IDC's Future of Work practice top 10 predictions for 2023

The need for a unified approach to disruption of any kind is key to success in the future of work. With global attention divided between many disruptors, the future of work is fraught with many unknowns, from where and how work will be done to how economic pressures will change job opportunities to how social, skills, and climate concerns will have a broad impact.

The reality of our current global economic, climate, and business challenges requires workers to be a part of dynamic and reconfigurable teams that can quickly adapt to business demands and new market requirements — anytime, anywhere, and from any physical location.

Hybrid work – once thought to be a temporary fix throughout the COVID-19 pandemic – is now a mainstay in the global future of work landscape, despite public focus on return to office initiatives.

The future of work will be one that is defined by a variety of work approaches capable of supporting the ebb and flow of change as the world learns to navigate new challenges.

The promise of such hybrid work models is clear. Rapid adoption of more automated, cloud-based, and artificial intelligence (AI)–enabled work practices increases work productivity and introduces new, more agile ways of working. Insights from more digital-first ways of working are enabling organizations to be responsive to the needs of customers and employees alike, driving improvements in talent acquisition, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. They also underscore the need for greater focus on skills development in the flow of work itself at a time when many workers struggle to keep pace with new features, functions and applications designed to make work “easier”.

Organizations sufficiently prepared to find and capitalize on opportunities in spite of current and future disruptions will be the ones that define the next future of work.

IDC’s top 10 predictions for the Future of Work in 2023 are:

Prediction 1: To address health, sustainability, travel, and other disruptions, 30% of G2000 organizations will adopt immersive third-party metaverse conferencing tech services to enable client engagement by 2027.
Prediction 2: By 2024, the business developer role will be ubiquitous, with 60%+ enterprises training and supporting business users to build their own applications and automated processes using low-code tools.
Prediction 3: Driven by skills shortages, CIOs that invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technologies will see a 40% increase in productivity by 2025, delivering greater speed to expertise.
Prediction 4: By 2024, organizations deploying employee micro-monitoring measures (camera/keystroke) will see a 20% decrease in actual employee productivity.
Prediction 5: G2000 companies that deploy reactive and tactical hybrid work models will see a 20% revenue loss in 2024 due to job attrition and underperforming teams.
Prediction 6: By 2025, organizations that have created dedicated hybrid security policies and developed a culture of trust will be 3x less likely to suffer a security breach.
Prediction 7: By 2024, companies offering frontline workers democratized access to digital collaboration, process automation, and similar tools will see 20% increase in revenue due to improved productivity.
Prediction 8: Holistic and integrated analytics within an intelligent digital workspace (IDW) ecosystem will drive a 70% increase in differentiated business outcomes for adopters by 2026.
Prediction 9: Effectively blurring space and place, by 2025, 65% of G2000 companies will consider online presence to be at parity to “in real life” across their engaged workforce.
Prediction 10: By 2024, 55% of C-suite teams at global enterprises will use intelligent space and capacity planning technology to reinvent office locations for gathering, collaborating, and learning.