Is 'would' needed in the sentence?

I think so. Technically - I think you can get away with either - in other words the second sentence is okay - but the first sentence, which includes the word 'would' expresses the thought more clearly.

The second sentence makes it sound as if someone currently has expectations about how hard you'll be working next year.
I don't think that's what you're trying to express, is it?

As Aidan said, either works techically/grammatically, T, but language is all about meaning/nuance. Modals allow us to describe the emotive part of language. would puts the meaning/nuance farther into an unreal/doubtful/tentative area while expects suggests tat the speaker has a more real situation in mind, again, as Aidan described..