HR & Future of Work Predictions 2024 and Beyond

Annie Dean, Global Head of Team Anywhere, Atlassian 

 

• By the end of 2024, executives will be forced to admit their RTO mandates did not improve productivity. In Atlassian’s recent survey of Fortune 500 execs, we found that low productivity is leaders' top challenge for the coming year, despite 91% having some form of in-office mandate. It seems like many already know that these mandates aren’t the answer. Only 1 in 3 executives with an in-office mandate think that their in-office policies have had any kind of positive effect on productivity.
• 2024 will kick off a decade in which leaders become laser focused on fixing how we work. How we work is broken. 87% of executives say their teams do not have complete visibility into each other’s goals, and almost half of Fortune 500 leaders say their employees don’t know how to collaborate effectively. Once executives finally admit that offices do not magically solve productivity issues, they will frantically refocus on what actually does boost performance: enabling teams to create more focus time, drive clear goals, and easily coordinate work.
• How work gets done will replace the office as the key cultural touchpoint. Executives think every company feels the same to employees when they’re working from their living room. But what sets innovative organizations apart, no matter where someone sits, is how work happens. Companies will be defined by whether or not processes are efficient, the way meetings are run, and whether leaders are willing to disrupt existing norms with new tools, practices, and AI.
  Leaders and teams who actively seek out more effective (and fun!) technologies and norms will be the ones to attract top talent. Using a dated email client or locally saved documents will be non-starters for candidates.
• Top talent will no longer choose your company over everything else in their life. In the past, employers and employees both assumed that work came first. In 2024, we’ll see workers put more emotional distance between themselves and work by adopting healthier boundaries. Top talent wants to make an impact with their work, but they’re no longer willing to do so at the expense of everything else in their life. As flexible work becomes more normalized, workers will undergo a fundamental rebalancing of priorities, resulting in fewer competing priorities and a deeper investment in life outside of work.
• By 2025, “Inbox(0)” will be dead. Two trends will make this (and relying on email as a primary communication tool) an obsolete concept: 1) Tools like Atlassian AI will make it increasingly easy to prioritize and surface mission-critical information and 2) Distributed teams will be forced to find more effective ways of sharing information and making decisions. In other words, the era of inefficient communication and being rewarded for quickly reacting to (often unimportant and non-urgent) notifications will be over.
• 2024 will be the golden age for introverts. With distributed work, personality as a tool of influence is decreasing in relevance, while authenticity, a high EQ, and strong writing skills increase in desirability. Work is becoming far more written by default, which is inclusive to your quieter, more introverted, yet thoughtful and brilliant colleagues.

Dominic Price, Work Futurist, Atlassian 

• Business leaders need to plant seeds for the long haul rather than expecting a thriving garden now. Shareholder pressure, reporting, and economic turbulence make it really easy for business leaders to prioritise short-sighted goals. In my eyes, wise business leaders in 2024 will be looking for fertile ground, planting seeds, and nurturing a workplace that focuses on humans and society, not just tech and efficiency. It’s about embracing the reality of their organisation and industry NOW and looking ahead to what will lead to sustainable success. Growing with heart and balance takes time.
• The Future of Work isn’t up to Work Futurists. We are seeing more and more work futurists every year but seeing less and less change actually happening. In 2024, we’ll see more business leaders recognising the importance of giving their workers a voice in what their own future of work looks like, and good leaders will go on to make it a reality.
• The binary office 'debate' must finally be put to bed. Why is it that nearly half a decade later we are still arguing whether workers should be in the office or working from home? It’s not about one being better than the other, because we know that humans have different preferences and that teams can have everything they need to be a little bit of both. Don’t believe me? We recently spoke to a bunch of exec leaders from Fortune 1000 companies who told us that they are 3x more likely to say that HOW their teams work is a bigger problem than WHERE they work. In 2024, leaders will wake up to the reality that their adult(!) teams are fully capable of making their own decisions about where they work best and will give them the tools and upskilling to make it work for them.
• Knowledge obesity is rotting the roots of problem solvers. With modern technology and the rise of AI, we have access to billions of touchpoints of information. In 2024 the scales will tip, and it will no longer be about how much you know but how knowledge workers can glean insights and apply it to solve problems to make decisions at speed. Business leaders will lean heavily on Atlassian Intelligence and other tools to help cut through the noise and hone in on what is important when it matters most to their business and teams.