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3 Workplace Paradoxes That Will Drive 2023

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For this economic environment, resilience is essential. It is the only sustainable approach to managing two realities at the same time—the current hard truths and the optimism of the future.

The time for predictions about 2023 has come and gone. We now know what we’re looking at, so it's time to recognize reality and manage it to our advantage: Paradox is the driving force in 2023.

For business leaders, economic volatility continues, but not in the same way as in the past few years, as seemingly contradictory forces are present at once. For example, according to Deloitte, CEOs are optimistic about their own company’s long-term performance, and at the same time pessimistic about the global economy. Similarly, companies are right-sizing their workforces to be independent and lean, and at the same time looking to innovate and accelerate.

To lead effectively, we have to get comfortable with managing contradictory situations and facts, especially when it comes to talent management. Here are three key paradoxes that will impact our people and our companies this year.

1) The labor market paradox: Are there too many workers, or not enough? According to a Fortune/Deloitte poll, most CEOs (71%) expect talent shortages to continue generally, and nearly all (94%) expect to see talent shortages for certain roles. Interestingly, a consequence of the labor paradox provides a silver lining for employees: Despite layoffs, today’s workers still have a lot of leverage, as evidenced in wage increases and in the need for businesses to remain flexible about how people work.

A longer-term consequence of the tightening labor market will be a redistribution of jobs and skills across industries, migrating from tech companies into traditional industries like manufacturing, automotive, and government. This movement will accelerate change and digitization in those industries. The year of paradox continues here, as we grapple with a labor shortage and at the same time rush to build skills that will prepare people to perform well as work fundamentally changes for us all.

2) The flexible work paradox: Does flexible work promote productivity or hinder it? The subject of flexible working and productivity is complex and contradictory. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. productivity is down 4.1%, which is the largest annual decline since 1948. But while productivity is statistically down, people feel busier than ever.

The nuances surrounding this are highly paradoxical. Many managers associate flexible, remote, and hybrid work with a lack of structure and standards, leading to lost work, while many workers blame non-stop virtual meetings and other distractions as the culprit. According to the September Work Trend Index, Microsoft’s latest research on the ways we work, “There is a stark disconnect between the portion of leaders who say they have full confidence their team is productive (12%) and the portion of employees who report they are productive at work (87%).”

3) The manager paradox: Are we over-stressing and under-training our most precious engagement resource? Managers are more important than ever. New research from UKG suggests that a manager has a greater impact on an employee's health than their doctor or therapist, and managers are the number one reason people quit or stay in their positions.

Yet managers don’t have the skills to lead in new work conditions. In fact, 62% of managers say managing is more difficult in a remote workplace. Managers also need new skills to create psychological safety to enable self-expression at work, address life-work balance, and deal with flexible workflows. But only 1 in 3 HR leaders believe they are providing managers with the necessary skills. Clearly, managers are our first line of defense for maintaining an engaged and productive workforce—and they need our support.

To manage successfully in today’s volatile environment, business leaders must behave paradoxically, simultaneously playing defense and offense. Resilience, the set of skills that allow us to both adapt to adversity and optimize our behavior to achieve a successful outcome, is the distinguishing competency to manage through paradox.

Ironically, resilience itself is a set of paradoxical skill sets that allow us to self-manage and accurately assess for threat, and at the same time self-propel to optimize our chances for success in adverse situations. The skills of emotion regulation, impulse control, and self-confidence allow us to accurately guard and assess for threats, while realistic optimism, empathy, creative problem-solving, and purpose help propel us forward to find the upside in adversity and disruption.

The trick right now is to turn threat into challenge, and resilient behaviors help us do that. Learning to experience change as a positive challenge rather than a threat helps move people and organizations out of their comfort zones, believing they are prepared and have the resources to cope.

For this economic environment, resilience is essential. It is the only sustainable approach to managing two realities at the same time—the current hard truths and the optimism of the future. Those with a resilient mindset will take advantage of the inevitable opportunities that occur during disruption to envision a positive path forward and take steps to advance that vision.

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