The holidays are almost over, and many of our listeners will doubtless be preparing to return to work next week. It’s been an interesting year, to say the least, but as we bid farewell to 2021, the time has come to turn our gaze forward to look at what the next 12 months have in store.
In our last episode of 2021, we’re joined by staff writers Connor Jones, Bobby Hellard and Sabina Weston to share our predictions for the biggest trends of 2022, and the potential impact that they could have on the world of tech and IT, including vaccine passports, the fall of Meta, and the rise of the four-day week.
Highlights
“We've already seen a few whistleblowers, I think most famously, Francis Haugen, speak out against their former employers. And we've seen her going into the UK Parliament as well as the US Senate in order to advise policymakers about what really to do with with Meta's dominance of the social media market, and how this really impacts society, because we can't really dispute that it has a massive impact on how we live our lives in the real world. So I predict that 2022 will be quite challenging for Meta, and yeah, we might see some actual changes being implemented.”
“I do think Huawei is in for a tough time in 2022. While I don't think they'll die out in 2022, I think they'll either sell their smartphone brand, or they'll just simply lose it. And the reason, obviously, is these US restrictions have stopped them from getting American companies, American software, so they can't get Android. And because of that they can't get the app ecosystem.”
“With all these trials [of the four-day week], and the results of them coming out, the overarching theme is that workers are reporting better happiness. Fewer sick days is a really interesting finding as well. Because surely, that's a massive big business interest. Obviously, publicly, businesses want their workers to be happier. But realistically, they just want them to be as productive. And finding things like fewer sick days being taken well, okay, then that's maybe more of a compelling argument to start taking this a little bit more seriously. Those are some of the real evidence-backed benefits.”
Read the full transcript here.
Footnotes
- The IT Pro Podcast: Looking back on 2021
- Google will fire unvaccinated employees in 2022
- Google pushes its return to the office date into 2022
- Microsoft cancels October office return as it ponders "great reshuffle"
- Senator wants social media companies held liable for spreading anti-vax lies
- Twitter, LinkedIn reverse course due to climbing COVID cases
- The government’s contact tracing app was always going to be DOA
- COVID vaccine passports will fail unless government wins public trust, ICO warns
- IT experts weigh up the pros and cons of vaccine passports
- NHS app will be used as digital vaccine passport
- TechUK panel slams "woeful" gov response to digital IDs
- Samsung becomes latest big name to pull out of MWC 2021
- 'Changing name to Meat': Industry reacts to Facebook's Meta rebrand
- Facebook hit with $150 billion lawsuit over Myanmar hate speech
- UK gov must act now to regulate Facebook, says whistleblower
- Facebook put "profit before public safety" with algorithm change
- US senators demand Zuckerberg answers Facebook whistleblower's claims
- Social media firms face fines and shutdowns under draft UK law
- US officially designates Huawei and ZTE as national security threats
- Huawei’s founder calls for a shift to software due to US sanctions
- Huawei's smartphone business to decline £30 billion by year end
- US sanctions force Huawei to halt smartphone chip production
- Huawei revenue growth slows as US sanctions begin to bite
- Huawei debunks rumours of smartphone business sale
- US Huawei ban looks set to continue under Biden administration
- Huawei P40 Pro Plus review: Possibly the world’s best smartphone...with a catch
- UK watchdog to investigate Apple and Google's mobile 'duopoly'
- Honor launches first Android smartphone since Huawei split
- What is HarmonyOS? A guide to Huawei's operating system
- Huawei entices UK and Irish businesses with Chinese market access through its mobile ecosystem
- UK fintech Atom bank moves workers to a four-day working week
- Why it's time for a three-day working week in 2022
- KPMG offers staff 'four-day fortnight' in hybrid work plans
- Working from home has created an "overtime epidemic"
- The potential sustainability benefits of flexible working
- UK's growing skills gap could stall COVID recovery
- Why COVID passports are grounded
- Only 15% of Londoners returned to the office in July
- Post COVID-19: The end of the office as we know it?
- How is British business weathering the COVID-19 storm?
- Up in the air: Travel in the age of COVID-19
- Oracle teams with Oxford University for rapid detection of COVID-19 variants
- SMBs rethinking return to office amid Delta surge
- US government renews COVID-19 vaccine distribution agreement with Palantir
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