At Ardent, we track the evolving nature of the worker-employer relationship.
A variety of factors — none more influential than the shift to remote work — have changed labor’s relation to the enterprise. Our conversations with founders, industry executives, and talent experts suggest that the outlook for this traditional bond will be weaker.
In light of the Great Resignation and the more pressing need to cultivate a workforce with the skills to confront tomorrow’s challenges, employers are worried about retaining their workers and acquiring or developing the right talent.
Meanwhile, employees are reevaluating the role that work plays in their lives. Although a consensus “list of demands” has not yet emerged from job seekers and employees (except increased flexibility), employers will continue to face a more discerning labor pool hyper-aware of the various components and tradeoffs that define the worker-employer relationship.
In order to retain talent, we believe employers will begin to focus on providing an “authentic employee experience” that is less transactional in nature. This requires organizations to make serious investments in every stage of the employee lifecycle: onboarding, compensation, personal development, leadership training, internal mobility, and collaboration.
Here are four areas that interest us (in the coming weeks, we will share more detailed thoughts on each of these topics):
The Re-Imagined Labor Marketplace
The combination of employee desire for increased flexibility and employer need for specialized labor is creating a ripe opportunity for re-imagined labor marketplaces. As non-full-time employees make up a more significant percentage of the enterprise’s workforce (accelerated by Great Resignation), job seekers will value seamless experiences to contract work on their terms. Companies will seek solutions that remove friction in the sourcing, screening, and management processes to engage non-FTE workers.
Career Pathing and Internal Mobility
Workers who choose full-time employment over gig arrangements inherently value the stability, structure, and support systems that have historically characterized traditional employment but also will expect the opportunity to pursue their passions, enjoy their work, challenge themselves and share in their company’s successes. Transparency into career paths, development opportunities, and promotion criteria will heavily factor into workers’ decisions to join or leave an employer. For employers looking to reskill and upskill their talent to meet future business needs, there will be an opportunity for thoughtful leaders to align their workforce development requirements with employees’ demand for increased career transparency.
Remote and Hybrid Employee Management
A healthy manager-direct report relationship is central to an employee’s happiness and productivity. It is no surprise that 80% of executives believe that leadership readiness is the primary internal barrier to achieving their future strategies. We see a need for enhanced manager training and leadership development solutions, particularly those that feature personalized and role-specific learning experiences.
Collaboration as a First Citizen
A more loosely coupled alignment between workers and employers — increased by the rise in the number of non-FTEs and the persistence of remote work — is accelerating the need to innovate how information gets shared and work gets executed. Application-specific tools that allow workers to collaborate in real-time on specific tasks or workstreams will help increase the productivity and cohesion of increasingly complex teams. Moreover, employers will be wise to invest in innovative onboarding technologies that reduce the friction of new stakeholders coming and going on projects.
We are excited to continue to meet ambitious founders and community builders who are tackling the above and related challenges!
