It wasn’t popular with employees, but Wayfair’s CEO Niraj Shah’s recent message to work harder, longer hours, and blend personal and professional lives is likely very popular with executives and investors.  We’ve seen similar messages from CEO’s emphasizing performance in the last year or so post pandemic.

We expect a stronger emphasis on performance in 2024, and more companies requiring in office vs remote work.  We’re also seeing a higher bar on hiring, companies looking for a great experience fit as well as a strong fit on attitude–humble, flexible, positive.

There was so much uncertainty and chaos with the pandemic, many companies over indexed on flexibility, and were more generous with their tolerance of collisions between personal and professional lives. A couple of years ago it was an ‘employee’ job market, you could negotiate far more than you can in today’s market.

Some people never changed through the pandemic, they remained highly motivated, furthered their professional development, and excelled.  Some became soft, cutting hours significantly telling themselves that they are more productive working from home, working less hours than before.  Others saw significant changes to their family situations, home schooling for example is up significantly, 70%.

There’s definitely a desire to return to normal this year.  Higher profits, higher returns, it’s what businesses are all about.

Employers want people who are building a career, seeking professional development, staying current on recent trends, vs someone who wants a job, a 9-5 mindset.  The professional world has always been competitive, expect that to be more the case in 2024 than in recent years.