'The workplace of tomorrow will be very different to the workplace of today'
Software giant Elmo has completed their first year of quarterly employee Sentiment Index surveys and are starting to see some major changes and trends in the data they are extracting.
“If I can sum it up in one sentence,” Danny Lessem, CEO of Elmo, told HRD, “the workplace of tomorrow will be very different to the workplace of today.”
The effects of COVID and the move to remote or hybrid working have majorly contributed to the changes in workplaces, and policy makers and legislators will need to consider the changing way of working in the face an impending federal election. The data from the survey shows that 43% of workers are planning to seek new employment in 2022.
“That’s four out of 10 workers, or five million people,” added Lessem. “That is huge.”
This data has big ramifications for employers – when a business has to replace an employee it costs them around $10,000 and that number jumps to $20,000 for more senior executives so in the face of the ‘great resignation’ or ‘great reshuffle there are going to be some very large challenges for employers.
“One principle I think we have to remember”, added Tony Burke, MP and Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, “is with the great resignation, we’re increasingly seeing people who, before the pandemic had more secure jobs and they’re now finding that what’s available out there is less secure employment than what it used to be.”
Twenty years ago, when we used the term ‘insecure work’ we were simply referring to the difference between permanent and casual work – and that defined whether or not you had job security. These days we’re seeing flimsy definitions around what ‘secure work’ is and a strong emergence of the gig economy, so insecure work looks very different now to what it was twenty years ago.
Burke has been meeting with people in ‘insecure work’ and asking the question, how does this affect your life?
“It’s the simplest things,” said Burke. “A person who loves cycling doesn’t do it anymore because he’s seen other people have accidents and he knows that if he had an accident, he can’t afford to take the time off. As such, that leisure time he loves is just gone. A father saying, ‘I can never coach my kids sporting team because I can’t guarantee whether I’ll be available for training or for the game.’
“The last two years have been incredibly difficult for all of us”, added Georgie Dent, executive director of The Parenthood, an organisation that advocates for parents.
“We know that particularly for parents of younger children, it’s been horrendously difficult – emotionally, socially, logistically. That’s why we [The Parenthood] are so committed to pursuing an equitable and adequate paid parental leave scheme, as well as universal access to quality early education and care.”
The data did reveal that the overall perception of economic security is improving. The current record unemployment rate means that employees have more confidence in looking for alternative employment.
“I think this is a big wake-up call for employers who perhaps haven’t put together the conditions to really suit the lifestyles of the employees,” added Lessem. “We’re talking about working parents, the option for remote-based working and improved wages is at the front of mind for the respondents of the survey.”
It's easy to say that employers who adapt to the changing face of the workforce will do better in terms of retaining employees and attracting new talent and those that don’t adapt will likely find themselves short-staffed.
“In view of the federal election coming up there is a real opportunity on the policy side, to create policies which address the new way of working and take the opportunity to meet the needs of Australian workers,” added Lessem.
Burke countered: “Unless we structurally change some of the rules around our IR system to be able to regulate the gig economy, to put a cap on how long you can be on consecutive short-term contracts, to make sure that labour hire is there to be used for surge workforce, not as a way to undercut pay conditions, nothing’s going to be fixed.”
