The new world of work is forming online

From the overall interactions, the following core topics could be identified, which were discussed the most according to order of mention: Organizational transformation, digitalization, specific employee challenges, (digital) training, sustainability, gender issues, racism, and the topic of transportation with a focus on pandemic-related challenges in logistics. The detailed results from the various topic areas provide companies with valuable information for the transformation of their work organization.

A large part of the discussions revolves around the tension between focusing on the health and well-being of employees and remaining flexible on the one hand - but also the need to find clear regulations on office use and remote and hybrid working on the other. 4-day weeks and 6-hour days are also discussed in this context. The contributions also show concrete approaches to solutions and recommendations for management and HR managers, which can be read in the full results report.

The advantages of a home office outweigh the disadvantages

Remote work is predominantly assessed as neutral to positive. In eight percent of the interactions, positive aspects are in the foreground, in three percent negative aspects. In 89 percent, there are no or balanced evaluations. If only the original contributions are considered - without reactions and comments - there are even 17 percent positive contributions compared to two percent negative statements.

From the community's point of view, the advantages of remote working, apart from health prevention, are: more flexible working opportunities for women and mothers, better work-life balance, higher productivity, lower costs, the potential to attract skilled workers away from the company location, greater employer attractiveness for young people and lower costs. The disadvantages and risks mentioned are social isolation, lower motivation, greater distraction, blurring of the boundaries between work and private life, and digital and technical challenges, especially from older senders.

Robotics leading technical discussion

In the area of digitalization, the main focus is on certain technologies and their importance in the future world of work. By far the most frequently written and digitally spoken about here is the use of robotics. More than 1.2 million interactions relate to this, and more than 220,000 individual posts were written about it. These are followed by: Big Data, Cloud Services and AI Technologies.

Strongest exchange on Twitter

In a comparison of all channels, Twitter is by far the place where the most discussion takes place about what the world of work will look like in the future. Over 1.8 million Twitter posts were found on the defined topic area, which corresponds to 88 percent of all posts. This is followed by news sites, such as those of newspapers and magazines, blogs and forums. The international business network LinkedIn, which is increasingly making a name for itself as a content platform, only comes in fifth place in the analysis with 14,500 individual contributions and 0.7 percent of the "share of voice" in the topic area studied. More than 500,000 brands, companies and organisations were mentioned in the contributions or were senders themselves. These include, for example, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Visa, Microsoft, hp or Twitter itself.

New Work discourse is male dominated

As the study further shows, the online discussion about the new world of work is predominantly led by men. Two-thirds of the posts and comments on "new work" topics are attributable to male authors. This ratio corresponds fairly closely to the gender ratio of Twitter usage worldwide. European as well as German research also suggests that men continue to use the Internet more intensively. "The fact that men have a stronger influence on social discourses and thus also on the topic of New Work should definitely be taken into account when formulating a strategy. Especially with regard to gender issues, female perspectives should be brought into focus," says Horváth expert and study director Vera Koltai. Unequal gender relations in the world of work are also the subject of lively discussion in the community. There were over 774,000 interactions on this topic during the observation period. Whether the increasing remote work for women is to be assessed positively or negatively overall is far from being a matter of debate on the web.

Source: Horváth AG

About the study

 For the international Horváth study "Future of Work", the Ynsight Research Institute collected online contributions on the topic of the "new world of work" as part of a large-scale global social listening project over the period January 2020 to March 2021. The data was collected across sources, including news sources, blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media. Algorithm-based analysis was then performed on themes and patterns in terms of statistical characteristics. The topics were then examined in detail and interpreted against the background of current challenges.

The study stands here available for download.