Shiwangi Sharma, Nandini Srivastava, Gauri Bhasin, Manav Rachna
Faridabad, Haryana, India, March 3, 2024
Change is coming so fast in the workplace that employees are asking existential questions about what they are doing and why.
While Infosys Co-Founder and billionaire N R Narayana Murthy wants India’s young people to work 70 hours a week to ‘boost the Indian economy,’ employees are more likely to be re-evaluating the meaning of their jobs.
Among their questions: How does my work matter? What is the purpose of my work? Am I proud of my workplace? Is there any meaning in my work? Do I enjoy this work?
They are also asking what gives work true meaning. Is it the number of hours someone works, what they produce, or something else?
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Workplace after Covid
These questions have come into sharper focus since Covid changed the way we work and prompted organisations to rethink work culture.
The idea of a more human-centric workplace has taken root and is producing results.
One report revealed that 65% of employees said that the pandemic forced them to rethink the purpose and importance of their work. More than eight in 10 said that organisations were focusing more on them as individuals as opposed to just faceless employees.
This human-centric work environment leads to drastic reductions in worker fatigue, better retention numbers and performance, which is improved more than threefold.
But there remain challenges in the transition, with organisations encountering difficulties in managing talent, worker fatigue, social shifts due to external changes in environment and technology, costs and a surge in the use of artificial intelligence and automation.
For many, work needs to value them and be aligned with their values.
Measuring business success
Business success can be measured better when the purpose of the workplace is aligned clearly with the individual goal, not a massive increase in work hours, as suggested by Mr Murthy.
To ensure a meaningful work environment, bosses are encouraged to provide and enhance strategic clarity, coaching and empathy to their employees. Team performance, collaboration, tech innovations and improving their employees’ skills can all help this.
There is also a need to recognise, respect and reward individual acumen and have provision for training and upskilling to expand employees’ abilities beyond their roles to engage meaningfully in different roles and opportunities in the organisation.
But not all organisations will hold on to their people.
It is estimated that one in every 16 employees may switch jobs by 2030. That equates to more than 100 million people across eight major economies — China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US.
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Retaining talent
Retaining talent will mean changes in work practices. Redesigning the workplace, restructuring talent and skills, digital enablement, hybrid working, cultural rejuvenation and human-centric work design will all play a role.
Whether with on-site or hybrid work, sustaining workers’ performance is another challenge. For organisations to keep up with global workforce transitions need a reworking of existing attitudes towards work.
As attitudes change, so does the nature of individual jobs.
Highly skilled work in healthcare and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) will increase in demand.
E-commerce, the Green Economy, Remote Working Culture, Digital Technologies, AI and Automation are some more areas which are set for growth.
With their incorporation, organisations can direct change in the context of technology-driven and automated systems. These approaches lead towards a key area of restructuring and creating a new framework for the future of work.
Redefining Work Culture
Indeed, these shifts are redefining work culture and signal the need for collaborative, often technology-driven practices while also nourishing interpersonal interaction.
This brings us back to the first question about what gives this new form of work its meaning.
It will be for employers to align employees’ work with the organisation’s larger purpose, redesign employee retention strategies to increase their sense of ownership, enhance their well-being and create a sense of belonging.
It is when this happens that employees can value and appraise their jobs beyond monetary terms and as meaningful work.
Dr Shiwangi Sharma and Dr Nandini Srivastava are respectively Assistant Professor and Professor and Director of the Council for Doctoral Programme at the School of Leadership and Management-PG at the Manav Rachana International Institute of Research Studies, based in Faridabad, Uttar Pradesh. Dr Gauri Bhasin is the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, Marketing and Admissions at the Institute. The above article which appeared first by 360info has been published here under Creative Commons Licence.
