Billionaire investor Ray Dalio made a series of comments in an interview with CNBC that reflect trends CoreNet Global has been predicting through its COVID-19 tracking surveys, including the fact that the 9-5 work pattern is over, and that the nature of work has been radically altered by the pandemic:
- “The future of the workplace is going to be characterized by probably two things — customization and technology. We’ve been given a gift to be able to rethink what we are doing,
“I don’t think we are going to go back to the old world.” - “It’s going to be an erratically different kind of work — what is employment? How will technology be replacing people? How will that be dealt with? How will the wealth gap be dealt with…there are going to be many, many changes over the next five years.”
- Flexible work arrangements are a competitive advantage for employers in today’s job market, the article said, technology and data allows employers to measure workers’ productivity, which can help firms that are experimenting with hybrid arrangements post-pandemic.
- “You can see if someone is hard at it and they are productive. You don’t have to have them in the office. There are so many tools that make it clear that how productive people are and it gives them greater freedom to be productive in that way,” he said in the article.