Clichéd as it may be, being the end of the year we have decided to dedicate our final ThoughtHub article to the subject of ‘What 2022 will bring for our clients’; it goes without saying, that there some headwinds evident which are likely to become stronger, but equally we think we can look forward to one or two positive trends too, and in particular, we think 2022 could prove to be ‘The Year of the Employee’.

2-Years = Cotton

Sometimes it is hard to believe that it has been nearly 2 years since COVID first hit headlines; two-years of lockdowns, facemasks, government interventions, and worse… on the other hand, at other times It has been a VERY long two years.

Early on, fears of the health risks were balanced by concerns of the economy collapsing with the knock-on of redundancies soaring, accelerating inflation etc. and for these reasons the UK government along with many others intervened with policies such as the furlough scheme. In the UK this lasted a lot longer than initially planned, with extensions being essential to support the large sectors of the economy that continued to see operating restricted by policies designed to protect health; eventually in the Summer however with the UK vaccine programme accelerating and infection numbers falling, furlough ended and once again, although concerns re-emerged that unemployment would rise… but it didn’t.

2021 it was predicted, would be the year of ‘The Great Resignation’; the expectation being that a combination of pent-up demand coupled with businesses failing to meet the new desires of their people, would drive employee churn on a previously unseen scale; in truth, perhaps because of the continued uncertainty caused by new variants, changing guidelines, lockdowns overseas etc. this didn’t prove to be quite as ‘great’ as some predicted.

Yes, there were record vacancy numbers this year, but this should be seen in the light of CIPD data which shows a 12-month rising trend for the net % of employers looking to increase staffing levels, rising from a score of +11 to +38 in the Autumn 2021 data; whether or not this is due to a period of passive behaviour earlier in the pandemic, it seems right now, that the job-market is a hot place to be, and in 2022 this trend is likely to continue.

2022 – All about Employees

Employees are vital to a business, not only in terms of having the right number of people on-board to ensure productivity and profitability, but also in terms of getting the right skills, experience, and expertise to drive a company forward; people really are the engine room of a business and companies thrive with the right mix or fail when they get it wrong.

Of course, getting your people ‘right’ is a challenge at the best of times, recruiting the best can often be an uncertain activity and when there is low supply and/or high demand in the market, competition will sometimes undermine even the most robust of processes.

For years organisations have sought to add science to the decision-making process, from personality-profiling and verbal/numerical aptitude tests to a more recent wave of solutions looking to quantify elements of the process in order to make it possible to make recruitment decisions based on data; but at the end of the day, it is about one person fitting within and complementing a group of others, and this is something that I struggle to believe will ever be quantifiable.

We already know that 2022 is going to start with restrictions, as the return to WFH that has been imposed during the last few weeks of 2021 will certainly be carried forwards; but for many, it really must be the year when we live with COVID and move forwards.

For businesses, this could mean exciting opportunities, be it to drive into new markets, revolutionise client engagement (likely to be another massive trend), or simply to grow through acquisitions and/or organic means, but to fulfil the potential 2022 has to offer, acquiring and (just as importantly) retaining great talent is going to be instrumental.

Many businesses are already treading a fine line between their desire for a return to what they know best, (offices nearly at capacity, the classic 9-5, etc) and the desires of a large percentage of employees to work more flexibly that emerged 21-months ago; and for many this isn’t just about the number of days in the office, but how work and life interact; earlier or later starts/finishes, breaks in the day for school-runs/PT-sessions/walking the dog, and being able to take a call late in the day with colleagues in the US from home rather than your desk a 90-minute commute away; as life starts to move on, people will make decisions about how well their current job and employer fits their lives.

Much as business leaders may hate to admit it, the power is going to be with employees, in a high-demand talent marketplace this is inevitable; and for those businesses which are unable to or don’t wish to offer flexibility, they are likely to significantly reduce their market for new talent, as well as potentially inhibiting their ability to retain those in already onboard.

Salary vs Flexibility

One of the most inevitable impacts of a talent marketplace with short supply is that wages rise beyond typical averages; an example of one such sector where this is currently evident is city-based law firms where some of the UK’s biggest such as Linklaters, Allen & Overy and Freshfields have recently made significant steps to change their compensation packages at most levels from newly qualified upwards. This has taken a combination of basic salary increases and increased bonuses, particularly to reflect substantially increased workloads seen over the last couple of years; while the immediate impact will be to the firms’ current talent and will presumably be with the objective of improving retention, but also it is no-doubt hoped this will strengthen the organisations’ competitivity for new hires.

However, for some in the legal profession as with many other sectors, salary is no-longer their primary consideration, with flexibility of equal or greater importance. The arguments in favour of flexible working are well known now, and what is increasingly clear is that the desire has become increasingly entrenched over the 21-months since the government first mandated WFH; for some businesses, their hope that the desire for flexibility would wane is becoming increasingly unlikely leaving these organisations and their people some way apart.

It is also worth mentioning that many of those choosing flex had a very realistic approach to their desire, such as a recognition that compromise was essential, and that there were some elements of their role that could only be done in the office; getting the right offer is therefore a challenge of balancing the objectives of the business, the desires of the employees and the requirements of their work.

If you balance these three elements, offering flexibility shouldn’t be detrimental to your organisation, at intelliHub we always look at working schedules as a spectrum, ranging from 100% office-centric to 100% remote, and as with all spectrums, there is the opportunity for people to be placed differently, and moved as circumstances change, creating an average which reflects the organisation at any point of time.

If you do get it right then the results will be transformative; you will see you people more energised, with a greater desire to succeed for both themselves and the organisation; you will significantly reduce employee churn and with this slash costs of recruitment and training, as well as retain critical expertise that you have heavily invested in; and when you do stray into the recruitment market place you will do so with a compelling proposition that appeals to the very best talent – and 2022 will be the start of a very successful period for your organisation.

The team at intelliHub would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported and worked with us in 2021; and we would like to wish you all a pleasurable and relaxing festive season.

Here’s to 2022, the year of the Employee.