I hadn’t touched on the dynamics of work in a bit… and it seems there are some fascinating details here.
Office vacancies in London and the US have reached a 20-year high, presenting a challenge to CEOs who want workers back in the office after the pandemic. Investment in offices has also fallen sharply, indicating a drop in interest in office space. Some companies are implementing return-to-office mandates, but employees are resisting and questioning these decisions.
But from Census Bureau estimates, the proportion of Americans working from home has reached its lowest level since the pandemic began, with only around 26% of households having at least one regular remote worker.
The demand for remote jobs has surged, with remote roles attracting almost half of all job applications despite making up only 9% of LinkedIn job postings in August.
Ready for the maneuvers?
Hybrid workers are using “coffee badging” to avoid returning to the office. This trend involves briefly visiting the office, grabbing a coffee, and then leaving to work elsewhere. It allows employees to maintain a presence at the office while saving time and money. The practice has become more popular as companies enforce return-to-office mandates, with 58% of hybrid employees participating in the trend.
Or this one? Roughly 5% of workers in a typical organization have two full-time jobs concurrently, according to a new McKinsey report that surveyed over 15,000 workers across seven countries, including the US, between last November and January. McKinsey called the trend a “growing phenomenon” that’s been driven, in part, by more remote workers taking on a second remote job, likely without their employer’s knowledge.
I’ve argued that bad management is one reason for this confusion. Turns out there are a lot of bad managers. A survey by the Chartered Management Institute found that 82% of bosses in the UK lack formal leadership or management training. Many managers are promoted based on internal relationships rather than performance, leading to a high number of “accidental managers.”, which leads to low-quality feedback. A study of 13,000 workers’ performance reviews over two years found that low-quality feedback contributes to high employee attrition rates. Employees who received unhelpful or vague feedback were likelier to leave the organization.
And before I get to other big ideas, this one – the future of work is optimization rather than the location of work. Three emerging themes include the CEO taking charge of the future of work, shifting from talent operation to talent optimization, and building a support system for leaders. These themes aim to maximize performance, create value, and support employee well-being.
Why do we care?
I love this chaos because those with solutions are valuable. Chris Kay in Insider is right – the future of work is optimization. And clearly, organizations do not have the skills to deliver that.
Poor management doesn’t know how to manage or build organizations that can, so rather than learn, fall back on classic tropes. Workers, having figured out there are other options, will game systems.
I focus here because those with solutions can build entire practices. And they’re all technology driven… and that’s why I like this for technology services companies.