2023 Will Be The Year Of “Returning To The Office” And Adjusting To New Norms

Employers and employees have gone toe-to-toe in what they expect from the workplace in 2022, and the new year is anticipated to see this fight come to a head.   

Return-to-the-office schemes aren’t new. Leaders have been trying (and failing) to bring workers back into the office since the onset of the pandemic.    

After countless postponements and delays, some companies have declared the end of remote work — but that doesn’t necessarily mean employees are complying.   

“If the three ‘R’s of 2021 and 2022 were retirement, resignation, and relocation, the three ‘R’s of 2023 could be returning to the office, recession, and readjustment,” said Simon Roderick, managing director of financial services at Fram Search.  

“The world of work has been through huge changes since the pandemic, and it would be good not to see the positives of this change undone by a recession.” 

However, the office many return to will look unfamiliar, with reliance on video conferencing and building management software becoming a mainstay despite most workers being in a space together. 

Because employees continue to resist return-to-office strategies, experts agree that employers will need to provide more incentives to keep turnover at bay. One way to do this? Upskilling programs. 

By giving workers the ability to learn new skills, business leaders send the message that they want to provide employees with a clear path to success within the company and in their overall career.  

“Companies are focusing a lot more on their internal labor market and thinking about how they can take high-performing employees and move them into positions where they need them more, so thinking about upskilling programs as part of an internal mobility strategy is really important,” said Jamie Kohn, research director at Gartner HR.