Historically, our society and organizations have developed both consciously and unconsciously, cultures which stratify across social identities such as ethnic, racial, gender, and religious. As a result, some groups receive preferential treatment, while individuals who do not share such identities are skeptical of organizations, especially when diversity is lacking. As hybrid work becomes a new corporate trend, the concept of a more flexible future generates a new diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I) predicament as two separate and potentially disparate types of staff—those working in-person and those who work remotely emerges.
I got interested in this emerging business trend because DE&I is still a popular human resource concept. Companies are under increasing pressure and motivation to make more equal and inclusive employment, remuneration, and promotion policies. With the advancement toward hybrid workplaces, the policies geared toward diversity, equity and inclusion are facing challenges owing to the bias that exists between those who believe people working from the office are more productive that remote employees.
The concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion has emerged as a commercial concern in organizations as a result of contemporary racial injustice, social movements, and global disasters. While equity based on race, gender, and other protected classifications is an important component of DE&I, the discipline is much broader: it is about providing an equitable playing field for reward and progress regardless of circumstances (Gentle-Genitty et al., 2021). Companies are now preoccupied with the day-to-day logistical problems of balancing remote and in-person staff. The emergence of remote work has prompted skepticism between the importance of in-person and remote work, especially since the productivity of either form of work come into question
The driving force of hybrid work is the independence of a worker to afford autonomy in the creative process. However, after a prolonged period, the lack of physical interaction may lead to losing touch in the employee’s relationship wit his other colleagues. While independence at work is vital and helps foster focus, there is a danger of getting too used to being alone that relating to other people could be viewed as burdensome. Iqbal et al. (2021), for instance, claim that marginalized groups constantly draw toward one another even while working remotely since they share something else outside of work. However, when away from others, this group may find it hard to mix with others on their team without shared social characteristic (Iqbal et al., 2021). Communication in the remote and hybrid work system breeds an inorganic nature that eventually dampens the DE&I efforts.
Hybrid work might turn an organization’s benefits into liabilities by amplifying in-group versus out-group dynamics and thereby creating an unfair playing field. Adopting poorly thought-out hybrid models might instead hasten employee exits, reduce equity and inclusion, and negatively impact organizational performance in businesses that already struggle to diversity and retain personnel. A study by Yang et al. (2021) found that hybrid work makes a worker collaboration network more rigid and isolated, with fewer bridges connecting dissimilar components. With hybrid work, communication becomes more asynchronous over time and less synchronous. In contrast to in-person work systems, the combined effects of these factors may make it more difficult for employees to gather and exchange fresh knowledge across the network.
From reading and understanding the list of trends that will shape the workplace, I believe a missing trend that is quite dynamic is the use of wearable technology. Our phones keep records on everything we do; they actually count our steps, provide a summary of our health status, and geolocates us based on our social media posts. Employers will use this technology to monitor employee activity and to compare the number of workers working from the office to those working from home. Due in large part to the fact that companies now include wearables in benefit packages, they will also be utilized to track work hours. Employees who reach their weekly activity objectives will receive rewards or gifts from their employers through health initiatives.
References
Gentle-Genitty, C., Merrit, B., & Kimble-Hill, A. C. (2021). A model for crafting diversity, inclusion, respect, and equity (DIRE) policy statements toward catalyzing organizational change. ACS Central Science, 7(3), 383–391. Web.
Iqbal, K. M. J., Khalid, F., & Barykin, S. Y. (2021). Hybrid workplace. Handbook of Research on Future Opportunities for Technology Management Education, 28–48. Web.
Yang, L., Holtz, D., Jaffe, S., Suri, S., Sinha, S., Weston, J., Joyce, C., Shah, N., Sherman, K., Hecht, B., & Teevan, J. (2021). The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers. Nature Human Behavior, 6(1), 43–54. Web.