Helping firms navigate the future of work

Background: Providing work-based solutions and AI-driven services assisting organisations to adapt to the changing world of work.

Kevin Empey’s work involves creating tailored and future-fit workforce solutions designed to attract and retain talent, and maintain employee engagement and productivity, while also helping to build adaptive organisation and employment models for the future. “My role in Lockton is to support our clients address the key people challenges they face in a rapidly changing workplace,” he explains.

“All our work is about improving cost-effectiveness and resolving immediate people challenges today while also ensuring any solutions are helping employers to adapt in the future. We help organisations align their people strategies with changing business and workforce needs as well as optimising and future-proofing their employee value proposition for the changing world of work.”

As Director of the Senior Leadership Programme at the Irish Management Institute, Kevin actively contributes to leadership development and education. Recognised on the HR Most Influential Thinkers list, his impact extends globally in the areas of Future of Work research, social entrepreneurship, and employment policy contributions. He is also the award-winning author of Thrive In The Future of Work, contributing insights on trends and their implications for organisations and individuals.

Remote working

“There has been an acceleration of several work and workplace trends during and since covid. These trends had been underway for some time such as changing employee attitudes and needs around work, technology advances, skills and careers, work design and others.” The most visible and publicly discussed change, he notes, has been the hybrid/remote working debate which is still ongoing for some, but has settled down for others.

“Despite the headlines we see from some firms, individual organisations will find their own work ‘model’ that suits their business, culture and their strategy for attracting and retaining the talent they need.” That is not a one-size-fits-all answer, he adds:

The most common model going forward for knowledge worker-oriented organisations will likely be a well-managed hybrid arrangement.

“These models provide employees with much-valued flexibility while requiring reciprocal adaptability in how they work to support their teams and employers’ needs for innovation, connection and collaboration. The continued principle of finding a model that focuses on ‘what is the work that needs to be done and then being flexible on how and where that work is best done’, is ultimately going to lead to a successful model and solution for both employer and employee.”

While 2025 will see continued refinement and iteration of the practices developed over the past two to three years, he predicts that some employers who have embraced flexibility may become more firm in implementing the hybrid policies and guidelines they have already established. “Employers need to move forward from this issue, as other impending changes to both work patterns and job design will demand even greater focus.

“Overall, flexibility should be embraced as an inevitable and enduring work-based trend, rather than expecting a return to 20th-century norms. Likewise, employees must actively contribute to making flexible working arrangements effective — not only for themselves but also for their teams and employers.”

Productivity

Optimising ways of working for overall productivity is becoming a wider question today than just whether remote working is better or worse for getting tasks done in a traditional sense. “Questions are being raised about what overall productivity truly looks like in a distributed work environment, especially as both routine and complex tasks are increasingly being carried out and delivered through diverse sources and channels.”

In a knowledge-based organisation, for example, there is clearly the traditional task or output productivity that is key to the delivery of services to customers and colleagues. “But productivity also comes from connecting, collaborating, building networks and solving complex problems together. We call this social productivity. There is also productivity that comes from learning from others, mentoring and observing how other colleagues operate and develop their roles and careers in an organisational context. We call this learning productivity.”

At a higher level, he says organisational productivity also comes from our ability to access technology and talent in ways that both improve current performance and help us adapt more quickly to future business changes. “These wider perspectives on productivity therefore need to be considered in weighing up policy decisions regarding hybrid and remote working.”

Kevin sees AI as an inevitable and net positive trend, with our challenge as a society to advance it in the right way. “There have been lessons learned in other rapid technological and social changes such as the spread of social media into our private and working lives. From this experience, I hope society will apply some of these lessons learned on how best to navigate the AI expansion including putting the necessary parameters around its use so that it ultimately serves society as a whole.”

Ireland’s adaptability

On the question of how Ireland is adjusting to the new world of work in comparison to our EU neighbours, Kevin sees the nation’s ability to adapt as impressive. “While no country has a perfect system, Ireland has established a strong history and reputation in recent decades for embracing and responding effectively to new work and workforce trends.

“We don’t see the same extremes in reaction to work and workplace change that you see in other parts of the world. While this is partly cultural, we also probably have some natural advantages such as our size, geographical proximity to urban centres and travel distances.”

Ireland’s ability to adapt may be a winning card over the long run, especially as a new administration takes the levers of control in the White House. “I think we are all curious to what will actually happen when the realities of the incoming administration emerge.

“No different to other changes we have experienced with increased frequency over recent years, it underlines the case for adaptiveness or agility at organisational, team and individual level being the number one strategic capability needed to continue developing and succeeding in the years ahead,” he adds.

Future of work

Ten years ago the future of work was a sprawling topic that many organisations had the luxury of considering and observing from a relatively safe distance, he recalls. “While there were clear trends emerging they had perhaps not quite landed at their door.

“Today many of those trends are playing out right here and now. The first thing we do with employers we work with is to filter out the noise around the future of work topic and identify the specific challenges that it presents for them.”

The next step is to ensure there are strategies and solutions being put in place to navigate those challenges while also dealing with current and short-term priorities. “A recurring theme in discussions about the future of work is the need to revisit an organisation’s employment proposition — the deal offered to employees and what is expected in return.

“Just as businesses routinely review their operating models to ensure they remain effective for today and are also future-ready, it is increasingly essential to reassess the employee proposition for exactly the same reasons.”

Rapid changes in skills demands, talent shortages, AI advancements, evolving expectations about work, new re-sourcing options, and other disruptive forces are reshaping the 21st-century employment and talent landscape. “Organisations must ensure their employment model and proposition aligns with future workforce needs, while also clearly communicating to current and prospective employees their role in adapting and contributing to the organisation’s and their own success.”