January 05, 2022

2022 Future of Work Predictions

Dana Bernardino

With the new year soon approaching, where and how we work is bound to change and evolve. 1Huddle’s CEO and Founder, Sam Caucci, was interviewed by Steve Gruber about his 2022 predictions for the workforce. Keep scrolling for his thoughts…

Top 3 Highlights

  • “Getting workers back to work is a challenge.”
  • “I think hybrid work is here to stay.”
  • “61% of the training in 2021 on our platform had to do with corporate missions, core values, brand standards.”

Steve: So good to have you back here on the program. You know, we look forward to next year. I’ve got some predictions in the pile here from Nostradamus, they’re a little dark and we’ll get back to those later because they’re not really what we want to focus on. They’re interesting to say the least. Sam Caucci is the founder and CEO of 1Huddle.

1Huddle is a technology-based employee training platform that helps companies more effectively onboard and upskill employees using games, and it’s an interesting way to go. Jobs; What’s going to happen in 2022? We’ve got some predictions here with Sam. Sam, good to have you back on the program. 

Sam: Thanks for having me, Steve. 

Steve: You look at the employment situation out there, and every place you go, it says, ‘now hiring, now hiring.’ I mean, I drove by a Taco Bell recently and I had a sign up front that said ‘a thousand dollars signing bonus!’ I’m like, at Taco Bell? You can get a grand for taking the job and you gotta be there for six months, but the point being, there are a lot of jobs out there.

How do you attract good people today and keep good people? What’s the skillset that you’re looking for? Or do you just bring in people that you think are smart and qualified and then upskill them, like you say, while they’re on the job?

Sam: Yeah. It’s a great question. Today, companies are really struggling to find workers and I think what we’re hearing from companies at 1Huddle, the companies are struggling to find workers that are ready to work on day one, more specifically. And I think that, a long pandemic, workers on the sidelines, it’s like being a little out of shape. Getting workers back to work is a challenge. And there’s a real strain on companies, many maybe didn’t have a really well-established training and development program already in place and it’s only made it harder for them as they try to rush workers back to work and have to find ways to reskill workers as jobs have changed. And I think that’s what we’re seeing is companies are trying to lay down better tech infrastructure so they can develop workers faster.

Steve: It’s not just that the jobs have changed. The place where we work has changed. I mean, all sorts of companies that I’m familiar with had big foot prints, big office buildings, and so forth that are half empty or totally empty. It’s going to change the way Americans work altogether. A lot more people are working from home forever, don’t you think? 

Sam: I think hybrid work is here to stay. No doubt. It’s important to note that the majority of workers that make the American workforce work don’t have the opportunity to work from home, and they’ve never had the opportunity to use virtual zoom, use video to call into work.

So I think that work has changed for the majority of workers who can now work hybrid. One of the things we saw at 1Huddle was, 61% of the training in 2021 on our platform had to do with corporate missions, core values, brand standards. We’ve never seen that before, which tells me companies that are working remote and working hybrid may be struggling to keep workers together and connected, while being a part. I thought that was a really interesting point. I think that trend is going to continue into 2022. 

Steve: Yeah. The other thing, a piece of good news out there is that people are making more money. Now the inflation thing is hurting some of that, but for a lot of folks, they are making more money and they’re getting a little bit ahead and more people are saving money. I mean, there’s some good things out there for sure, aren’t there?

Sam: Sure. I think that you see at the end of the day, the labor market swings. We all know this, it swings to in one moment it might be a tight labor market that has different impacts on businesses, and sometimes it goes in the other direction.

We’re definitely in a moment where the cost of labor is going up, companies are responding to it in turn. I’ve been very impressed with how many businesses we work with and retail and restaurants and hospitality have responded by raising wages, increasing benefits, doing things to attract and recruit workers.

You know, Steve, I’m a football guy. So like at the end of the day, companies need to win the recruiting game. And if it costs a little bit more, they need to find a way to do it and need to find a way to fight through it in order to make sure their business model is successful. 

Steve: And I want to touch on that, Sam. That takes me back to the Taco Bell sign out front. The recruiting is at every level from entry-level jobs, to CEO jobs and everything in between, you have to recruit better players onto the field. So if you offer people a thousand dollars to get them through the door to work in fast food, you do, and you keep your business thriving, and everything up to a CEO, I think you’ve hit on something really important there.

Sam: And I think that what businesses need to do today is, when I think about where the federal government can help, where the state governments can help, where education can help, is it if workers are better prepared for the jobs of tomorrow on day one, Companies will reduce, we’ll have a reduction in costs and effort and time and energy to get a worker onboarded so they can get to productivity faster.

And we know workers that are more productive, feel more engaged, feel more connected, feel more empowered. I mean, who wants to do a bad job at work? Every worker feels better. I think one of the things in 2022, that we need to do better at, from a government level, is invest in infrastructure that makes sure that workers that are on the sidelines are given the opportunity to acquire skills that make sense for a workforce in 2022, not taking courses or trainings or programs that are built for the workforce of yesterday.

Steve: There you go. Sam Caucci, greatly appreciate your input here. Founder and CEO of 1Huddle. If you want to find out more, where would they look you up?

Sam: Sure. You can learn more about one auto by heading over to 1Huddle.co.

Dana Bernardino, Manager of Digital Marketing at 1Huddle

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