9 Trends to Adopt to Ensure A Happy Workplace [2024]

It's the New Year, and one can only wonder about the multiple changes that the workplace culture has gone through in the past year. The ascension of the new year brings about the most-asked question: “How would the workplace be this year?”

With companies witnessing a significant shift in generational hiring, and the rise of the millennials, only the adoption of recent trends based on the multifaceted requirement of the workforce can make the workplace happy.

💡

PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2023 quoted, “You have to reinvent your organization, but without the support and energy of all your people, these efforts will fail.” This forces the need to focus on implementing trendy aspects into the workplace for a better agreement with the workforce.

2018 was the year of app-ification, gamification, and automation. Culture has been one of the majorly developed areas, with companies adopting the concept of workplace flexibility, a personalized approach to rewards and recognition, and a more systematic approach to employee wellbeing. These trends have impacted how a workforce is driven, engaged, and motivated. After analyzing the current workplace scenario, here's an outline of the major workforce trends that will keep your employees and culture happy in 2024.

1. Inclusion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

A continued focus should be allocated towards building a diverse workforce with a more inclusive mindset. In addition, implementation of talent acquisition strategies along with training and development of equal opportunities should be placed irrespective of gender and ethnicity.

2. Implementing hybrid and remote work:

The hybrid model, which is a combination of office and remote work will likely be dominant across industries. Forbes predicts that 32.6 million Americans will want to work remotely by the end of 2025. With remote working and productivity having a direct link, in such a case, the organization must rethink the office space and policies to accommodate flexible work arrangements to promote productivity.

3. Problem-solving must be the key

Managers must make themselves redundant and focus more on problem-solving. Managers must let their team take responsibility and drive projects while finding ways to make the process more productive and efficient. HR managers must not take on clerical roles and efficiently move on from one problem to another.

4. Automation is the word

Technology must be leveraged in 2019 to streamline all processes. HR functions such as rewards, recognition, and engagement must be automated. Employees must have public access to Rewards, and Recognition must be made public to see who are the achievers and who are the performers.

5. Mood analysis

Managers must use optimized tools to stay ahead of the curve and see what makes employees happy or sad. These tools can intelligently note how the employees are feeling using emoticons. If the employee chooses an unhappy emoticon, the employer knows that this issue needs to be addressed.

6. Map out an employee life cycle

An employee's life cycle maps out the employee's journey from induction/onboarding up until their exit. HR managers must understand the employee and their connection with peers and employers. This is a good way to visualize employees and increase engagement, motivation, and the chance to build a successful team.

7. Celebrate personalisation

While monetary benefits have been the go-to reward options for organizations, it's time they moved beyond money and ran the mill rewards. Companies have now started giving experiences to their employees as rewards and as a means to engage their workforce. Experiences have been proven to be more engaging gifts and have a more personal touch.

8. Ideate. Conceptualize. Implement.

Companies must now focus on creating an open-source platform that encourages the staff to develop newer ideas and strategies that can help solve a current company problem.

9. Peer to peer appreciation takes the centre stage

Peer-to-peer recognition is an important building block that helps improve and build a fantastic company culture. In most organizations, managers often oversee employees and bigger departments. When they take up this big responsibility, they are constantly focused on making sure that nothing goes wrong that they may fail to see what is going right. This is where peer-to-peer recognition helps bring a good-performing employee to light.

Conclusion

Smaller steps towards a healthier, happier workplace can make a big difference in how 2019 works out for organizations. Empuls aims to ensure that companies this year focus more on peer-to-peer appreciation and build a happy and desirable. Please find out about our extensive employee engagement programs and rewards and recognition platform.