Reshaping the world of work in this new age

A new survey reveals how Covid-19 has affected work in New Zealand, and during Mental Health Awareness Week calls for Kiwis to reimagine a workplace that helps uplift everyone’s wellbeing.

Re-thinking office spaces, rising anxiety levels due to economic uncertainty, and job searching extending to new cities are emerging trends in Frog Recruitment’s World of Work 2020, an annual survey of Australasian businesses representing more than 356,000 employees.

The qualitative and quantative survey aimed to understand how employers were feeling about their respective job markets during COVID-19. A range of sectors were represented, including health, education, I.T., legal, government, not-for-profit, manufacturing and professional services.

There were no surprises that the survey’s strongest data firmly pointed to the shift from the office to working from home, with 61 percent of HR managers saying the most asked request from employees this year is to formalise working from home (WFH) options.

“More than a fifth of Kiwi businesses we spoke to offered fully flexible policies allowing employees to move between WFH and the office, and over half surveyed have agreed to managed flexibility, while only 17 percent of organisations surveyed have not incorporated flexible working options,” says Frog Recruitment managing director Shannon Barlow (pictured above).

The survey’s top seven emerging workplace trends in our COVID world are:

1.     Working from home and flexible working policies is here to stay.  Fifty eight percent of organisations adapted and evolved to 2020’s new working landscape through investing in technology and ergonomic tools for home offices, video meeting software and remote team building activities, while juggling personal commitments such as childcare, without compromising productivity.

2.     Is this the end of large office leases? Almost one third of respondents (31 percent) confirmed their organisation had reduced common space as a result of COVID-19.  This month, local media reported a rise in empty commercial office space in Auckland’s CBD largely due to a recent office tower construction boom. While Valentina Machina, from architectural firm Jasmax believes working from home has a place going forward, though she says it is not an ‘either or’ scenario.

“In our COVID-19 world, workplace designers have an enormous opportunity to revolutionise ways of working. I believe there are multiple paths that could lead to the creation of more human centric office spaces whilst reaping the great benefits of WFH. 

“We’re looking at space optimisation to provide tailor made solutions, and ways to optimise two concepts – that the office is a collaborative and creative place, and that the office is a space of interaction and activities, maximising how we use technology including the Internet of Things for automation and touchless technology.”

3.     Career seekers search global.  More than a fifth (21 percent) of job seekers have changed their search criteria since March. Notably, 85 percent say they are now open to working fully remotely for a company located in another city, highlighting our workforce’s willingness to be nimble and flexible with work arrangements.

Barlow says since sharing the survey data with job candidates, jobseekers continue to widen their geographical search, with increasingly more candidates widening their search to include remote work.

4.     Recruitment freeze – 30 percent of HR managers said their company had enforced a recruitment freeze during the pandemic.  The result is 60 percent of all surveyed said there is a candidate abundance, escalated by a brain gain from returning ex- pats.  Thirty four percent of managers noted a 34 percent improvement in job ad response rates.

Alarmingly says Barlow, 90 percent of New Zealanders who have so far lost their jobs due to Covid-19 are women. “The current Statistics NZ jobs report shows 10,000 women make up the 11,000 people who are now unemployed.

The numbers reflect the fact that women tend to be more represented in retail and hospitality, but also part time work.”

5.     Culture. While 37 percent of employers thought the crisis hadn’t impacted their company culture, 34 percent identified the impact as positive, and 28 percent as having a negative effect.

“More than impacted cultures, COVID-19 has highlighted, boldened and underlined the pros and cons of each organisation’s culture. Leaders need to rebuild trust, as resentment towards top management, due to stand downs and reduced salaries, have spread across teams,” one respondent stated.

From a list of criteria for seeking a new job, career seekers ranked a prospective employer’s culture and brand at the top of their list of desirable benefits.

Conveying company culture to candidates without any in-person contact comes with enormous challenge. For many organisations, culture comes out most in person through office interactions, hallway chats, and team-building events. Maintaining a strong culture with an entirely remote workforce looks different but it is no less important — especially when trying to hire.

6.     Burnout. Half of New Zealand’s respondents said they have worked harder than ever since the pandemic arrived on our shores.

Reports show stressed employees adapting and readapting to an ever-changing work environment has led to an increase in burnout.

In another Frog Recruitment survey of 900 Kiwi workers in July showed that more than 64 percent feel more burnt out at work now than they did prior to the lockdown beginning.

Burnout was officially recognised as an occupational condition by the World Health Organisation and is a syndrome occurring from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Virtual work is intertwined with technology and as our workplace has become more portable, the boundaries of personal time and work time have been blurred. Employers and managers feel a pressure to over-perform, and many have developed work and lifestyle habits that have blurred work and home life so much that they struggle to separate the two.

7.     Stepping up to improved mental health and wellbeing

Since COVID-19, the majority (97.5 percent) of businesses have increased and/or diversified their support initiatives around employee engagement and mental health and wellbeing issues. These include:

·      Daily/weekly check-ins 75%

·      Weekly/monthly social events 64%

·      Health and safety communication 61%

·      Hosting wellbeing webinars 32%

·      Buddy programme 16%

·      Others: EAP, email check ups from top management, etc. 20%

The Mental Health Foundation has kicked off Mental Health Awareness Week, calling for New Zealanders to reimagine a workplace that helps uplift everyone’s wellbeing.

“The landscape will continue to evolve more than ever over the next six to 12 months as Kiwis accept ‘return to lockdown’ as part of their normal working life,” says Barlow. “It’s vital people feel they are supported as they move through the changes.”

She says while the results of the market report give employers valuable insights into the pulse of the workforce, it’s a call to action.

“It will be an exciting challenge for them to adapt to new ways of working to reflect the colossal shifts that have happened this year.  While there have been harsh lessons learned, there has never been a more exciting time for business to seize the opportunities to review and reset their workplace for a stronger future. ”