Sodexo Blog: Workplace Trends for the New Year: We Have Heard All This Before – Or Have We?

By Michael Norris, Market President, Corporate Services and COO of Sodexo North America
Jan 11, 2013 8:00 AM ET
Michael Norris

Posted on the Sodexo Blog

Each New Year, corporate researchers, trend spotters, and soothsayers publish a plethora of Top Tens and Trend Reports; no stone on the subject matter is left unturned. All of these pieces attempt to look into the future, dole out advice on how to do things differently for the upcoming year, and how to start anew.  The workplace is no different, yet still, I am excited about 2013 Sodexo Workplace Trends Report. This year’s report and its collective research, offers a unique perspective on the issues being evaluated at the corporate Board Room level about the “at work” environment—the ins and outs of what are essential to successful individual and organizational performance.

To boil it down, as conversations in the C-Suite continue to place more emphasis on how to maximize resources at every function and level of the organization, these trends will continue to grow in importance, relevance and application to business.  Now, more than ever, executives should be keenly aware of what is driving the health and productivity of their people. Otherwise, efforts to maximize resources are moot.

The upcoming report, set for release January 24, 2013, identifies 12 key trends impacting the “new normal” of a workplace where volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity are part of the daily grind. The report’s expert contributors, like principle researcher and behavioral scientist Rachel Permuth, PhD, MSPH, Sodexo; Tom Stat, Founder/Partner, Eleven Consulting Group; David W. Ballard, PsyD, MBA, American Psychological Association; and Jim Ware and Paul Carder of the Occupiers Journal, help us understand how continued focus on integration of workplace solutions into strategic plans, not as tactics, is imperative to the future of the success of organizations.

Continue reading to discover the Key Workplace Trends for 2013 >>