Today, white-collar jobs might be known as non-collar jobs, considering the many knowledge workers who make calls from sofas in T-shirts and sweats.
Remote work is an unevenly distributed privilege during the lockdown. While some employees are able to avoid the office and the associated pandemic risks, others are risking their lives and continuing to provide services on site. Many of these frontline workers are service workers, such as grocery store cashiers, as well as some are knowledge workers, such as health care professionals who work in hospitals.
But when remote jobs disappeared for almost three years, the hybrid policy has become the main compromise between those who still want flexibility and those who want to return to personal work (often typecast as employers and bosses, respectively).
Hybrid work is still often done only for white-collar workers. But consulting firm Gartner predicts that all could change this year, asserting in its 2023 workplace forecast that hybrid flexibility will reach the front line of workers.
Many companies are rolling out hybrid policies to try and even the playing field between those who can and can’t work from home, Gartner said, mandating entry into the office at least a few days a week. More than six in 10 companies have some on-site requirements for remote workers.
2023 will see a change: Instead of limiting flexibility to be fair across the board, “smart organizations” will try to implement strategies that make work more flexible for frontline workers. This may seem like giving them more autonomy and stability in terms of work schedules, as well as paid leave.
Some companies have started to accommodate this way of working. Fast-casual restaurant DIG is implementing a four-day work week – a growing trend in knowledge workplaces – for service employees in the second half of 2022 (after starting a pilot in 2020), finding the rollout to increase productivity and employee satisfaction.
“If a suit can do it, why can’t we?” Brian Coakley, director of operations DIG said fortune. “Why can’t we do that in the restaurant industry?”
Indeed, research shows that hybrid work can be the key to keeping employees from quitting; hybrid workers have reported higher levels of company loyalty than their remote or personal counterparts. And a study from software company Citrix also shows that hybrid knowledge workers are more likely than their remote or in-office counterparts to connect with coworkers in ways that make them happier and more productive. They also reported connecting more with their leaders.
Workers value flexibility to the extent that they stop looking elsewhere, despite the recession.
“We are seeing a number of resignations that force employees to return to the office, showing that workers have made workplace flexibility an ultimatum that they refuse to give up – and they are not bothered by recent layoff reports,” VP people. at Payscale, Lexi Clarke, said in a statement to fortune in December.
If hybrid work can reach more frontline industries, then flexibility may become so ubiquitous that it becomes a workplace staple rather than a workplace perk.
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