“Sometimes it feels like we’re being punished for the freedom we had during the pandemic like our company wants to exert control pointedly. I feel they don’t trust me and that I’m being treated like a child. Most of my co-workers and the middle managers can’t see the logic of being forced to be at the office eight hours a day but we all feel like we’re being watched. Everybody resents it.” – Olivia (name changed), online content marketer in Seattle.

The KPMG 2023 CEO Outlook report surveyed 1,325 CEOs across 11 regions and 11 business sectors and found that a majority (64%) anticipate a full return to office over the next three years. And 87% of CEOs said they were likely to reward employees (raises, promotions) for coming into the office.

That may not be the way their employees (like Olivia in Seattle) see things though. A recent survey of workers in the United States found that two-thirds of people (66.5%) supported remote work, while 85% thought all jobs, where possible, should be remote-first. Strikingly, nearly two-thirds of people (62.8%) said that they would be prepared to accept a lower salary if it meant they could continue to work from home.

These conflicting views about where people should work, and where they might be most productive, are part of a larger set of sea-changes predicted for organisations globally in 2024. We look at four issues likely to be on C-Suite to-do lists as the year gets under way.

Trend 1: Where am I working, and why? Employee value propositions (EVPs) remade

Differing perceptions of the remote/hybrid/in-office proposition are not just about the freedom to work in your sweatpants. Concerns about a desired physical place of work are easy to understand at a surface level, but it goes deeper. Gartner says many workers are now calculating the cost of coming into the office in terms of time and money and finding that the maths doesn’t quite work for them.

It’s not just about money. Gallup research indicates that how people are managed has about four times as much influence on employee engagement and well-being as their work location. As Gallup points out “it’s the relationships workers have – with their coworkers, managers, leaders and organisation – that are significantly evolving”.

That means that to significantly improve their EVPs, leaders need to deepen and expand their practice: communicating clearly, leading and supporting change, and finding ways of working that acknowledge the rapid changes affecting them, their organisations and their staff.

What leadership needs to look at:

• Think about working with individualised preferences in ways that close the gap between what companies need and what workers want.

• Consider negotiating a company policy about who will bear the cost of work: if a formerly remote worker is now spending two hours commuting to honour an RTO mandate, will they be compensated for that?

• Work on making employee support plans more explicit and transparent. For instance, will you support employees in the event of severe climate change events? If so, how?

• If you choose to go hybrid, empower teams to collaborate more effectively, revise performance management systems, and train managers to be hybrid coaches.

• Use data to define flexible work strategies rather than making decisions that suit top management. Run surveys about the pros and cons of remote work or other workplace flashpoints and consult with others in your industry to inform strategies.

Trend 2: Shifts in the way in which diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are implemented

McKinsey notes a widespread lack of progress in translating DEI initiatives into meaningful progress. Global leadership consulting firm DDI’s 2023 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Report found that leader advocacy for DEI programmes has dropped by 18% since 2021. At the same time, the percentage of businesses without DEI initiatives has risen by 5 percentage points. Whether this is a temporary response to post-Covid economic headwinds and geopolitical tensions remains to be seen, but the long-term success of organisations will depend on how well companies do in this field.

That success will mean doing the hard work of embedding DEI within organisations rather than working in silos. And that trend may now be under way. An Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) 2023 “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” report suggests that many organisations are putting DEI into the heart of their business strategies, rather than viewing them as add-ons.

What leadership needs to look at:

• Holding themselves accountable and applying new ideas – which can and should be generated in collaboration with employees – to drive change that improves organisations and their business outcomes.

• Reaching beyond their own walls and driving improvements in their industries and communities.

• Remembering that movements dependent on a single individual or team can suffer from “founder’s syndrome”. When the creator or advocate of a movement leaves the organisation, the initiative or programme can falter. Without practices, policies and champions at each level of an organisation, DE&I initiatives will fail if they are not supported by institutional memory.

Trend 3: Disruption to skills and career paths

The World Economic Forum says that businesses predict that almost half (44%) of workers’ core skills will be disrupted by 2027, because technology is moving faster than companies can design and scale up their training programmes. Artificial intelligence (AI) is but one disruption factor; the green transition and geo-economic conditions will also see “churn” for almost a quarter of jobs by 2027. A 2023 AESC “State of the Profession” report identifies sustainability and ESG-related roles as emerging trends, along with roles related to digital transformation, including data privacy and cyber security.

Gartner notes other shifts in the skills market. A tight labour market and declining undergraduate graduation rates has led organisations to dismantle the “paper ceiling” and hire workers with alternative credentials. Rising retirement ages, midcareer breaks, shifts across industries and the rise of nontraditional employment models like digital nomadism and gig work are also bringing sweeping change to workplaces.

What leadership needs to look at:

• Prioritise internal development and mobility: Provide career paths that allow talented young employees to experience several roles quickly. This will lower attrition, accelerate learning, and get the right people to the right roles sooner. This approach requires a flexible human capital model, aggressive mentoring, and just-in-time training to ensure productivity.

• External recruiting: Targeted external hires, using an experienced search consultant, may be your path to accelerate innovation, provided there is a good fit with the company’s purpose and objectives.

• Partners and freelancers: Partnering with emerging technology specialists is an option. Contract talent can be put to work immediately or can be used to mentor and develop your employees.

• Skill grafting: Create teams with complementary skills, which means more employees with valuable hybrid skill sets.

Trend 4: The impact of artificial intelligence (AI)

If it’s hard to escape hype around artificial intelligence, it’s even harder to predict what its impact on the workplace will be.

The WEF quotes most chief economists at its annual meeting in Davos in 2024 as believing that generative AI will increase productivity and innovation in high-income countries. But only a third think this will be the case for low-income countries.

The divide falls along predictable lines: AI is set to bring productivity boosts in knowledge-heavy industries, including IT and digital communications; in financial and professional services; in medical and healthcare services and in retail, manufacturing, engineering and construction, energy and logistics.

But there are concerns about the risks of automation, job displacement and degradation. In fact, almost three-quarters (73%) of chief economists surveyed by WEF “do not foresee a net positive impact on employment in low-income economies”.

In developing countries, concerns about technology in general are often voiced by labour unions, protective of their members’ jobs. In a recent global AltoPartners article examining talent strategies for the rapidly changing mining industry, Takalane Khashane, Director of Search Partners International (SPi) / AltoPartners South Africa, predicts that technological change will bring different jobs rather than fewer jobs. She counsels education, diplomacy, transparency, and engagement in such transformations.

Globally, there is room for hope if the challenge is met with the right tools. Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), says the impact of AI on jobs is not going to be “an employment apocalypse”, but that reskilling, upskilling and lifelong learning would be key to managing the transition to business sustainability.

What leadership needs to look at:

• Think about using AI to create sustainable talent pipelines, dramatically improve ways of working, and make faster, data-driven structural changes.

• To avoid reputational, regulatory and legal issues, ensure your teams have access to training to develop judgement around information validity, unconscious bias, data protection regulations and how and when to use generative AI tools.

• Use AI to increase employee engagement and simplify some basic processes. For example, AI-driven sentiment analysis can be used to handle employee engagement surveys.

• In areas like recruiting and onboarding, strike a balance between using AI to increase efficiency (processing all those CVs) without dehumanising the company and damaging its reputation.

Above all, it’s about purpose and culture

It’s not all doom and gloom. Lars Häggström, Senior Adviser at the Institute for Management Development and a former CHRO at Stora Enso, Nordea and Gambro, sees a growing preoccupation among executive leadership with creating passion and energy around an organisation’s purpose and culture, particularly if staff aren’t present physically.

He writes that a recent survey of over 40 leading Swedish companies found that fostering stronger, clearer, and more engaged leadership is a top priority. To that end, a leadership model that prioritises trust over control will lead with purpose and intent, starting with co-creating priorities and goals, and provide opportunities to regularly communicate with staff via online and face-to-face meetings.