How do you think workforce management will change in upcoming years?

Hi ! Great topic. I might answer a bit off the topic (sorry for that), but I think my thinking relates much to your question. :) I think it is not so much about software, instead, I believe it is more about the leadership style that will be affected next. As a leader, I'm most concerned/interested in the changes in this area. We already have so many good software we can use (videos, boards, project management etc.). However, the big question for leaders is to get people engaged and understand the vision/purpose and mission and head in the same direction. Other topics that I find important are: how to build trust in modern organizations/networks and how to get especially the young to learn without sitting next to the more experienced ones. There are many types of research saying that many people will work for multiple companies at the same time and that there will be more entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, and freelancers in the future. How can you manage those and make sure everyone is on board? These are big leadership issues and changes. And can even the current leaders understand this or do we need the new leaders to step in that are more familiar with working online, free but accountable, curious and entrepreneurial-minded? I think we are moving to a different world, potentially a much better one, since I prefer being optimistic. I think in order to succeed we need to better understand how do we build trust and find the right people at the right time. We need to find people with the same hopes and dreams. And preferable people that we will work for a long time, not just in one task.

The biggest challenge will be to manage productivity, accountability, authenticity, security and workforce training and development in the remote first world.

Humans don't change until they absolutely have to. I believe this is one of those moments where change WILL happen. With many people already realizing that they don't physically need to be in a location to do a specific job, I wouldn't be surprised if, say, half the workforce worked remotely, even once this pandemic settles. Like what many others said here, it will be up to the leaders and managers to maintain quality and productivity, but at the flip side, I believe it will be easier to see how people truly work. At the office, how many of us have "looked busy", without getting much done? Depending on the field of work, hours might shorten, simply due to the logistics of being at home, but much more will get done, in a quantifiable way! As for the in-person jobs... I would be interested to see if the overall economic shape changes- in things like valuing people more for in-person work, or how benefits would change. Rules around sick-days will probably need to be changed, as well as workplace safety rules (for both mental and physical aspects). The biggest thing I would love to see is how companies switch to retain their front-line employees. Before jumping on with the WeStretch team, I managed to hold out working as a bank teller for about six months in the pandemic before the verbal abuse and severe mistreatment got to me (when I was great at my job and had worked there for a year pre-covid). I am one of many, since one of the things I hear most about the community is the crazy high turnover rate of front-line workers. @wekh , what do you think of all of this? How would you answer your own question?

I think the future will be bright for remote work jobs, but there are still a lot of places where you can't work remotely simply because the nature of that job requires your physical presence.

in theory, bossware to make sure people are staying honest. but nobody knows how to measure or model knowledge worker productivity. corrolary might be that any job we can very accurately measure will become 'pay per productivity' rather than salaried, and then eventually automated.

I agree that the leadership style will play a crucial role in remote working. Moreover, I believe that AI will affect how employees manage their workload. I would recommend interesting and insightful reports produced by Daniel Faggella from Emerj for business leaders. He also has podcasts related to operational experience at large corporations as well as small startups with respect to ROI of AI.

A recession in the economy is certainly a driver of technological and organizational change. The current situation will push companies from various industries to rethink the role of AI in business development, which will lead to an increase in the number of new projects in this direction.