competitive. To address this, you have to address misunderstandings about vaccine proof, tackle fears about the vaccine, get smart about storing employee data, and always stay focused on the employee experience.

Americans are leaving their jobs (and not coming back) at historic rates. And that means the pressure is on talent acquisition to deliver much-needed manpower and help businesses stay competitive. For businesses with an eye toward the future, it's time to learn from the mistakes of 2021 (like why employees aren't in a hurry to come back to work) and use that knowledge to stay ahead. When you're vying for the same talent in a seller's market, reaching the right candidates and making the right offers once you find them are critical to your success.

Managers want in-person work. Employees want hybrid work. And in the Great Resignation, when employees are more willing than ever to leave behind lackluster jobs, hybrid work is no longer a perk—it's a competitive advantage. And employers need to catch up to the curve. By focusing on tools that enable the same success factors in in-person environments (like communication, agility, and innovation) employers can reimagine the future of work and ensure their future success.

As COVID-19 leads more employees to demand hybrid workplaces, the pressure is on employers to innovate and provide long-term hybrid solutions. The good news is that modern technology is ready to provide the answers. The key is to focus on elements that drive success in in-person environments: communication, collaboration, innovation, agility, and the democratization of technology access. And with the right tools, employers can innovate and reimagine their own workplaces—and stay competitive in the process.

Today's employees don't want to just collect a paycheck. They want to grow in their work. That's great news for managers and HR departments, who can capitalize on the hunger to learn through self-driven skills development. That way, employees can learn skills that are valuable to them while also motivating themselves to pursue it—the better to make sure they're genuinely interested. That said, employers still play a big role. Today's companies need to provide well-sourced, well-considered content and help drive motivation to ensure that employees gain truly valuable skills. Then, employees take over from there.

Frontline workers are burned out and scared, and many are thinking of quitting their jobs. Yet their organizations still rely on them to do essential work. And if workplaces want to avoid a brain drain from the front lines, it's time to invest in frontline employees. Among other things, that means recognizing the unique struggle of frontline employees, providing support to push back against burnout, skills training to help adapt to the future of work, and a targeted effort to drive better performance. That way, you can continue to support the communities who rely on you.