“Business organizations find themselves dealing with a completely new context, with numerous workers asking to redefine their way of working in the light of the experience gained in these two years of pandemic. A scenario that requires a profound redefinition of the organizational rules, which is certainly not an easy task “. Luca Solari, professor at the University of Milan and partner of OrgTecha transformation platform for businesses, thus frames i changes taking place in the labor market.
Professor, today many companies are planning to return to the office and this generates frequent tensions as many employees have experienced the benefits of smart working and would not want to go back. In his opinion, what will be the equilibrium point?
“The deconstruction of the world of work generated by the outbreak of the pandemic has made people experiment with different ways of organizing their professional and working life. The first consequence was discovering that it is legitimate, it is right to have preferences with respect to the type of work one does and the meaning of this work with respect to the way of organizing one’s time in relation to the other needs of life “.
So do you see a growing awareness that will push towards massive adoption of agile working?
“Some already suffered in the past from having to go to the office every day and stay a certain number of hours, but they simply accepted it for lack of alternatives. The remote work imposed by the lockdowns has shown that, even with some difficulties, the activity can also be carried out in a more flexible way and today what was taken for granted in the past, today is no longer so “.
Does this explain the great resignation, which from America has begun to take shape in us too?
“The pandemic has spread fear of death and led to reconsidering the priorities of life. In this context, some people have realized that, without social relations and without the context in which they were inserted, work has no meaning for them, it only responds to a need. So there has been a growth of workers who have resigned to look for other ways “.
In a scenario where human resources play a decisive role in the competitiveness of businesses, this is not a negligible issue …
“Far from it. Organizations have always been used to having negotiable areas such as remuneration and the context of individual development, and other non-negotiable areas such as the presence of collaborators in the office. Now the latter want to negotiate on everything and it is not easy to find a compromise ”.
What is the prevalent reaction?
“Some companies deny the problem and would stubbornly want to return to the pre-pandemic power asymmetry. We consider that it is not easy to thoroughly review the organizational models, above all because companies are not used to negotiations with all levels of employees in many different areas “.
Those who resist, risk losing the best talents.
“We are witnessing significantly higher than average mobility rates and the most distressed figures are middle managers, who have always been accustomed to counting on employees in the office and now forced to review this scheme. Some human resources directors tell me that already in the selection phase there are candidates who make it a condition to enter the possibility of benefiting from a certain flexibility regarding the methods and times of carrying out the activity. But it is also true that there are also innovative companies that accept a model that we could define as ‘Amazon Like’, characterized by the construction of different schedules and procedures for each worker “.