Trends from 2022 That the Business World Will Retain in the New Year

As there are only a few days left in this year, it is the right time to summarize everything we have done, what has happened, which trends have emerged and marked 2022 in a business sense, and what awaits us in the coming year. The list of trends and events from the past 12 months is not small, and although they change quickly, the Financial Times has highlighted a few that will remain in corporate life in 2023.

Hybrid work has taken root

One thing has completely changed the business world in recent years, and we can hardly imagine work without this option – hybrid work. Although many were happy to return to the office after restrictions and mandatory work from home, it seems that a large part of the business world is still inclined to retain the idea that we can work from wherever we want at least occasionally. There are few companies that have completely returned to the ‘old model’.

Hybrid work is clearly one of the few things we liked during the pandemic and decided to keep, and with it came the trend of hot-desking, which implies that employees in the office do not have their own place, but that it is assigned to them as needed or according to a rotating system. The increasing prevalence of this trend is also shown by the London Stock Exchange, which recently sent a letter to its employees introducing a new system for reserving desks and thus seems to have embraced this new trend.

But they are not the only ones. The share of British employees working in a hybrid manner jumped from 13 percent (at the beginning of February) to 24 percent (by May), and 80 percent of workers stated that they prefer hybrid working, according to the Financial Times. So while employees and companies do not let go of the hybrid form of work and experiment with the best way to implement it, the only change in the coming year may be that companies will introduce more written rules about this way of working – which days who needs to come to the office, whether meetings should be held online or not, whether a desk needs to be reserved or not… However, more flexible work, including hot-desking, remains one of the biggest consequences of the pandemic in a business sense.

Casual style

However, we have not only become flexible regarding the way of working. Many people working from the office have started to approach their business dress code much more casually and have abandoned the ‘stiff’ corporate rules. Thus, among the trends of 2022, which will last into 2023, comfort has emerged, so many people see nothing wrong with coming to work in sneakers instead of some other, more formal shoes. Extremely comfortable footwear has become an ‘office thing’ in 2022. While the days of coming to work in sneakers and changing into office shoes have not completely died out in 2022, we can say that in many sectors they have become part of the past.

In addition, must-have casual styles in 2022 have become backpacks that even the highest officials in companies carry. This is not unusual as computers are less and less waiting for us on desks (if we even have desks), and constantly carrying a laptop is yet another ‘victim’ of more flexible work. Thus, many carry their computers to and from the office, which is best done with a backpack, rather than handbags or briefcases that were normal before the pandemic.

So while 2022 will not be with us forever, it is clear that we do not want to leave some trends behind and we are happily carrying them into 2023, and perhaps even a few years beyond.