As we greet 2023, we must remember that it’s the “child” of 2020-’22: this year is the culmination of the highly volatile three years behind it, and those three years pretty much have changed everything when it comes to leadership:
It’s been, in short, a lot.
The significant increase in workforce flexibility, including its fluidity, means employee expectations could well hit the wall of employer needs. The likely result? A considerable tension point when it comes to the employee experience versus a company’s business constraints.
First, a few statistics:
Yet working in an office also has many benefits for employees
Employees want learning and growth opportunities, yet these can be much harder to provide in a remote work situation. After all, while a considerable amount of learning can – and does – take place in online courses, etc., much learning happens in ad hoc settings among one’s peers and managers.
The “on-the-spot” learning that comes from observing, speaking to peers and managers in a hallway, etc., is incredibly valuable yet very difficult to recreate without a curriculum deliberately engineered for remote learning.
Thus, the tension between leaders and those they lead.
Yet this needn’t be impassable. Both leaders and team members want the same thing: to produce good work. To grow. To make friends (or at least enjoy camaraderie on the job).
As we move through 2023, let us remember that while the pandemic changed so much, much remains. As this year becomes the demarcation between the before and whatever comes after, we as leaders are here to guide our teams through to the other side, ensuring that the bond between employees and leadership becomes ever more resilient.