The “New Normal” for Labor Market and Businesses
A Fadata Perspective
This article was written by Fadata’s CFO, Milen Glushkov, who provides his expertise on the current status quo of both the labor market and businesses, and what does this mean for Fadata in 2022 onwards.
What happened?
For each one of us, life has changed last two years. The COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions have served as a reminder of how hyper-connected life in the 21st Century has become, not to mention how much we take for granted the small activities and trivial interactions that bring such value to our lives. It’s also completely upended the traditional approach to working.
Over the course of almost two years, previously office-based Fadata and around the globe workforces are now fully and successfully operating almost entirely remotely, strung together by patient IT teams, chat and video apps like Teams and Zoom. For flexible working pessimists, the pandemic has proven that employees can, in fact, be trusted to work from home without productivity taking a plunge. Now, so many months after it all started and still without knowing when it will end actually, it has completely changed our professional and private lives and they will never be the same again.
The office — what was that?
Several studies into remote working during coronavirus have indicated that employees are more productive than ever, likely thanks to the lack of office-based distractions, meddling direct management and a renewed focus on business-critical activities. This is what we observe at Fadata as well. While the daily office grind has resumed and will eventually further resume at least partially, the widespread consensus is that it won’t be a return to business as usual as we know it — or rather, knew it.
Many businesses are already reducing or looking to reduce their office space. At Fadata in our largest office in Sofia, we decided, for now, to not reduce but to reshape the space in line with our Agile transformation. Of course, if the trend continues and large office space remains unused, we might reconsider for all locations what space we need.
Homeworking: here to stay
One trend undoubtedly here to stay is a more relaxed approach to working from home. In the future, businesses will be expected to have flexible-working policies in place. EU estimates are that as many as four in 10 employees will work fully remotely at some point every week, post COVID-19. Employees already demand a working life with a focus on trust rather than control — and dialogue rather than hierarchy. Businesses will need the necessary technology in place to support such policies.
The employees that come into the office will spend more time on a virtual platform and the current situation we are in will be the new normal. Even if employees come into the office, given that other employees will be working remotely, they will continue to spend time on their Zoom and Teams platforms and when they do come to the office, they expect to see their management on the floor, burning in the daily problems and not overlooking them from a distance.
Are we ready for a shorter working week?
We observe companies in Europe are moving in that direction. Last year Fadata introduced a half-day off on the second Friday of the month and now we are discussing the next step. I personally believe that in 1–2 years the 4 days working week will be the new normal and Fadata will be a front runner in this change. How we will cope with clients? Well, if there is a will, there is a way.
Recruiting online
It has also undergone something of a crash course in digitization in the last two years. A recent Gartner poll found that 86% of organizations had turned to “virtual” methods of interviewing candidates during the pandemic, and 85% had used digital channels to onboard new employees remotely. While most organizations are currently conducting interviews remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual interviewing will become the new standard for recruiting leaders and candidates long after social distancing guidelines are lifted.
“Europisation” of labor
Companies are beginning to recognize that remote working can help diversify the workforce by expanding talent pools outside of the cities — or even countries — in which their offices are based. This in Europe is quite valid and we already see it on both ends — as an opportunity to recruit people in cross border locations we are not present but also as a tread of our good people being recruited by companies we have not seen as competitors so far because of them being in other countries.
That of course for countries like Bulgaria has an impact on salary levels. Isn’t it nice to work for a UK company and be paid close to UK gross salary while paying Bulgaria’s 10% flat rate taxes? In 2021 we started experiencing such cases and I believe that this is a trend that will continue. Of course, there are some technicalities because of the EU bureaucracy but they are easily solvable. We need to prepare for this multi-country labor competition also becoming the new normal in the labor market.
Upgrading IT
We should, at least, be able to expect more reliable workplace IT: US Forrester’s report suggests that organizations that found themselves caught short in the pandemic with legacy architecture will emerge with a newfound appreciation for speedy internet and modern software. Business execs who experienced firsthand the shortcomings of legacy technology environments will demand that IT accelerate roadmaps for app and infrastructure modernization, a high-performance network, high-availability architectures, automation for speed and reliability, and cloud for scale and flexibility.
In our case, the pandemic found us in relatively good shape and we easily switched overnight. However, for 2022 we at Fadata are going to take a deep dive analysis of what changes in IT infrastructure are needed to support our transformation and the “new normal” we live in.
Reassessing company values
A new focus is created with an emphasis on employee satisfaction and company culture. With remote working levelling workplace hierarchies and speeding up operations in some instances, companies may rethink the organizational structures they have in place. Office bureaucracy that had been removed as a result of remote working will not return. Many corporates, particularly those with lots of hierarchy, such as banks and financial services firms, are finding that they can get more done, with non-essential governance removed.
Arguably, the pandemic has also shone a light on the authenticity of organizations, namely whether they live up to the values they claim to stand for. Lessons learnt from this will encourage businesses to reassess company cultures, and whether they really practice what they preach. How organizations ‘live it’ and demonstrate that authenticity is very public and seen. What we did last two months at Fadata with our approach to mission and values will be very soon publicly communicated.
I personally think we’re seeing more emergence of roles and role models around the culture and wellbeing of staff, and more focus around the purpose point — what is this organization about, how are we living that and how are we ingraining that in everything we do. For an organization like ours which is in a major transformation, it is crucial that we have clear and well-understood values that everyone adheres to. That can differentiate us as a successful organization, as an employer and as a really cool place to work.
Well having said all that, don’t you think we are living in a fast-moving time with many changes in our routines happening? And this time it looks like it is for good — people are happier, our environmental footprint is lower and the productivity goes up. Hmm, sounds too good to be true? Let’s see!
