Embracing the Age of Ambiguity

We're living in an age of ambiguity that's impacting both society and the workplace.

Things that were once certain are now much less certain, and boundaries that were once clear are now much more blurred.

For example, the boundary between home and work or between work and retirement, but also relationships such as the relationship between employers and their employees.

And once this blurring of boundaries brings welcome flexibility, it also brings uncertainty.

On the one hand, people want flexibility, but they have an aversion to uncertainty.

And it's the combination of these opposing forces that brings ambiguity.

Our report examines the relationship between employers and employees, and how over the course of 2020, we've seen a change in the relationship, what we've called employee drift, where employees have become not just more physically remote from their employer, but also more emotionally remote.

The ambiguous environment is also impacting employees' mental and physical wellbeing.

43% of employees would class their mental health as fair or worse. And it seems to be having a particular impact on younger workers for whom 48% would describe themselves as anxious compared to 3% of the population at large.

It's also impacting employees' physical wellbeing with 84% of employees saying that they would continue working even if they were ill.

Retirement was once a moment in time, but for many, it'll be now a long, uncertain transition from work into retirement, and that’s a classic case of ambiguity.

People welcome the flexibility that that transition provides, but they're uncertain how they're going to manage it. Indeed, 78% of those in our study now believe they have to work much longer than they'd ever planned to before, but there's also evidence that they're uncertain how they're going to manage that transition.

When it comes to tackling ambiguity, what our study has shown is that personality types are a major factor. Some personality types are far more comfortable working in an ambiguous environment than others, and therefore one size certainly doesn't fit all, and understanding the different personality types within any workplace will be a major part in determining the solution.

Ambiguity is impacting workplaces up and down the land. And those employers able to embrace the age of ambiguity and address their employees' changing attitudes will be the most successful in both retaining and developing talent and also driving productivity.

So visit our website and download a copy of Embracing the Age of Ambiguity.