Workplaces of Today and Tomorrow to Attract and Retain Top Talent: Challenges and Opportunities with Remote / Hybrid Practices

The face and nature of the workplace are changing; remote work technologies and the capabilities of artificial intelligence are having a transformative effect on traditional norms of work performance, to which both employees and managers must adapt. The article analyzes the advantages and problems of remote work, its impact on staff turnover and retention, the sources and specifics of industrial stress during remote work, and the problem of environmentalization of workplaces with this format of work organization. The basis of the study was the results of an electronic survey from November 2023 till March 2024 of 40 specialists from the public and private sectors of South Florida (USA) who studied a postgraduate course in personnel management regarding their views, expectations, and preferences for onsite, remote and hybrid workplaces. Respondents gave answers to both closed and open questions to analyze the answers to which content analysis and inductive coding were used. 54% of respondents work in traditional offices, 32% can work remotely, and 14% of respondents have a hybrid work format. Analysis of the answers to the open questions allows us to determine the desired organizational culture format as flexible, remote/hybrid, positive, belonging/inclusive, work-life balance, and employee-oriented. The majority of respondents consider workplace design to be an essential determinant of labor productivity. Technologies for monitoring employees' working hours for office, remote or hybrid work formats are different, and it is necessary to respect the employee's right to privacy (20% of respondents consider regular monitoring appropriate, 50% – periodic, and 30% consider monitoring inappropriate). Organizations that organize a comfortable format of remote work for their employees are more likely to be able to attract and retain a talented workforce at a lower cost than those that require the presence of employees in the office (over the next decade, only 10% of respondents are willing to prefer working in the office, then as 90% - hybrid or remote work option). Based on the survey results, a list of criteria a company must fulfil to attract and retain talented employees and the characteristics of the most attractive work environment was formulated.