The Top Topics of 2023

Returning to the office. AI’s explosive growth. A slowing job market. These are three of the top challenges leaders grappled with in 2023. Every year, Korn Ferry publishes The Essentials, a curated look at the year’s leading topics featuring our consultants’ best insights and perspectives. See you in 2024!

I’m Back at the Office. Or Am I?

In January 2023, the average office-occupancy rate in major US cities crossed 50% for the first time since the pandemic began. It hasn’t moved much since. Whether employees should work out of the office full-time remains a massive question at organizations big and small. Leaders now have evidence that some tasks are done far more productively when everyone is working together in the same place. That said, firms could face an employee revolt if bosses mandate that everyone return to the office full-time.

In this Essentials, Korn Ferry explains that while in-office work may be marginally more productive, bosses these days have to “earn their employees’ commutes,” as one expert puts it.

Read the full article here.

How AI Took Over

Few of us had heard of ChatGPT when 2023 started. But by spring, 150 million people were using the AI tool to help them write software code, design marketing presentations, and accomplish countless other work-related tasks. The emergence of large-language models like ChatGPT has forced leaders to ask some existential questions about their organizations. How should AI change their company’s business model? The workday? The role of human employees? Stakeholders of all types want answers to these questions—sooner rather than later.

In this Essentials, Korn Ferry’s experts break down the big issues around AI in the workplace.

Read the full article here.

Moving Ahead (Somehow) in a Tough Job Market

The greatest job market in history is over. There are no longer 12 million open roles nationwide, and many employees can no longer just name their salary and job title—the way they could for most of the last two years. That means that anyone wanting to advance their career needs to do so in more conventional ways, achieving solid performance, networking, and being agile.

In this Essentials, Korn Ferry distills some of the best career insights our experts shared in 2023.

Read the full article here.

 Other Must-Reads from Korn Ferry

• Catch up with the Briefings Podcast - The CEO exodus. The ongoing return-to-office debate. The concentration crisis. Korn Ferry brings in top guests to tackle those leadership quandaries and more.
• How to Power Down During the Holiday Break - Many professionals are pretty bad at taking time off. Here’s how to make the most of a few days away from work.
• Last Call For Phone Calls? - Phone calls in the business world are critically endangered. Are they worth saving?

Check out Briefings, our bimonthly national magazine, for in-depth and unusual looks at critical leadership issues.