Four Trends Shaping How People Work in 2023

By Emma Phillips, Division Vice President Human Resources, ADP

The way people work is continuing to change, as people’s evolving needs inspire innovation in tools and technology. This transformation has been marked by speed and urgency over the past few years, variables that remain consistent in 2023. Shifts in the labor market and global economy have demanded a level of adaptability that’s now become table stakes for employers. Employee expectations have shifted too as workers rethink their priorities. This heightened focus on employee experience is influencing the way employers approach talent challenges in real-time, making the future of work even more fluid as technology evolves to meet modern demands.

The tools that support people at work must understand one important notion: people aren’t static. Their lives are continuously in motion, shaping the needs and the expectations they have of their employers. Work this year will be about listening and responding to those needs to create an employee experience that integrates people’s full lives. That experience starts with recruitment and hiring, but it spans career growth and development, workplace experience, and health and wellbeing. To adapt, employers will look to leverage data-based, intuitive and personalized tools that will help them build meaningful connections with their people.

Let’s examine here the trends that are driving the evolution of HR technology:

The Workplace Becomes Personal

It’s not about leading by the rule, but rather the exception. The pandemic permanently shifted traditional expectations of the workplace, as workers – driven by social and economic stressors – have begun to rethink the notion of job security and how work fits into their lives. The resulting shifts in employee sentiment have left employers to navigate new expectations of flexibility, career choices and job roles, and purpose. Going forward, the tools people use at work will be more personalized, with employers leveraging offerings from personalized pay options like earned wage access to tailored career profiles to enrich the employee experience they deliver and drive talent engagement.

Immediate Feedback Encourages Timely Response

With the world constantly changing and largely digitalized, people have come to expect immediacy. When issues arise, they expect a swift and thorough response. Employee listening is a rising trend, with companies deploying survey tools and other real-time listening posts to tap into what’s on their workers’ minds so they can react and address feedback quickly. To respond meaningfully in real-time, it will be important for employers to leverage data-driven technologies to ensure they’re asking the right questions at the right moments. Targeted, personalized and statistically valid survey instruments are more valuable than once-a-year general surveys. For example, short and light “touches” can be sent during onboarding, or about returning to the office, or diversity, equity and inclusion. Weekly check-in surveys can zero in on how the employee is doing and what’s most pressing for them. With that information, managers can do something specific and personalized in real-time.

Transparency Demands a Data-Driven Approach

With data readily available, there’s greater expectations for companies to leverage it for good. With evolving legislation and compliance considerations around pay transparency and data privacy, employers will need to consider how data impacts their workforce. This includes a heightened focus on closing pay equity gaps and driving progress in diversity, equity and inclusion. Since its launch, 70 percent of companies leveraging ADP’s Pay Equity Storyboard have shown improvement in pay equity, returning an average of $4,000 or more in additional pay to over 400,000 workers deemed to be below benchmark from a pay equity perspective, for a cumulative impact of over $1.6 billion returned to communities. To continue driving such progress, employers will need solutions that can provide benchmarks and insights continuously updated to reflect market trends, help them craft an action plan, and monitor for improvement.

Cultivating Talent Unlocks Innovation

Employees expect new approaches from employers on how work gets done and how they can advance in their career journeys. If they don’t see growth opportunities, they won’t hesitate to look elsewhere. Looking ahead, employers will need to explore ways to cultivate talent and unlock innovation at work, including AI-driven career pathing technologies to mine internal talent for development opportunities, prescriptive learning recommendations, and insights-driven team leader coaching to help employees stretch and develop needed skills.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.