Episode 71 · 29 December 2023 · 24:55

What Trends Will Dominate 2024's Workplaces? (Part 1 of 2)

0:000:00

Tip: click any timestamp below to jump there and keep playing.

Chapters & timestamps

Click any timestamp to jump the player to that moment.

Reviewing our 2023 predictions
panel interview#predictions #2023 #review
Introducing the 2024 expert panel
intro#2024 #expert-panel #introduction
Prediction 1: Hybrid working continues to gain pace
panel interview#hybrid-work #workplace-trends #prediction
Prediction 2: Workplace health trends
panel interview#workplace-health #trends #prediction
Prediction 3: Healthcare and specialist support
panel interview#healthcare #specialist-support #long-term-sickness
Prediction 4: Financial wellbeing
panel interview#financial-wellbeing #employee-benefits #prediction
Outro: What's coming in Part 2
outro#outro #part-2 #preview

Show notes

2024 Workplace Predictions, Reviewed — with Isabel Berwick, Prof. Sir Cary Cooper & More (Part 1 of 2)

Hosts: Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist)

Every December, Al and Leanne make their predictions for the year ahead. Every January, they have to live with them. This year, they're doing something different: bringing in a panel of experts to help them look forward — and to check their homework on 2023.

In Part 1 of this special two-part episode, Al and Leanne revisit their 2023 predictions (spoiler: Leanne's aged better than Al's) before turning to a stellar panel for their read on 2024. Isabel Berwick of the Financial Times and the Working It podcast, Mridula Pore from Peppy Health, Professor Sir Cary Cooper, workplace health specialist Amy McKeown, Ruth Handcock of Octopus Money, and Martin Lindstrom all weigh in on hybrid work's next chapter, the health trends set to redefine employee wellbeing, and why financial stress is becoming impossible for employers to ignore.

🔮 Our 2023 Predictions — Were We Right?

Al and Leanne score their calls from last year:

A move toward salary transparency — Partially right. More companies are publishing pay bands, and government mandate talk continues.
A focus on professional development — Right, though the cost-of-living crisis may have dampened momentum.
Financial wellbeing as a workplace issue — Ahead of its time, but clearly building.
Technology predicting burnout — Not quite, but companies are gathering more employee activity data.
A focus on inclusion — Nailed it. EDI dominated 2023.
Wearables for wellbeing — An uptick, but not the revolution predicted.

Verdict: Leanne's predictions mostly landed. Al's… were more aspirational.

🎙️ Expert Predictions for 2024

Hybrid work's next chapter (Isabel Berwick, FT) Zoom calling staff back to the office was a "kick in the teeth" for hybrid believers. The tension between flexibility and presence is the defining workplace battle of our time.

Health trends to watch (Amy McKeown & Mridula Pore) Long-term sickness remains unsolved, and two groups are especially at risk in 2024: young men and older women. Specialist support — fertility, menopause, urology — is moving from fringe benefit to expectation.

Financial wellbeing (Ruth Handcock & Professor Sir Cary Cooper) We're effectively in a recession in many countries, and 80% of people say money worries have stopped them concentrating at work. Employers want to help, but line managers need training to broach the subject without crossing into intrusion.

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript

Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Ruth Handcock OBENice.

Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

Ruth Handcock OBESo I think what we'll see is more salary hunting. So about 55% of people this year said they were looking for a job purely for salary. And we all know as leaders of businesses that you lose your really good people first.

Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a business psychologist.

Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.

Al ElliottWell, yes we are, and it's the end of the year. It's been another spectacular year us. Hope it's been a great year for you. Um, if you're a long-term listener, then thank you for your support, really. Um, you'll probably remember back in December, uh, we— what was our episodes in December? We were doing predictions, weren't we, love?

Leanne ElliottWe did. It was actually one of our most popular episodes this year, our prediction 2-parter. So we recorded last December 2022, and now we're back with our predictions for 2024.

Al ElliottYeah, it's always been in the top 20 of the episodes that are listened to, and there can only really be one reason for that, and that's because you wanted to listen and find out how wrong we were. And, um, spoiler alert, got— I got some things wrong. Leanne really didn't, but I got some things wrong.

Leanne ElliottI don't know, I think maybe you're just a bit ahead of your time, Al. We weren't right on everything, but we did get some things right. So here are last year's predictions. So our first prediction last year was the fight for talent will continue. I think I was right about that. The market did stabilise, but the fight for talent continues, especially with our new Gen Zers joining the workforce. Our second prediction was more of a focus on talent retention. So really, that was about a shift in focus from the fight for attracting talent to the fight for retaining talent, and specifically making sure you are collecting the data, you need to be. I think that's definitely building, that is bubbling. I hope to see that accelerate a lot quicker in 2024. Our 3rd prediction, people will be investing more in employer brand.

Al ElliottYeah, that was one of my predictions, and that kind of was right. Not as much as I expected, to be honest, but, uh, yeah, people definitely— employer brand seems to be a little bit more of a thing.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I agree. And our next prediction was a focus on professional development. I think so. I've heard much more about that. But again, I think there's work to be done in terms of formalising that, structuring that. There are things we can do. And then we also, I guess, similar theme, we felt coaching, coaching was gonna, gonna really soar in 2023.

Al ElliottYeah, we were kind of right. Perhaps the cost of living crisis might have, might have slightly dampened that. My specific prediction was there'll be an AI coach. So much has happened with AI over the last 12 months. Now you can do pretty much anything you— I saw an AI news channel. um, a video entirely made up by AI people or AI machines. So my prediction for AI coach has not quite come true, but then I did have the caveat saying there is maybe a little bit of an ethical issue again on that one.

Leanne ElliottYeah, again though, I think you may be slightly ahead of your time. I can see that starting, starting to take off over the next 12 to 18 months. Our next prediction was around hybrid working and flexible working, that it was here to stay, and yes, it is. In fact, I think it was just this week that flexible working has now been made law from day one as a right for UK employees, which is nice to see. And then I think our next prediction was more around transparency in business. Al, that was your one, right?

Al ElliottYeah, it was around that there was so much secrecy before. I think some of that is coming true and coming from the sales and marketing world that I'm in, I see a lot more people who are building businesses using the hashtag #BuildInPublic on Twitter or X if you want to be fancy and call it that. Um, and so I think there's a lot more transparency around that. So I think we are getting there. Whatever tends to happen in marketing probably happens in the rest of the operations sort of like 12 to 18 months later. So hopefully we're seeing a bit more transparency.

Leanne ElliottYeah, absolutely. And continued talk of the government starting to mandate the publication of that type of data, um, to help us meet our ESG, um, commitments. So yeah, I think 2024, that will be, be much more of a thing. Whereas wellbeing and mental health as a priority has definitely been a conversation of 2023. We have so many episodes about that. so many experts saying that it does. Um, it'll be interesting to see how that conversation evolves in 2024.

Al ElliottYep. Then my next prediction was technology is going to predict burnout. No, that didn't happen. Um, it was a bit of a wild one, but, um, my idea was that if we could anonymously collect all the information for people, the usage of emails, of documents, all that kind of thing, you could start to predict that there was going to be a burnout risk. Not happened yet. Might happen again. If it does happen in the next 5 years, then I will cite myself as as being one of the, um, one of the people who predicted it years and years ago. If it doesn't, then I'll never mention it again.

Leanne ElliottI think where you were right on that was companies starting to gather more data about employee activity. We've definitely seen that, particularly in terms of hybrid working policies. So I think, I think your use of technology to track employee behaviour was right. I think perhaps you're a little optimistic that it would be used for good.

Al ElliottFair point, fair point.

Leanne ElliottUm, our penultimate prediction was a focus on inclusion. Absolutely, EDI has been a key topic of 2023. If you're interested in learning more about that, look back at episodes 41 on neurodiversity, 45 on inclusive workplaces, 53 with the founder of Canaries, a groundbreaking DIB platform, and episode 62, DEIB washing.

Al ElliottAnd the final prediction was again one of mine, and it was that we'd all have wearables that would be able to tell us exactly how health— how stressed we were, Um, our wellbeing was using a watch. No, not yet, but we'll see maybe in the future.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I have seen more, more of an uptick in some of the influencers I follow online in terms of these like wellness rings and health wearables. So again, I think we're starting to see that more. The, the early adoption is, is ramping up, um, into maybe an early minority. But yeah, in terms of workplace, I'm not sure that's quite got there yet.

Al ElliottSo I think one thing is very, very clear, and I should have predicted this, is that Leanne's predictions mainly came right and mine mainly came wrong. wrong, but that's fine because she's the expert. Talking of experts, we thought, well, this year we'll do, we'll do something a little bit different. I was trying to remember the Wham! lyric there. This year, to set my frontiers—

Leanne ElliottTo save us from tears.

Al ElliottSave us from tears. Is that it? I've always thought it was set your frontier. Oh dear.

Leanne ElliottTo save, I think.

Al ElliottYeah, no, that makes more sense than what mine was. I don't know why George was singing about frontiers. Anyway, to save us from tears, we are going to get experts in. And so we have an amazing panel of experts who we've said, what do you think? What, what are your predictions for 2024?

Leanne ElliottYes, we do. Our panel includes some incredible people. First up, Isabelle Berrick. She is a Financial Times journalist and host of the podcast Working It. We have Maduro Poulet, co-founder of Peppy Health, a startup revolutionising the healthcare sector for workplaces. We have the awesome, incredible Professor Sir Kerry Cooper, No, no more introduction needed, I don't think. Also thrilled to welcome back Amy McCowan, a true friend of the show, now a regular guest and expert in workplace health. We also have the awesome Ruth Hancock, one of my favorite conversations of the year. She is CEO of Octopus Money and an all-around amazing human, really. And finally, we have Martin Lindstrom, New York Times bestselling author of books such as Biology, Brandwashed, and Ministry of Common Sense. So, let's discover the first prediction for 2024.

Al ElliottYes. So, one of Leanne's predictions was that hybrid working would continue to gain pace. Oh my God, there has been some arguments about this. What do you think, Lee?

Leanne ElliottYeah, I mean, companies like Zoom— I think Zoom was the real kick in the teeth, wasn't it? Companies like Zoom, X, Twitter, whatever we're calling it these days, you know, demanding that employees return to the office. Then we have companies like Help Scout and Wistia who are making work even more flexible. So the chasm seems to be actually increasing between office versus remote. Isabel Berrick is from the Financial Times and hosts the amazing podcast Working It. She feels we're on a precipice.

Isabel BerwickSo I'm Isabel Berrick. I have worked at the Financial Times for 22 years. I've done a lot of jobs. For the last couple of years, I've been a podcast host. And I have a weekly newsletter for our subscribers about the world of work. They're both called Working It, and it's about the modern workplace, the future of work, leadership, management, all those things that FT readers are very interested in. But I think there's a lot of tension. We're at a very sort of pivotal moment. A lot of CEOs are trying to get their people back to the office. So there's a huge kind of pullback to the office, or RTO, and people want to work from home. They want flexibility. And so I think that's the key tension of our time. And we deal with that. And there are loads of other things going on. But I guess the post-pandemic workplace has changed so significantly that there's a lot to say. The only rule is that you have to be clear about what it is you want from your staff. If you want them in 5 days, you can say that. You have to be clear. I think the worst possible outcome is when you say you can come in when you want, and then you get lots of particularly young people turning up, their managers aren't there, their teams aren't there. You know, be, as they say, intentional about when you want your people in.

Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us And you're not going to say which.

Al ElliottPhil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.

?It is.

Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.

Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)I am.

Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back.

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.

Al ElliottI'll cut that out.

midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.

Al ElliottAmy McCarron is an expert in workplace health, having worked with organisations such as the EU Parliament to develop strategies for health at work. She sees this huge opportunity that we might all be missing.

?In my opinion, a lot of the people are trying to force people back to the workforce, the ones that worked, work for, worked, work for before, right? So when you've got Elon Musk and people like that insisting, and bankers, that 5 days a week, what we're in danger of is missing the opportunity that the pandemic has given us, which is that actually flexible and hybrid working We've seen from the Society of Occupational Medicine, flexibility reduces long-term sickness. And given that in the UK at the moment, we've got more people out of the workforce with sickness than ever before, I'm really reluctant to rush back into that kind of working pattern that we had before, 'cause it just excluded so many people, women, people with caring responsibilities, people with disabilities, people with illness. So that's what we were talking about. How do we work? Because it's all very well doing wellbeing at work, and that's what the conference is about, but there are some fundamental issues in the workforce right now. which is long-term sickness. We haven't really managed to square the circle of having 2 incomes and families with a school system that chucks out at 3:30, and also rushing back to where we were is a massive lost opportunity.

Leanne ElliottTalking of long-term sickness, our experts' prediction number 2 is that we'll be seeing a whole host of new healthcare services springing up that are specifically designed to deal with highly complex issues. We're talking bespoke health needs here. So, Madhuri from Pepe, one of these brand new healthcare providers, we asked her to explain what the difference was between the NHS and companies like Pepe.

MadhuriSo, my name's Madhuri. I'm a co-founder of Pepe, which is probably what I'm most famous for, along with Max Landry and Evan Harris. We founded Pepe in the UK 5 years ago, and we serve employees of enterprise clients, typically, in areas that are traditionally underserved by healthcare services. Yeah, so I describe Peppy as really the big white space we fill is the conversations that happen between your kitchen table and when you walk into your doctor's office. If you think about the conversations that happen with your health, which you might have with a spouse or a friend, you know, really, they don't know. Their experience could be completely different. What Peppy allows you to do is to speak to a specialist. So we have specialist nurses on staff, be they fertility, menopause, urology, and others, nutrition therapists, lactation consultants, midwives, you get the idea. And so rather than speaking to somebody who quite frankly might be sympathetic, but doesn't know what they're talking about, Peppy gives you access to a specialist in your pocket. So that can be, for a lot of people, preventative, and that's really a big gap that we want to fill, but we can also be your companion with you along your health journey. You know, if you are exploring treatment options, undergoing treatment, you're worried about what's going to happen, you know, you want more information, we, our team are there as a resource to you. We are also CQC registered in the UK and a licensed healthcare provider in the US. So we can also prescribe and increasingly become a virtual healthcare provider.

Al ElliottThere are 2 groups which are really kind of at risk at the moment in 2024. And they are young men and older women. Let's hear more from Amy.

?But I started to nuance what that was. So the Society of Occupational Medicine report came out, but also I was at a Women in Work conference last year, sorry, last week, which was an inaugural one. And the bit that's missed from those frightening long-term statistics are that the majority of people out of the workforce are young men with mental health problems. So there's a specific demographic of young men, but the majority are also older women. So we know that women have more rates of chronic illness. We know they have more higher rates of mental illness. But what those long-term sickness statistics show is that the majority of those were women over the age of 50, a fifth of which are on gynecological waiting lists, which are the worst in the UK. And obviously women are often usually ones who have a gender pay gap and smaller pensions. So that is a huge amount of experience, Knowledge, you know, productivity out of the workforce as a result of health. So it's one thing talking about long-term illness, and there's a whole discussion about use of fit notes, but it's actually looking at the demographics and what is happening. You know, actually it's women and it's younger guys with mental health problems. So if we can start to look at those sorts of things, it's much easier than just talking about ill health.

Leanne ElliottAnd the key word here is equity in healthcare. Midori explains what healthcare equity really means.

MadhuriEquity means recognising that different people will have different health needs, and supporting them so that each of them can be at the best they can to handle their lives at home and at work. I mean, ultimately, it's their workplace that's paying for Peppy for them. But recognising that what, you know, Person A might need, who is a 27-year-old female, maybe having gone through early ovarian insufficiencies, experiencing early menopause, could be extremely different to somebody who is male, 55, struggling with some urogenitary issues. What we aim to do is to ensure that people have what is appropriate and necessary for them to enable them to make the most of the opportunities that are in front of them in the workplace.

Leanne ElliottSo, prediction number 2 is that we'll see a huge improvement in healthcare for workers. What's our 3rd prediction, Al?

Al ElliottThe 3rd one is around financial wellbeing. Now, we did an episode around about a month and a half ago, episode 55, which was all around financial wellbeing. One of the leaders and pioneers in finances and financial wellbeing is Octopus Money. We asked the CEO, Ruth Hancock, to explain what trends she's seeing around financial wellbeing in the workplace.

Ruth Handcock OBEI'm Ruth Hancock. I'm CEO of Octopus Money, and we're on a mission to give every employee access to help with their money through a person. So we've talked a lot about physical health. We've talked a lot about mental health. Actually, I think this is the first year when financial health has been one of those pillars, and I speak to more people who think it's a pillar in their benefits and wellbeing strategy than people who don't yet, so it feels pretty pivotal for us. So what we've learned in mental health is that people like to have a safe space, they like to be able to talk about themselves, to be listened to, and actually have a regular engagement with the same person. I think the exact same is true with money. We've thought for a long time that you can put on a pensions webinar and suddenly everyone will leave feeling differently about saving for retirement. I don't believe they do because I don't believe that people engage with information about money unless it's delivered in a really personalized way because money is an emotional topic. When you ask people whether they're good with money, most people will say, no, not really, it makes me feel like I'm stupid, or it makes me feel like I'm losing. So, I think a brilliant financial health strategy encompasses Emphasis those things which are about safe space, they're about personalisation, they're about being listened to and understanding that it's an emotional topic, not just a numerical one.

Leanne ElliottSo now we've actually started the conversation, in 2024, is it going to be any better? Ruth is not sure.

Ruth Handcock OBEIt's a great question. I hate to be a bit of a voice of doom on this, but I'm afraid I am at the moment, which is if you pick up a paper, you see cost of living much less prominent than it was this time last year. But actually, I think that the worst impacts are yet to come, and that's because people over the last year have been living off their small savings that they have, but the economy has not got any better in that time. So inflation is still high, people are still struggling to heat their homes, to afford to buy food. They're probably remortgaging or seeing their rent go up because their landlord is having to remortgage. mortgage, and actually we're getting to the stage where people's savings are depleted. So I think what is the most critical consequence of cost of living, which is the gigantic stress it places on people, is going to worsen over the next year rather than get better as people realise that lots of the things they've relied on over the past year, those critical savings, aren't there anymore. So I think for employers, they're probably going to see more people worried about the real impacts of cost of living than they have over the last year, even if we see it in the headlines less. I think people are going to feel it more.

Leanne ElliottMost of us remember the bad times of the global financial crisis. I personally graduated in 2008, which is a fabulous time to do that. We asked Professor Sir Kerry Cooper if we're about to see history repeat itself.

?So financial wellbeing is just another source of stress for an individual in the workplace. It's become more significant It started becoming significant in 2008 to 2015 during the financial crisis. Lots of people lost their job. Job insecurity was rife. People were out of jobs for quite a long time, lost their jobs in the finance sector. Something like 35 to 40% of people lost their jobs in that 6, 7-year financial crisis we were in. the major— I call that the depression rather than the recession. I'd call it depression too. Now we're in a recession. Many countries, Germany, Britain is bubble bouncing along the bottom. It really is in recession in effect. And so financial wellbeing is all about the problems that your finances are having on you and how it's affecting you at work, in your family, and elsewhere. And since I focus in on the workplace, then my concern is about how do we get people to be open about their financial circumstances with their employer? Because the employer wants to help. Many employers want to help. But if employees— a recent survey found a huge percentage of people 2 out of 3 will not reveal to their employer they're having any financial difficulty, yet it affects them at work. It affects them in their relationships. It affects them at home and their performance as well. So how do we get these people to actually talk about it, feel open to talk about it? How do we get the organization To train line managers to be able to broach this subject with their subordinates and their direct reports. And again, about a third of people, it is found, feel that their employer, you know, well, a lot of them feel their employer, number one, they don't want to talk about it with their boss. Number 2, they don't think their boss would necessarily be open to talking about it. And many organizations are not really dealing with this as an issue. They feel that would be intrusive or it's not in their bailiwick.

Al ElliottAnd the issue isn't just that you are distracted at work because you're thinking about money. You actually run the risk of losing your best people because they have to go and chase the dollar. They have to look for the salary that pays them the most.

Ruth Handcock OBE80% of people who couldn't concentrate on work because they were so worried about money If that's what it's like when— before the cost of living crisis hit, imagine what it's going to be like next year. So I think what we'll see is more salary hunting. So about 55% of people this year said they were looking for a job purely for salary, and we all know as leaders of businesses that you lose your really good people first. I think we're going to see more people not being able to focus on work because they're so worried about money.

Leanne ElliottSo those are our first few predictions for the world of people and culture in 2024. Thank you to our incredible expert panelists for helping us out there. We will be back next week with part 2 of our predictions for 2024 and bring you even more insights of what the world of work will look like in the next 12 months.

Al ElliottSo if you're not subscribed, click on subscribe. As ever, you'll find Leanne on LinkedIn. I've said before, I'm not on LinkedIn, I can't be bothered with it, but Leanne's brilliant at it. So jump on LinkedIn. All seriousness, jump LinkedIn and you can continue the discussion and you can message Leanne if you wanna speak to her. Just send her any message. If you wanna sell her something, maybe don't do that. But if you just wanna have a chat about something, feel free to DM her. What do the kids say? The Gen Z say DMs are open. Is that what they say? Slide into your DMs?

Isabel BerwickI don't know.

Leanne ElliottI'm far too old to have people sliding into my DMs, but if you want to drop me a message, that would be nice. I'd love to hear from you.

Al ElliottSo we will see you next week for part 2. Bye for now.

Leanne ElliottBye. I realised that this is something that's not just being talked about because that's not what I'm gonna say.

Al ElliottWe hadn't had an outtake yet. That's our first one.

Leanne ElliottYou're welcome.

Al ElliottThank you very much.