General Insights Archives - The Future of Work Exchange

How Does Your Definition of “Team” Align With Today’s Future Of Work-Led World?

John Yuva — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 14:30:29 +0000

What does the concept of “team” mean for today’s remote and hybrid enterprises? Many workplaces now operate with dispersed teams. With the criticality of teamwork to execute company initiatives and projects, how teams function in the evolving Future of Work environment will likely have lasting implications on work culture and business success. Thus, it is imperative that organizations consider how their teams are designed and how collaboration occurs. Coupling team systematics with technologies that facilitate and encourage collaboration helps unify remote and in-person team members. Let’s take a closer look at what that means.

A Growth in Interdependence and Unity

The pandemic helped propel a shift in how employees work together and collaborate. With most people working from home for more than two years now, there was a need to almost over-communicate. Workers found themselves frequently video conferencing with team members whom they had only exchanged emails with in the past. Yet, despite the circumstances, teams accomplished their projects successfully and executed their goals.

A byproduct of this experience was greater team interdependence and cohesion. There was a feeling of “we’re all in this together” — a necessity for today’s dispersed teams post-pandemic. However, it is one thing when nearly everyone in the company is remote, compared to being one of a few working virtually. Without that sense of team interdependence and belonging, it can feel as if you’re working on an island. Companies and business leaders must recognize that the Future of Work means maintaining team unity regardless of where members are located.

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What’s Your 2025 MSP Strategy?

Christopher J. Dwyer — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 01:46:32 +0000

Managed Service Providers (MSP) have long been an extended workforce management powerhouse. The MSP model has long been a cornerstone of contingent workforce management, offering comprehensive solutions for businesses seeking to outsource their staffing operations. However, as the enterprise workforce landscape has undergone significant transformations in recent years, MSPs have evolved to meet these new challenges head-on. Over the past three decades, MSPs have established themselves as the premier and most established solution in the workforce technology and services market.

This begs the question: how are the major trends heading into 2025, such as direct sourcing, AI, and skills-based hiring, for example, changing how businesses leverage MSPs? What goes into an official “playbook” for optimizing utilization of an MSP model?

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange have teamed up with Atrium for an exclusive webcast focused on major 2025 headwinds within the staffing, HR, contingent workforce, and talent acquisition markets and their impact on the Managed Service Provider model.

I’m thrilled to join Atrium’s Chief Revenue Officer, Brad Martin, for an engaging event that will highlight:

The digitization of talent management. Leveraging AI-driven analytics, automated workflows, and integrated platforms to create a more responsive and intelligent workforce program.
Strategic program design. Building flexible, tailored MSP solutions that align with an organization’s culture, industry challenges, and growth objectives.
The next-generation DE&I initiative. Creating measurable pathways to expand diverse talent channels, eliminate bias in selection processes, and foster inclusive contingent workforce programs.
Reimagining the value of the MSP. Balancing cost efficiency with quality outcomes through data-driven decision making, strategic sourcing, and enhanced supplier partnerships, and;
The link between MSPs and the Future of Work. How do MSPs support Future of Work-driven strategies, such as direct sourcing and skills-based hiring?

Click here or on the image below to register. See you then!

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Five Things You Must Know About the Future of Work (Revisited)

John Yuva — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 11:02:13 +0000

As we reach the end of 2024, now is a good time to look back at the Five Things You Must Know About the Future of Work. The Future of Work Exchange (FOWX) and Ardent Partners hosted this complimentary webinar, The Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work, discussing the critical capabilities that enterprises can unlock to truly optimize the way they address talent acquisition, extended workforce management, and, most importantly, work optimization. What follows revisits the five critical FOW areas.

#1 The Evolution of Talent and the Future of Work

When it comes to the Future of Work, one of the first things to know is the evolution of talent and talent acquisition. And this idea of the “evolution of talent” can be ambiguous. Talent is always evolving and has been for a long time. The way that businesses perceive their talent is also evolving. And, the way that those businesses get connected to talent, and vice versa, continues to evolve. It’s also being innovated through technology and new strategies and new programs.

The fact is nearly half of our workforce today is comprised of extended workers or contingent workers. We have aspects like direct sourcing and digital staffing that are making it much easier for businesses to find the talent they need to get work done to address those mission-critical projects and fill the appropriate roles. FOWX and Ardent research has been focused historically on the extended workforce and contingent workforce, but we’re talking about all types of talent.

Thus, talent acquisition as a function and as a series of processes has also progressed. We need to consider aspects like the candidate experience, and the way that our culture and our brand attract new talent into our organization. Many business leaders think of the Future of Work as being centered around technology, revolving around the idea that technology drives the Future of Work. And we wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that; technology is a critical piece. And for some aspects and attributes of the Future of Work, technology and innovation are the nexus of those areas.

Technology is a Future of Work Centerpiece

Talent and the growth of the extended workforce represent the first leg of the stool with such things as diversity and candidate experience, but also digital staffing, direct sourcing, online talent marketplaces, and core workforce management solutions (such as MSPs and VMS platforms) These technologies are helping us to redefine the way we think about work. We’re living in a world where even though we don’t want to hear the word “pandemic” anymore, the pandemic really did shape what we think about the Future of Work.

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The Role of Blockchain in Candidates’ Digital Identities

John Yuva — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:02:22 +0000

A more digital Future of Work environment also means an increase in data volume. Information about potential job candidates collected through direct sourcing efforts, as well as more process digitization puts an abundance of sensitive data at HR’s and business leaders’ fingertips. Concurrently, cybersecurity risks continue to grow as threat actors attempt to thwart individuals’ and corporate efforts to defend against them. Enter blockchain, a technology that holds the potential for capturing and securing sensitive personal and workforce data.

What Is Blockchain?

At its core, Synopsis defines blockchain as “a decentralized, distributed, and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the consensus of the network.” For each ordered record (i.e., transaction) a block with a timestamp and transaction data is created and linked to subsequent blocks forming a blockchain. Whether it’s financial records, supply chain transactions, or personal information, blockchain guarantees a record of integrity and trust for all parties — without requiring a third party for verification.

Blockchain is most associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to secure a record of transactions. However, it is gaining more attention in industries outside of banking, including pharmaceuticals, aerospace and defense, and food and beverage, with several companies piloting blockchain technology for track-and-trace initiatives. For example, in the food supply chain, a supplier is unable to alter transaction data such as batch numbers, ensuring the ability to appropriately track and trace specific food shipments in the event of a recall.

The technology is now making its way into the HR function. This week, we’ll look at blockchain from the individual level (digital identity), followed by part two, exploring areas where HR can leverage blockchain to benefit the enterprise.

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Enterprise Agility Through Tribal Teams

John Yuva — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 11:02:58 +0000

Most of us worked remotely during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We adapted quickly to new ways of working and communicating. Often, we had to collaborate differently to gain transparency and complete projects. That usually meant pulling employees from other departments into team meetings or creating more diversified, cross-functional virtual teams —with enterprise agility as the objective. The need for agility since the pandemic began is now embedded within leading enterprises. So, too, is the agile concept of workplace tribes to innovate and solve business challenges.

What Is a Tribe?

Workplace tribes are comprised of 100 or fewer employees who bring interdisciplinary backgrounds to their groups. Rather than focusing on one large business objective, tribes are assigned specific aspects of a project or initiative. For example, an enterprise may be looking for new customer markets. A tribe could have members from procurement, logistics, marketing, finance, and others who are assigned a precise country to explore its viability.

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Spin for the Win with Gamification

John Yuva — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:02:07 +0000

In an article on the Future of Work Exchange last week, we discussed digital credentials and badges as a means to recruit, verify, and retain talent. This week we’re exploring those concepts further through gamification in the workplace and how the Future of Work can be transformed by its utilization.

Gamification Defined

Gamification is defined by Investopedia as, “the incentivization of people’s engagement in non-game contexts and activities by using game-style mechanics.” First coined in 2002 by game designer Nick Pelling while incorporating game elements into ATM and vending machines, gamification became mainstream by 2009 and has only grown as a strategic approach in HR and business.

With employee engagement and productivity a high priority for enterprises, gamification bridges the employee experience with enterprise needs. It can turn mundane tasks and processes, such as training and upskilling, reviewing corporate and HR policies, rolling out new products and services, and even applying for a job within the organization into engaging activities.

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Employee Engagement Still Lacks Execution

Christopher J. Dwyer — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 11:02:35 +0000

Today’s enterprises can be characterized as fast-paced, ever-evolving to effectively respond to a more dynamic marketplace. Within the hustle and bustle lies a critical workforce need that is often overlooked: employee engagement. The concept can be confused with simply offering employees certain monthly perks identified from a quick survey. However, it goes much deeper than that and reaches beyond permanent, full-time employees to those in the extended workforce, as well.

A well-rounded definition of employee engagement comes from Engage For Success: “Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organization to give of their best each day, committed to their organization’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being.”

Powerful, Yet Underutilized

It is that commitment toward oneself and the enterprise that makes employee engagement such a powerful workforce approach. Yet, as a Gallup survey indicates, only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged in their work and workplace. The number is even lower on a global scale, with only 20% of employees engaged at work.

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Digital Credentials Provide Talent Visibility, Skill Recognition

John Yuva — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:02:58 +0000

As people’s careers progress, they establish a professional profile comprised of a resume, portfolio, performance reviews, letters of recommendation, degrees, certifications, memberships, and other career achievements. Often, these paper-based items are dispersed and sometimes forgotten over time. However, they are all critical pieces of employees’ professional identities that make them unique in the workforce. Even more important, they represent their skills and competencies to potential or current employers.

What is the answer? Enter the world of digital credentials.

A Digitized, Verifiable Professional Profile

At the foundational level, candidates convert their professional profiles into digitized and verifiable credentials that enterprises access quickly and securely when recruiting or promoting staff. In today’s aggressive labor market, having digital credentials is a competitive differentiator in the workforce. It separates a candidate’s application from random submissions, thus streamlining the selection process and generating cost savings for the hiring enterprise through greater efficiencies.

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RTO Mandates Lead to Hushed Hybrid Trend

John Yuva — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:08:26 +0000

Now in year three of our post-COVID-19 world, enterprises that once embraced and supported remote and hybrid workforce models are beginning to pull back — in some cases substantially — from their earlier commitments. Over the last year, corporations such as Disney, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and most recently Amazon are instituting strict return-to-office (RTO) policies where employees are now required to be in the office five days per week. What are the motivations behind such policies and are they warranted? Even more striking is the resistance of many employees to RTO mandates — and how that is likely to play out in the year ahead.

RTO Motivations Warranted?

The U.S. Career Institute reports that by 2025, up to 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely. Currently, 54% of workers want to work fully remotely, with 41% preferring a hybrid schedule, followed by 5% who would choose to work in the office full time. Despite the statistics, enterprises instituting RTO policies (e.g., a return to office in some capacity, three times per week, or permanently) argue their necessity to improve productivity, strengthen collaboration efforts, and drive deeper innovation.

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Artificial Intelligence Mitigates Unconscious Bias in Hiring

John Yuva — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 11:02:22 +0000

Today’s remote and hybid workplaces means access to a diverse and globally connected talent pool — one where the importance of equity and inclusion is stronger than ever. Standing in the way, however, are traditional hiring processes, coupled with ongoing controversies surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that can enable rather than reduce the influence of unconscious biases in talent decision-making. The answer to overcoming these challenges and improving equity in hiring may lie in artificial intelligence (AI). AI tools can introduce impartiality into talent decisions and processes, mitigating the effects of unconscious bias.

Unconscious Bias Lives in Us All

To quell unconscious bias, one must understand it first to later recognize its presence. The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) defines unconscious biases as “social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.” Unconscious biases include affinity bias, confirmation bias, conformity bias, and gender bias.

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