As Instagram and YouTube offer a career path of luxury and convenience, successful businesses are under pressure to secure top talent with more than just a competitive salary and package. The highest bidder doesn’t necessarily equate to winning, companies must seem desirable enough for Gen Z’s to even want to work in the first place.
ToysReview, a family-run YouTube channel, has generated an estimated $11 million dollars in revenue and the show’s 7-year-old host is reportedly a millionaire too, according to Forbes annual list of the highest earning YouTube celebrities. As these realities become more common and are given more airtime, it’s easy to see why Gen Z’s are choosing social media as a career path.
JLL President and Chief Executive Officer, Christian Ulbrich, explained, “The biggest challenge is to get enough talent into our organisation, we employ around 90,000 people around the world, we need lots of talented people as we have been growing very strongly.”
What does the future look like?
It’s 2030, 10.30am on a Monday and 25% of the working population are attending yoga…
According to Unily’s 2020 report, ‘The future of the workplace’, “culture is now top leadership priority, allowed to develop from the bottom up but requiring consistent vision and behaviours to communicate company values and traditions”.
As a result, employers and their staff will form deeper relationships, a common understanding of happiness, higher productivity and engagement. As the level of care increases on both sides, employees will genuinely want their companies to thrive.
Trust is key to a sustainable future
deverellsmith, the market leading recruitment and strategic consultancy in property and real estate, reportedly place candidates in full-time remote working roles. This isn’t restricted to senior level positions, fostering a strong sense of trust at the first stage plants a foundation that reduces the time to make and discuss key issues, as each individual trust in the judgement and expertise of their colleagues.
Kate Peers-Mcqueen, Principal Consultant (Development and Construction), commented, ‘a number of my clients’ headquarters purposefully use office space that have a reduced number of desks to encourage employees to work from home. Not only is it more financially viable but it enables the team to use alternative spaces and increase productivity.’
Healthy buildings, healthier people
According to Stephen Marks, healthy building specialist, 90% of our time is spent inside of a building and 82% of that is spent sitting down, and as we now know that over 70% of our health is determined by environment and behaviour – we need to ensure our buildings themselves are healthy.
The built environment impacts our health through a variety of factors including inadequate ventilation, poor indoor air quality, chemical contaminants from indoor or outdoor sources, by making us feel too cold or too hot, traffic noise or poor lighting.
The results are respiratory and cardiovascular diseases from indoor air pollution; illness and deaths from temperature extremes and inadequate energy access; anxiety and depression when buildings can’t provide a sense of safety; as well as discomfort from less than optimal lighting conditions or irritability from noise levels.
As the surrounding areas of London become more desirable, further infrastructure plans are confirmed and the completion of HS2 upon the horizon, companies are looking at alternative locations more by shifting their HQ’s outside the capital. Technology giant, Amazon, is amongst the first to confirm their corporate head office in Manchester.
Portfolio careers
Working 9-5 in the same company and position everyday doesn’t appeal to everyone, and it isn’t the singular route in achieving success in an office-based role. Graduates are now opting to split their time between two or three part-time positions. Offering a more diverse variety of part-time roles widens a business talent pool, appealing to those that decide against a conventional career path.
Multi-strand careers are also common across long-term development; professionals are less likely to stay in a job for more than two years. As individuals demand variety and flexibility, successful businesses will begin to offer anniversary incentives and side-stepping opportunities, rather than just working towards the top.
Tech: Stay ahead of the curve
Artificial intelligence technology will streamline and automate processes in place, AI is there to support professionals, not necessarily steal jobs. Although some positions will cease to exist, new opportunities will rise in their place.
The workspace will be a hybrid of digital and physical innovation, according to Unily, ‘The technological workplace means augmenting people to perform better and be more innovative in human/tech partnerships. AI and AR technologies can offer pathways to blend physical and digital experiences in meaningful ways.’
Organisations will ditch traditional models and opt for part start-up incubator, part business school.
The overriding message to ensure a business is successful; invest in your employees. Individuals must run parallel with their surroundings and continue to innovate through consistent learning and development strategies.
Laura Croggon is the Communications Manager at deverellsmith and contributor to ds…. Laura covers current business trends, devdata topics and hosts interviews on devcast…. Contact Laura directly via. laura.croggon@deverellsmith.com for feature requests.
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