As we move into 2022, the digital workplace continues to shift. At PoliteMail we predict people will strengthen their work boundaries, work toward more efficient meetings and communications, and facilitate more one-on-one relationships for mentoring and coaching. Let’s take a look at each of these trends in more detail.
- Clear Work Boundaries
With work-from-home and hybrid arrangements, the boundary between work- and home-life has been blurred. At the same time, the pandemic has brought new awareness around wellness at work. HBR reports that 94% of companies made significant investments in their well-being programs.
Since many professionals in the digital workspace have been working from home (or hybrid) for nearly two years (if not more), there’s more awareness around boundaries. More importantly, people have (hopefully) developed more skills around setting and keeping those boundaries.
Recent trends include adding work days and hours to email signatures. Some folks also include reply expectations. For example, “I don’t reply to emails after 5 PM or on weekends.” Or permissions like, “I respect your working pattern and do not expect a response outside of your working hours.”
In 2022, we collectively recognize the need for clear boundaries in the digital workplace. Working from home should not mean always work, and likewise, should not mean not really working. Not only do professionals want to establish their own boundaries, they seek to respect other people’s.
- Efficient Meetings & Shorter Messages
With far less in-person communication, work, and work socialization, is primarily digital and relies on emails, chat, text, and virtual meetings. A surplus of channels or misuse of them can quickly create digital communications overload. To minimize burnout from excess and irrelevant content, workplaces must work toward providing more efficient and more effective communications.
FastCompany gives this example: when one company accomplishes everything before the scheduled end time, the leader says, “I think we are all clear on next steps, so let’s give everyone time back.”
It’s helpful to note that digital overload doesn’t mean always mean too many messages; it can mean too much content to process. This has proven out in our email benchmark analysis, and our PoliteMail team recommends the effective strategy of breaking content volumes down, sending less content per message, and sending more frequently. The best readership metrics result from email messages that take two minutes or less to read.
- Facilitated One-on-one Relationships
Whether organizations offer mentoring, coaching, or onboarding buddies, facilitated one-on-one relationships are trending up in 2022. Social isolation paired combined with hiring and new employee onboarding makes these types of connections a priority right now, and a key responsibility of employers.
In addition to many employees reporting fatigue around virtual group events (such as Teams and Zoom calls), at PoliteMail, our research also shows a decline in email click-through rates (despite, or because of, the increase in overall email volume and links sent). Our brains have become digitally overtaxed and our hearts are desperate for more one-on-one interaction.
HBR suggests that “In a time of incredible change, professional disruption, and overwhelming loneliness, mentorship can anchor us. The connection and meaning it can bring through rapport and clarity of purpose [are] critical to supporting people through turmoil…”
Boundaries, Efficient Comms, & One-on-one Relationships
As you evaluate your organization’s changes for 2022, how do these digital workplace trends fit in? Why not provide some email signature drafts to help employees define and keep boundaries. Think about ways you could advocate for helpful new tools and process changes to gain efficient meetings and more effective communications programs. As you are pulling together the content for your programs and campaigns, remember to break it down and send shorter messages and articles, and take steps to help facilitate more one-on-one connections between employees. 2022 is looking up!