Abstract: The concept of "future of work" is not new (McKinsey & Co., 2022). Rapid changes in the workplace are influencing the ways in which leaders need to anticipate, reflect, and explore how workers and the workplace may need to evolve to match the changing demands. Several new developments are surfacing in the workplace, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality as well as metaverse, the effect of climate change, sustainability, telecommuting, hybrid work arrangements, perceptions on diversity and inclusion, greater need for upskilling and employee wellbeing (Turner, 2022; McKinsey & Co., 2022; Schwrtz et al., 2022). Additionally, with the COVID-19 pandemic came immense disruption causing a severe impact on the functioning of organizations globally. Across industries, the nature of work has undergone a transition. Changes in organizational practices (Davison, 2020; Richter, 2020; Jaiswal et al., 2021), adoption of technological and online mechanisms, rethinking and redesigning business models (Arora & Suri, 2020), work from home, work from anywhere (Choudhury et al., 2021), teleworking, and staggered shifts became the norm of organizational functioning during the pandemic. Broadly, with the objective of meeting the social distancing norms, the switch to the alternative workplace was seen a possible solution, at least, to avoid a complete disruption of work (Nguyen et al., 2020). Despite the fact that remote work, telework, virtual work, work from home, and even distributed work (see, e.g., Nayani et al., 2018) are not new to organizational functioning, their adaptation was focused initially on specific industries as well as introduced to bring convenience and flexibility to the employees temporarily (Golden et al., 2008). The pandemic, however, changed the scenario completely with a major focus on remote work to meet the social distancing norms in spite of its negative impacts like reduced job satisfaction, isolation, and disengagement among workers functioning remotely (Jaiswal & Arun, 2020). With the relaxation of the social distancing norms, surge in COVID-19 vaccinations, and reopening of organizations, there has been immense deliberation about hybrid working, involving working few days in office while others at home (or anywhere). Considering the radical shift brought on by COVID-19 in relation to work practices, processes, policies, structures, and technologies, now is an opportune time to rethink and revisit the future of work and the role of leaders in shaping the new workplace (Antonacopoulou & Georgiadou, 2020) while maintaining productivity, profitability, and competitiveness. Therefore, the role of organizational leaders is critical to ensure that employees, irrespective of remote work, hybrid work or work from anywhere, are highly engaged and motivated, perform well and achieve both their individual as well as organizational goals. Interestingly, while majority of the research in the domain focuses on the changing nature and dynamics of work and the workplace, limited research addresses the role of organizational leaders in the same. Broadly speaking, the changes caused by the pandemic introduced the ‘future of work’, in several dimensions, ahead of time (Turner, 2022). Thus, taking a holistic view of the situation, our aim is to address the following research questions: 1. How do the leaders envision a healthy workplace of the future? 2. What initiatives should leaders take towards preparing a workforce for the future? To meet our objective for this exploratory study, we will conduct semi-structured interviews with leaders across different industries and use thematic analysis to explore their role in cultivating productive and healthy workplaces for the future and to gain an insight into organisational practices and interventions that can be used to train the workforce to become resilient and flexible in alternative forms of work. Considering that different industries are responding to the need of addressing the changing nature of the workplace, this research can offer useful theoretical and practical implications especially from a leadership and HRD perspective.
