NEW YORK – Forbes suggests that an improved job market between 2016 and 2017 will give job seekers and employees more leverage, “which will cause salaries to increase and employers to invest more job advertising, staffing firms and employee benefits.”

The news source says that demand for a more flexible work environment will continue, and we’ll see “an emergence of HR practitioners with new skills, including people analytics, Internet marketing, branding and knowledge on new technologies like virtual reality and wearables.”

While the past year has been focused on “the war for talent … the rise of Generation Z and the shift to the on-demand workforce,” Forbes anticipates that these trends will continue to impact how businesses recruit, hire and retain their workforces.

Looking ahead to 2017, here are the top workforce trends, according to Forbes:

1. Improving candidate and employee experiences. “Next year, you will see the walls come down between your HR, marketing and customer service departments in order to develop experiences for both candidates and employees.”
2. Rise of the blended workforce. For the past five years, the “gig economy,” which defines workers who are hired for a specific task for a defined time, “has created a new kind of diversity, with full-time permanent employees working side-by-side with freelancers.”
3. Annual performance reviews evolve into continuous reviews. Who wants to wait an entire year to learn about their strengths and areas of improvement? Many employees “feel that annual performance reviews don’t help improve their performance.”
4. Millennials meet Generation Z. “2017 will mark the first full year that Gen Z will be settled into the workplace, with a new outlook on business, new demands and widening the technology gap even more between younger and older workers.”
5. Augmented and virtual reality revolutionize recruiting and training. “[C]ompanies are going to take it a lot more serious in 2017 as new equipment, programs and use cases surface.”
6. War for talent heats up as employer/employee contracts evolve. Employers recognize that “there is no lifetime employment contract and some companies have incorporated strategies from the book ‘The Alliance’ as they implement ‘tours of duty’ to appease employees.”
7. Organizations restructure to focus on team over individual performance. Millennial and Gen Z workers grew up playing team sports and have the same expectations at the office.
8. Wellness becomes a critical employee benefit for attracting top talent. “Companies are using wellness programs to lower absenteeism, attract talent and save on health care costs, while employees have become more health conscious in the past several years.”
9. Companies get creative with their benefit packages and perks. Besides workplace flexibility, new benefits that are surfacing focus around education and student loans. “One company that is on the forefront of this trend is Fidelity, with their “Step Ahead Student Loan Assistance” program, which helps employees pay back loans up to $10,000.”
10. Office attire and workplace culture becomes more casual. “In 2017, you will see a continuation of this trend, with more employees demanding to drop their suits and ties in exchange for jeans and shirts.”