Research report

21 December 2020, 12:00
By Dean Music

The employee expectations report: 2021

How employee expectations have changed during the COVID-19 lockdown and what businesses must consider to attract and retain the top talent 
The workplace of the future was always going to evolve over the next ten years. Pundits said businesses were going to be more agile, technology-powered and digitally transformed. Mass disruption was a certainty. 

And then the world was hit with the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Discussions about what the future of the workplace would be had to become a reality overnight.  

Businesses had to transform in ways no-one could have predicted in a timescale no-one would ever have thought achievable. Millions of workers moved from purpose-built environments to their gardens, kitchen tables and, for those lucky enough to have one, home offices.  

And while some businesses and employees will be eager to return to how it was before an equal, if not greater number, are unlikely to feel the warm nostalgia of office working now they’ve had a taste of the alternative.  

We asked 1,000 UK employees about their expectations, experiences and opinions on what organisations need to learn from the pandemic and here is what they had to say.