5 trends that we expect will shape workplace culture in 2024
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Curious about the evolving workplace culture in 2024? Explore these five key employee priorities.
Workplace culture has a profound impact on employee engagement, productivity, and morale, so organisations must keep up with what is important to employees to help nurture a positive environment. With 45% of UK employees saying a great culture is the most important factor when looking for a new job, what should employers be looking out for in 2024?
1. Flexibility will continue to be key
The pandemic changed the way many of us work, driving a surge in the number of employees working from home. In 2023, some companies continued with fully remote working, whereas others have started to implement return-to-office policies and hybrid work options. But what could happen in 2024?
We expect to see more of a shift towards employees wanting flexibility, rather than just the opportunity to work from home. With 71% of workers saying a flexible working pattern is important to them when considering a new role, this suggests employees are looking for flexibility around arrangements such as start and finish times or where they work from too, to help them achieve a better work-life balance.
2. Prioritising employee mental health and wellbeing
We believe nurturing a healthy culture that supports employee mental health and wellbeing is one of the biggest areas of importance for 2024. In 2020-2021 alone, .
Although the effect of not prioritising employee wellbeing on productivity is clear, nurturing a healthy workplace culture is about much more than just the financial impact. In a workplace where wellbeing is prioritised, there is likely to be higher employee morale, reduced turnover, and increased job satisfaction.
3. The demand for sustainability
With Gen Z joining the workforce, they are beginning to influence workplace culture. By 2025, Gen Z will account for 27% of the workforce, so employers will need to start listening to what’s important to them if they wish to attract and retain the next generation of talent.
With 50% of Gen Zs saying they are pushing their employer to drive change on environmental issues, it’s clear that sustainability is an important matter that employers need to prioritise as part of their workplace culture initiatives. However, as well as businesses looking at organisational sustainability initiatives, part of building an environmentally conscious workplace culture involves supporting and empowering employees to make better choices in their lives outside of work.
4. Employees want to feel a sense of belonging
This year, diversity, equity and inclusion have become increasingly important in the workplace. In 2024, the focus on DEIB is set to continue. 65% of employees admit they want to feel a strong sense of belonging at work, suggesting employers need to start going further than just having a DEIB policy.
Many employees now want to feel like part of a community at work, form stronger connections with colleagues, and feel like they can be their true selves at work. To help nurture this type of culture, employers need to ensure their DEIB initiatives are accessible, thorough, and most importantly, authentic.
5. The importance of internal communications
Internal communications help keep employees informed, engaged and connected to a business. However, effective internal communications are about more than just sending out a monthly email newsletter to employees. There are many channels that employers can, and should, use to keep employees engaged with the business. This is particularly important for reaching frontline workers, where email isn’t necessarily the best way to communicate with the workforce.
As we approach 2024, nurturing a healthy, safe and thriving workplace culture has never been more important. If you’re looking for some support in developing internal communications strategies or initiatives that engage your workforce, we’re here to help.
Five AI trends we expect to see in 2024
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Looking ahead to 2024, what AI trends can we anticipate?
This year, we have witnessed the rapid growth of AI. New platforms, applications, and software have emerged for almost every industry, including creative communications. However, in the ever-evolving landscape of AI, what trends can we expect to see in 2024?
Increased legislation
Nations across the globe are forming comprehensive AI policies in order to set regulations, drive innovative growth, and help ensure everyone can benefit from AI. As AI continues to advance, expect to see further guidelines and regulations introduced, including laws to prevent harmful content such as deepfakes. The speed at which AI evolves is set to continue in 2024, so we expect legislation will continually evolve to keep up with this new technology.
The importance of ethical AI
As AI becomes more widely adopted in 2024, we will see a continued focus on it being developed and used in a responsible way. There are already concerns about AI biases, plagiarism, accuracy, and a lack of transparency. However, despite these concerns, 73% of users trust content created by generative AI. This worrying statistic highlights how important it is that AI is used ethically. As we head into 2024, experts expect to see an increased interest in AI ethics education.
In the communications industry, honesty, accuracy and inclusivity are vital, so it’s important that we use AI in a responsible way. We believe it’s time for the communications industry to take the lead and set its own guidelines for ethical AI usage.
AI-enhanced creativity
AI is rapidly becoming a collaborative partner to people in many different job roles across a vast range of industries, including creative communications. Platforms such as Midjourney and Adobe Firefly have brought AI capabilities to the creative industry with tools such as generative fill. Whilst there is no replacement for human creativity, these tools can help creatives work more efficiently. As we move through 2024, expect to see these tools more widely adopted and new capabilities introduced.
The next generation of generative AI
Generative AI has advanced rapidly this past year, and the pace is set to continue. In 2024, generative AI is expected to advance further, from language model-based chatbots such as ChatGPT to video creation tools. Experts predict that AI applications and tools will become more powerful and user-friendly, new applications and capabilities will appear, and the difference between human and AI-generated content will become trickier to determine. Furthermore, we will start to see AI integrated into commonly used applications, such as the introduction of Microsoft 365 Copilot across the Microsoft 365 product suite.
AI as an intelligent assistant
As AI continues to be integrated into more commonly used applications and software, it is expected that it will start to become an intelligent assistant to us in our everyday work. From summarising lengthy PDF documents to grammar checking, and highlighting social media trends to researching hot topics, AI can help us work more efficiently. However, while AI offers opportunities to streamline processes and increase efficiency, we must still ensure responsible and ethical use.
Navigating AI together: overcoming bias and achieving inclusion
With the AI revolution upon us, we’ve been facilitating regular roundtable discussions to support communicators in navigating this change together.
In our next session we will examine the issue of the biases embedded in AI and explore how we can mitigate this bias and harness AI tools to foster greater inclusion and authentic representation.
Let’s continue Navigating AI Together, ensuring responsible, ethical, and inclusive AI usage in our communication practices.