Permacrisis, meaning an extended period of instability and insecurity, was the word of 2022 according to Collins Dictionary, writes Sarah Rice, Chief People Officer at Skynamo. This is quite fitting considering the various crises faced in South Africa and around the world. Unfortunately, with predictions of a global recession to take place in 2023, the chances of more challenges lying ahead are likely for both businesses and employees.
In the tech space, hiring freezes and retrenchments locally and internationally have become a trend as businesses look to contain costs ahead of the possible recession. Although the unemployment rate in South Africa slightly decreased in Q3 of last year, I believe that this is not set to continue, especially in the technology sector.
While tech skills are highly publicised as scarce in the country, with jobs such as Software Developers, Programmers, and Data Scientists listed as critical, my experience of hiring in the tech space in November and December indicates that this is changing. We had more, quality candidates for roles we had previously battled to fill.
The job market is changing quickly and means that the employer-employee dynamic will shift with it.
Following the pandemic, the power has been strongly on the side of employees – as evidenced by the skills scarcity and trends like the great resignation and quiet quitting. But recessions traditionally put power into the hands of those with the ability to make money, so my prediction is that it will swing towards employers which will have a massive impact on hiring, retention, and ways of working.
The year will be about getting back to basics so that businesses can get back in control of their balance sheets. New tech, like integrating meta or AI in a fancy sci-fi way, will not cut it when it comes to attracting and retaining employees. In tough economic times we want stability which means companies need to build authentic relationships with their existing and prospective people. The old-fashioned things that build trust, enhance collaboration, and increase how visible people are to each other will become important. This means that businesses should place focus on the following three areas this year:
- Employee retention requires emphasis on relationships: Stress among employees across the globe reached an all-time high in 2022. We need to make employee wellbeing a priority by managing burnout, humanising work, and helping people find alignment between their job, identity, and purpose. Not only will this improve retention, but it will also improve productivity. This requires managers and leaders to continue to level up their capacity for individualised relationships with members of their team.
- Leadership and manager effectiveness: To put the above into practice, managers need to be upskilled in terms of communicating better and building strong relationships. People leaders will also need to create a clear view of the possible growth paths within the company so that people know exactly what their opportunities are. Plus, they must clearly outline and communicate the company’s purpose while continuing to define and support an inclusive culture.
- Figuring out hybrid: It’s going to be an interesting year when it comes to ways of working. No one has gotten hybrid right yet. The shift in the employee-employer dynamic means that businesses may flex their power and ask people to come back to the office and come back more often. This may put the needs of the business in conflict with what their people want. The power play and how leaders navigate it will be the story of 2023.
For me, ways of working should support quality of life and better connections with ourselves, our community, and our colleagues. Hybrid has the potential to do this but there is a lot of work to still do.
My concern is that the shift of power back to employers might see us lose some of the gains we made around flexible working and the focus on mental health, culture, purpose and empathy-based leadership.
There is also a question about how hybrid and in-office visibility will impact career growth and opportunity. My sense is that people who come into the office are more accessible and able to collaborate more effectively with their managers and team, and they will be the ones who are able to grow their careers. People who choose majority remote work will end up in a transactional relationship with their managers and the business, and this will limit their opportunities. Figuring out hybrid ways of working that support both the business and the people are imperative.
I believe that 2023 will be about intimacy and how we get back into relationships with our people and help them get into relationships with each other and the business. It’s been three years of the COVID fallout and now we are looking at a probable recession – we need each other. We need to reconnect and become accessible to each other again. I don’t quite know how this will look in the next year, but this is the context that PeopleOps teams and leaders will need to operate within. Our intention has to be 100% people focused with a heightened awareness of the business and personal value of relationships.