The latest workplace trends brewing this financial year

Though the latest financial year is only in its infancy, new research from recruitment company Hays has illuminated some of the recently emerging trends and how they’ll shape the future of work.

The rise of AI integration:

As has been the case for much of the past 12 months, AI’s importance in the day-to-day lives of Australian professionals is set to expand over the closing months of 2023 and the opening months of the new year.

Businesses have moved swiftly to ensure their tech adoption is both beneficial to their employees and their clients with certain companies, including consulting firm KPMG, moving to introduce their own version of the revolutionary ChatGPT to preserve company data and avoid costly leaks.

Despite caution being thrown into the wind regarding AI and the dangers it poses to society, including from NAB’s chief executive officer, Ross McEwan, Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak – who joined 1,000 other signatories on a letter urging a slowdown of the AI race – and ChatGPT mastermind, Sam Altman, Hays expects automation to become a mainstay moving forward.

A key factor driving the emergence of this trend over the opening month of the new financial year has been a perceived talent shortage which has seen “many companies looking for ways to streamline their hiring processes and cut administrative costs wherever possible”, according to Hays.

The organisation added “automation enables teams to eliminate the elements of ‘busy work’, freeing up professionals to work on the more nuanced elements of talent acquisition, including direct human interaction”.

Casting a gaze beyond utilising AI throughout the hiring process, Hays is also reporting a large number of organisations have begun “exploring how a more sophisticated HR tech stack can offer a hyper-personalised experience to each employee, giving them the flexibility to shape an environment that best suits their needs”.

Talent shortages and reshaped retention strategies

Returning to the topic of talent shortages, Hays noted “talent shortages have long been acknowledged and in some industries, continue to worsen”. Over the course of recent months, companies have felt the impacts of talent shortages and, as such, have shifted their focus on locking in strategies that enable them to mitigate the skill gaps birthed by worker shortages.

This, according to the recruitment outfit, includes developing a “growing reliance on the contingent workforce”.

Not only have talent shortages resulted in organisations homing in on increasing their headcount, but many have also doubled down on the retention of the talent currently working within their walls.

A core component of the said retention strategies is increasing salaries to a competitive level while other financial perks, such as performance-based bonuses, have not looked out of play in the fight for talent.

However, according to Hays, adequate remuneration is not all that exists in the minds of current and prospective employees. The company’s Salary Guide found “employers need to also consider the other benefits as part of their attraction and retention strategy, including work/life balance, upskilling and personal values”.

“There’s also a need to widen the scope of the search, with underrepresented or hidden talent networks offering untapped skills”, Hays reported, adding “incorporating these talent sources into a wider people strategy will require organisations to examine their existing hiring processes”.

Productivity woes and overcoming them

Even with tech adoption becoming increasingly commonplace in the modern working society, Hays found employee productivity has taken a hit during recent months. According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), productivity – measured through gross domestic product (GDP) per hour worked – fell 4.6 per cent in the 12 months to March 2023, the largest recorded decline in the statistics.

This is not to say declining productivity shrouds every Australian industry. Certain sectors, such as energy and communication, where technology has become predominantly utilised, have experienced growing productivity recently, while the service industry, amongst others, has seen output go the opposite direction.

In the eyes of Hays, “addressing this challenge requires a multi-faceted approach”, which lies not only within the remit of organisations but also within the hands of governments who they believe can “deliver productivity growth by addressing education as a critical focus which will enable highly skilled and adaptive workers, investing in infrastructure, promoting innovation, technological adoption and research, and fostering entrepreneurship and competition”.

For companies, Hays believes several avenues exist to inspire an in-house productivity increase, including upskilling of existing employees, utilising contingent workers to supplement teams and improving the employee experience.

The hybrid work conundrum

Running concurrently with the struggle to increase productivity ravages within certain sectors of the Australian employment sphere is the return to work tug-of-war which, while remaining constant in the post-COVID-19 world, has intensified over the backend of 2022 and early quarters of 2023.

According to a poll conducted by The Australian Financial Review, the average Australian worker attends the office two to three times per week, a far cry from the five days of guaranteed attendance that was normal prior to COVID-19’s arrival on Australian shores.

Hays revealed a clear divide exists between employee desires and employer demands. According to the company’s latest Salary Guide, two-thirds of office-based employees will hunt for hybrid work in their next job search while just 33 per cent of employers are allowing staff to come to work when it’s suitable for them.

Despite this war of preferences raging on, Hays insisted “one thing has become very clear – with hybrid working here to stay, employers have witnessed the repercussions faced by organisations that mandate office returns”.

As a result of this, a shift from strict mandates has become the preferred outcome for many.

In order to accommodate the changing nature of work and ensure hybrid working does not come at the detriment of overall business performance, Hays explained “many employers are now considering how to create a work environment that maximises both collaboration and focused individual work”.

The recruitment organisation concluded that “succeeding amid a more complex world of work will require organisations to continually anticipate, monitor and prepare for tomorrow’s challenges”.’

This article was originally published on HR Leader’s sister brand, Real Estate Business (REB).