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Conscious Leadership as a Future of Work Transformation Attribute

Business LeadershipDiversity and InclusionGeneral InsightsTalent by John Yuva on

The Future of Work Exchange (FOWX) and Ardent Partners recently hosted their complimentary webinar, The Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work, which discussed the critical capabilities that enterprises can unlock to truly optimize the way they address talent acquisition, extended workforce management, and, most importantly, work optimization.

Over the previous weeks, we’ve recapped four of the five things discussed during the event.

In our fifth and final installment this week, we’ll be exploring conscious leadership as a Future of Work centerpiece.

Business Leadership Dictates Business Transformation

It is now time to share another thing to know about the Future of Work, which is conscious business leadership. This aspect speaks to the fact that the Future of Work is more than technology. Ask 10 different people their definition of the Future of Work and they’ll give 10 different answers.

However, business leadership really dictates business transformation. Consider diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). While there are technologies that aid in understanding how an enterprise performs in those areas, the mindset of such programs comes from strategic thinking. The same is true for purposeful work and flexibility. Technology often sits in the center with talent alongside it, but it’s the transformation of business thinking that is going to spark the next future state of work.

Leadership Recalibration

The next future state will lead to a rethinking of business leadership. More specifically, a reimagining of our business leaders’ minds to be more empathetic and flexible to understand the perspectives of workers. If business leaders are in tune with the emotions of their workforce, it allows them to understand how workers are feeling and how that is affecting their productivity. Analyzing what is occurring within worker emotions and how, as business leaders, can help and support, can supercharge the effectiveness of their overall leadership. When this occurs, both the talent and the leaders win.

Conscious Leadership Leads the Way

Conscious leadership is the only way forward. While a bold statement, it is true. Business leaders who are conscientious are going to retain their staff, build trust between themselves and their workforce, avoid aspects of “quiet quitting”, lead with empathy and flexibility, and understand the perspectives of their employees. And again, talent is the number one competitive differentiator. Conscious leadership is one of the ways we foster a better relationship with our teams.

Finally, leaders must enable true workplace flexibility to improve corporate culture. Rigidity is really the antithesis of the Future of Work. A flexible workplace culture where we are open, honest, and inclusive of people and their schedules, emotions, and purpose is the ideal corporate culture. This is the way every organization should be run. And ultimately, it is going to help organizations get work done in a much more efficient manner.

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Beyond VMS: Transformative Technology for the Future of Work (Upcoming Webinar)

Business LeadershipEventsTalent by John Yuva on

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange are excited to announce that registration is now open for an exclusive webcast, Beyond VMS: Transformative Technology for the Future of Work. Hosted by extended workforce platform Beeline, the upcoming event will deep-dive into how the next generation of Vendor Management System (VMS) technology, particularly extended workforce solutions, can transform the ways businesses find, engage, and source talent, as well as enhance how they ultimately get work done.

Beeline’s always-insightful Lesley Walsh (the platform’s ) will join our own Christopher J. Dwyer to discuss:

  • How the new world of work and talent requires agile automation to navigate an uncertain 2023.
  • Why extended workforce technology is the ideal solution for managing the continued evolution of talent engagement and talent acquisition.
  • How enterprises can supercharge their contingent workforce management programs in anticipation of the year ahead.
  • Why enterprises need technologies that go beyond VMS to acquire top-tier candidates with the skillsets to make an immediate impact on their business, and;
  • How omni-channel talent acquisition will be the foundation of the Future of Work in 2023.

Click here to register for this exciting event and prepare your organization for what will certainly be a transformative 2023 for extended workforce management.

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Flexibility Shouldn’t Go Backwards

Business LeadershipHRTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Take a trip back to a moment in time with me. It’s around this time last year, and you may be in the grocery store, at the mall, or catching the last few hours of Black Friday sales. Facial coverings aren’t as prevalent as they were a year prior, an era before COVID vaccines, treatments, etc., however, many people still feel more comfortable wearing masks in any public setting.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that we’re well over two-and-a-half years removed from the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many of us, we can still close our eyes and recall the anxiety, the worry, and just how uneasy everything felt.

Of course, in late 2022 now, we can look back on the scariest of those times and point to them as a dawn of a new era of work, talent, and business. Future of Work accelerants were already well in play when the country (and world, for that matter) began to “shut down,” however, it was the pandemic’s quick impact that kicked many of those concepts into high gear.

Perhaps the biggest Future of Work accelerant to arise was the global notion of flexibility. With newfound measures to keep in-person contact to an absolutely minimum, those businesses that once eschewed remote work were now forced to allow their employees and contractors to telecommute and work virtually. Those enterprises that had long embraced these work models, on the other hand, found it easier to survive in chaotic times.

The first rumblings of “return to office” planning occurred at the beginning of 2021 when the United States government rolled out the biggest vaccine campaign in medical history. Many executive leaders were eager to “get back to normal” and began the process of shifting from remote-heavy environments to hybrid workplaces.

While these blended models were ideal for balancing proximity collaboration and in-person coordination with the many advantages of the remote work environment, some leaders took encouraging virus occurrences (such as lower case rates, enhanced uptake of vaccines, etc.) as a sign that the global workforce was ready to the office full-time.

As we discussed here on the Future of Work Exchange oh so many months ago, that very notion of flexibility wasn’t a fad, nor was it a temporary state of workplace thinking. The move towards enterprise flexibility was a permanent one that could not be reneged, renegotiated, or scaled back in any profound way. One of the positive outcomes regarding the workforce over the past two years was hidden under the guise of The Great Resignation; people weren’t just quitting their jobs…they were sparking a talent revolution.

In 2022, and certainly even more so in 2023, workers demand better working conditions, enhanced benefits, empathy-led mentorship and leadership, and, most importantly, flexibility. This concept of flexibility doesn’t just translate into allowing professionals to sometimes work from home or build in specific remote days around in-person office days. No, flexibility is so much more than that, and, until executive leaders understand that flexibility is a path forward that cannot be reversed, there will continue to be staffing shortages, dearths of expertise, a lack of effective skillsets, etc.

Those leaders that are clamoring for a full return-to-office plan in January (or even sooner, if you’ve purchased a social media giant and want to destroy its culture) are banking on economic uncertainty to re-balance the scales with the workforce-at-large. However, with nearly two job openings for every available candidate in today’s market (a fluctuating number based on fluid conditions), there won’t be a labor market crunch anytime soon. So, in essence, flexibility is an attribute that every worker will want now and forever, leaving business leaders in a position in which the culture of its workplace becomes ever-so-critical when engaging the top-tier talent they need to thrive.

Workplace culture cannot be forced. And this is why the realm of flexibility is so critical to enterprise success today and in the future. Enterprises that preach and practice flexible workplace conditions have embraced the transformation of work; the idea of flexibility, then, can’t be jammed back into its bottle. Workers have realized that flexibility is what they want, desire, and require…and there’s no turning back from that.

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Candidate-Centricity Should Be the Nexus of 2023 Hiring

HRTalentTalent Acquisition by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Sometimes it can be incredibly taxing on our minds to configure the many, many ways the Future of Work influences the way we live, the way we work, and the ways those two intersect. From new technology and innovative platforms to conscious leadership and overall business transformation, the very notion of the “future of how we work” involves so many intricacies that it can make our collective heads spin.

However, in a vacuum, we have to look at the future (and, in this case, the very near future) and configure specific aspects of corporate operations in such a way that they align with the external forces now driving success…or failure.

Talent has become the top competitive differentiator in a market that is increasingly globalized, unpredictable, and disruptive. Businesses that source the best talent, utilize that talent to get work done effectively, and retain that talent are always going to be the ones that thrive in a business arena that is evolving at a breakneck clip.

We’ve witnessed (and, more importantly, experienced) the highs and lows of talent engagement, hiring, and talent acquisition over the past two-plus years: pandemic-led layoffs, the rise of workforce agility, The Great Resignation, The Great Resettling, quiet quitting, quiet firing, and worker empowerment. It’s surely been a roller-coaster for talent acquisition execs, hiring managers, HR leaders, and other executives that hold some responsibility for workforce management within the typical organization.

At the end of the day, however, all of these talent-led transformations lead to one conclusion that should form the foundation of talent acquisition strategies in 2023: a candidate-centric model is the best path forward, considering the risks of an economic recession, continued global disruptions from war and supply chain issues, and, critically, the ramifications of the “talent revolution” that businesses have experienced since March 2020.

There are many reasons why running a candidate-centric hiring model makes sense in the year ahead:

  • Workers are done with being overpowered by their managers and employers when it comes to poor working conditions and a lack of appreciation.
  • Talented professionals have undergone a mental transformation during pandemic times that have forced them to reevaluate the impact of “work” and “career paths” on their personal lives as humans, leading to a desire for more purposeful work.
  • Workers desire true flexibility, not just a free weekly lunch or a ping-pong table in the break room. The flexibility for personal care, child care, elder care, etc. is all-important in today’s workforce; professionals crave the ability to attend their children’s’ events or harness the real power of remote and hybrid work to ensure that they have a proper work-life integration.
  • Candidates have more choices than ever before, regardless of the state of today’s economy. Businesses must stand out from the pack and offer a truly emotionally-engaging experience for their potential workers that leaves a real impression; will candidates gain a sense of trust, as well as an understanding of workplace and corporate culture?
  • Building on the above attribute, candidates desire a seamless and frictionless experience when applying for a job, negotiating terms, and following through the onboarding process. These may seem like more tactical aspects than strategic, but they go a long way towards developing a positive candidate experience for potential workers.
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is one of the most crucial elements of workforce management today. As frequently stated on the Future of Work Exchange Podcast, “A diverse talent pool is the deepest talent pool.” Candidates want to know that they will be part of a diverse workforce that also includes a truly inclusive workplace culture.

There’s more to developing a talent-oriented hiring strategy than just being committed to the candidate; enterprises must look to the aspects above and understand that, in a volatile labor market, they need to do so much more than they have ever done before to attract the best-fit, top-tier talent, skillsets, and expertise. The candidate experience is paramount and candidate-centricity hiring models are essential to thriving in 2023.

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Contribute to the Most Definitive Future of Work Research in the Industry

Business LeadershipDirect SourcingDiversity and InclusionHRTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange are excited to announce the launch of its annual Future of Work research survey. This comprehensive, online survey will fuel the Exchange’s research calendar for 2023 and aims to tackle progressive topics, such as:

  • The impact of innovation and new technology on work optimization, particularly the applications of artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning, chatbots, and digital wallets on the realm of talent engagement and talent acquisition.
  • The growth of the extended workforce and how businesses can harness the power of the contingent workforce to thrive during challenging times. (Ardent Partners and FOWX plan to publish several exciting new reports on Best-in-Class contingent workforce/extended workforce management programs, including deep-dive insights into the required capabilities, competencies, and strategies for maximizing the value of this talent.)
  • The evolution of talent acquisition, including how businesses can revolutionize the candidate experience while also enhancing the hiring manager experience through new technology, omni-channel talent engagement strategies, and advanced total talent intelligence.
  • How remote and hybrid work models will impact business operations and the total workforce in 2023.
  • The reality of total talent management and how organizations are getting closer to successfully implementing these programs.
  • The transformation of business leadership, including how today’s executives are weaving in conscious leadership styles, empathy-led directives, and enhanced worker appreciation into their greater management strategies.
  • How direct sourcing programs will evolve in the year ahead to include “Direct Sourcing 2.0” capabilities, such as digital recruitment, deeper marketing input, reflection of workplace culture and company brand, chatbots and AI, and more, and;
  • The necessary competencies that must be included in all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) programs in 2023 and beyond.

Click here to participate in the new Future of Work Exchange research survey. If you are an executive leader that works in the HR, procurement, finance, talent acquisition, or IT function of your organization, or if you’re a Chief People Officer, this survey has been designed to capture your specific experiences in addressing how work and talent are managed at your enterprise. As a thank you for participating in this crucial research effort, all research study participants will receive access to all of the Future of Work Exchange’s market research studies in 2023.

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The Fourth Thing You Must Know About The Future of Work

Contingent WorkforceDiversity and InclusionGeneral InsightsHRTalentTechnology and Innovation by John Yuva on

The Future of Work Exchange (FOWX) and Ardent Partners recently hosted their complimentary webinar, The Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work, which discussed the critical capabilities that enterprises can unlock to truly optimize the way they address talent acquisition, extended workforce management, and, most importantly, work optimization.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll be recapping each of the five things discussed during the event.

In our fourth installment this week, we’ll be exploring artificial intelligence as a Future of Work centerpiece.

AI and the Rise of Total Talent Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the fourth thing to know about the Future of Work. If there was an informal poll asking to name the leading Future of Work technology, about 90% would say artificial intelligence (a not-so-surprising answer). Of all the technologies available to enterprises that help automate key workforce processes, AI is the pure representation of the Future of Work.

However, there are different shades of artificial intelligence helping organizations optimize the way they get work done and how they think about talent. It’s more than having an artificial persona to help figure things out and make decisions — instead, it’s enabling smarter decisions.

Consider the rise of total talent intelligence. Today, an enterprise’s workforce may consist of 35%, 40%, or 45% non-employees and extended talent. For some, those numbers may be lower, but for others, they’re also higher. Earlier this year, Future of Work Exchange research found that 47.5% of the average company’s total workforce was considered extended, non-employee, contingent, or contract (this figure also includes freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, gig workers, consultants, etc.).

Total talent intelligence is a gateway to understanding the totality of the workforce; a gateway stimulant, so to speak, for total talent management. It’s the idea that enterprises have enough information and data on the entirety of their workforce – including skills, performance, and productivity levels. All of this information allows business leaders and hiring managers to make near-instantaneous, real-time decisions about the talent they need for a new role, project, or initiative.

Total talent intelligence enables smarter, more perceptive hiring. And AI is the way to get there.

AI as a Conduit for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Assessments in Recruited Marketing

If bias can be removed from decision-making and technology, and AI is set up in such a way that there is no unconscious bias, then it is possible to understand how diverse the workforce truly is. The Exchange has long said (including many years ago) that a diverse workforce is the deepest workforce. Being able to bring in different voices from different cultures allows businesses to be more innovative and think outside the box. And AI is a perfect conduit for that.

With regard to candidate assessments, there is wonderful technology out there that helps organizations better understand how efficient and effective a worker can be. It helps the business that went through an AI-fueled candidate assessment tool to source the best talent.There are similar solutions for recruitment marketing that have robust AI capabilities. These solutions are more than chatbots; they’re ubiquitous in how they help a candidate feel more comfortable and engaged. A candidate can use a mobile app and understand how to apply for a job. Likewise, the process for onboarding is clear, especially as it relates to healthcare benefits, time off, and open shifts. It’s these solutions that benefit the recruitment and onboarding side of extended workforce management.

On the workforce management side, AI helps with recruitment marketing. The idea that enterprises can program a bot to fill their talent pipeline overnight is quite amazing. Beyond just providing data, artificial intelligence can spark some of these processes that are beneficial to the business.

Turning to the volatile economy and its potential impact on the workforce, predictive analytics and scenario building are about managing these uncertain times. If enterprises are preparing for a recession, it is important to understand where they’ll be in six months. Data can be fed into a solution to help enterprises build a scenario and predict their financial picture or the state of global markets. The same type of data can model where the workforce is headed based on rates of resignations and retirements. Will there need to be cuts based on finances? Artificial intelligence is the perfect fighter against volatility by providing a clearer understanding of the future and how the workforce may look.

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The Third Thing You Must Know About The Future of Work

Business LeadershipDirect SourcingGeneral InsightsTalentTalent Acquisition by John Yuva on

The Future of Work Exchange (FOWX) and Ardent Partners recently hosted their complimentary webinar, The Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work, which discussed the critical capabilities that enterprises can unlock to truly optimize the way they address talent acquisition, extended workforce management, and, most importantly, work optimization.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll be recapping each of the five things discussed during the event.

In our third installment this week, we’ll be exploring the evolution of talent as a Future of Work centerpiece.

Talent and Talent Acquisition Transformed

To begin, the number three must-know about the Future of Work is the evolution of talent as a Future of Work centerpiece. When talking about the evolution of talent as part of the greater definition of the Future of Work, it goes back to how talent and talent acquisition are changing for the better. Major transformations are occurring, but talent helps make the world go round and helps businesses run. It provides a competitive advantage. Talent is the number one competitive differentiator from one organization to another. With the right talent in place, enterprises can do remarkable things.

The fact that talent engagement and talent acquisition have been evolving for some time, speaks volumes for how it has become the centerpiece for the Future of Work. Let’s look at digital staffing, which enables accelerated hiring. Enterprises can find the workers they need very quickly without making a phone call or sending an email to a staffing supplier.

The other link to this evolution is direct sourcing, which has come a long way over the past few years. Direct sourcing is a talent acquisition revolution, but is not a brand-new strategy (the idea of becoming one’s own recruitment agency was spearheaded 10 or 15 years ago). It’s certainly not a new concept, but according to the Future of Work Exchange and Ardent Partners research, it has become one of the number one priorities for businesses today.

Businesses have woken up to the value of direct sourcing. Business leaders enabled with a direct sourcing program and associated technologies have the ability to curate talent into a talent pool or talent community and then segment those workers into tiers by geography, skillset, and compensation, and quickly tap into that community when needed, resulting in true workforce scalability.

Grow the Candidate Experience

Thus, talent communities need to be fostered and nurtured. Businesses need to keep their talent engaged. So much is about the candidate experience, and enterprises should never get away from that. Always touch candidates with value, whether through emails or text messages. Use talent intelligence to know when the best time is to reach out to those in the talent community. This type of end-to-end program helps boost the quality of talent, speeds up talent acquisition and hiring, and improves the way talent is brought into the organization and redeployed in the future.

Again, regardless of the business function, the candidate experience is paramount when sourcing and hiring talent. There needs to be a level of culture-building that extends to clients and candidates and how they perceive the business. Consider how the brand is perceived, down to the colors of the company logo. Are those colors present on the career page and job portal? Do candidates know who the company is and what it stands for? Recognizing and knowing those things goes a long way in building rapport with candidates.

In addition, what is the overall talent experience when applying for a job? Is it easy to apply for a job and is there an assessment? What type of assessment is it? Can it be completed via a mobile app or laptop? Is the assessment aligned with the candidate’s skillsets and the job itself? Does a candidate know if the organization aligns with them from an individual perspective? All those aspects help build up an amazing candidate experience.

Purposeful Work Is Fundamental to the FOW

The other aspect pertaining to the evolution of talent is purposeful work, which will shape the future of the workforce. It is a non-technological component of the Future of Work.

For many, work is a paycheck that puts food on the table for their family, helps pay for their children’s college, and funds vacations and other extra expenses. The concept of purposeful work fits into the idea of what we are doing with our lives. Is there a purpose behind the work that we’re doing? If we’re spending 10 to 12 hours (including commuting) at our places of employment, are we doing something that satisfies us as humans?

Purposeful work has become a crucial way to think about talent and the workforce. People want their work to be purposeful, which causes many to reevaluate where they are in life. They question what they’re doing with their lives. How are they working? Whom are they working for? How do they fit into the Great Resignation, or more appropriately, the Great Resettling? Many workers were either displaced or left voluntarily but will eventually resettle in some way. They may be doing more purposeful work by starting their own business or becoming an entrepreneur. Some become freelancers or contractors to suit a more flexible lifestyle.

Whatever the reason, purposeful work is going to shape the future of the workforce. This is an area that the Future of Work Exchange will always remain incredibly bullish on because it is a fundamental piece as humans to want to have a purpose in how we work.

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Believe the Hype: Direct Sourcing is a Key Element of the Future of Work

Direct SourcingEventsTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

I can remember a moment back in January 2020, an era that seems so very long ago. At that point, the world looked so much different: we weren’t so worried about a global pandemic, nor we were masking up whenever we left the house. We weren’t bombarded by 24/7 news on social media about mass suffering and sickness. And, as we know all so well know, the way we looked at our workforce was much, much unlike the way we perceive talent today.

Ardent Partners’ 2020 State of Contingent Workforce Management research study found that, when polled regarding their top priorities heading into the new decade, direct sourcing and talent pools were #1 and #2, respectively. There were many executive leaders that participated in that study who saw the writing on the wall: talent acquisition needed to change and so did the ways businesses engaged top-tier skillsets and expertise.

Call it omniscient, or call it plain luck; no matter how we describe these pre-pandemic insights, those forward-looking business leaders were onto something. In elegant, MSP-led programs in Europe years ago, direct sourcing took the form of “contingent RPO,” in which businesses built their own talent pipelines via pseudo-agencies that they controlled and operated outside of traditional staffing supplier relationships. So, while direct sourcing isn’t a new concept, it certainly feels like that when we consider the incredible growth of these programs and the attention and focus paid to the concept over the past few years.

(I also have to give immense credit to a dear friend of mine, Jeff Nugent. Here’s a post from 2014 in which he discusses the benefits of direct sourcing. Yes, 2014!)

In the business arena, ideas and strategies that attract so much attention are inevitably destined to fail to live up to the hype. There may have been a moment or two a couple of years ago when it seemed that direct sourcing could have headed down that same fateful path. However, it very much did not, due to three main reasons:

  • Talent pipelines and talent communities became the lifelines of businesses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as they required flexibility and scalability regarding their workforce.
  • The candidate experience, which became ever-so critical, followed a core element in Best-in-Class direct sourcing programs: talent nurture capabilities, and;
  • Businesses required a steady flow of both active candidates and passive candidates to power through The Great Resignation.

Heading into 2023, the very realm of “hiring” will take on new meaning as businesses contend with a variety of issues that could impact their organizational pathways in getting work done…and, of course, merely surviving. The war in the Ukraine continues to rage and disrupts global trade. The Great Resignation is turning into “The Great Resettling” as workers begin to discover how they want their careers to unfold. The specter of an economic downturn hovers, with recessionary fears sparking precautionary layoffs and major transitions by organizations. And, yet another COVID winter surge is just up ahead.

For enterprises today, direct sourcing isn’t just a concept that’ll ease some measure of talent shortfalls. Direct sourcing is, and has been, a key element of the Future of Work movement. Whether it’s the ability to traverse omni-channel talent engagement, building deep, segmented talent pools, fostering core talent communities, or developing enterprise-wide workforce scalability, direct sourcing remains a powerful strategy as the world of talent and work continues to evolve.

Join Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange on Thursday, November 10 at 2pm ET for our next exclusive webcast, Scale Your 2023 Hiring Initiatives With Direct Sourcing. Register for this exciting new webinar and learn more about the impact of direct sourcing on talent acquisition and recruitment in the months ahead.

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Scale Your 2023 Hiring Initiatives with Direct Sourcing (Upcoming Webinar)

Direct SourcingEventsTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Hot on the heels of our Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work webcast earlier this month, Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange are excited to announce that our next virtual event will be held at 2pm on November 10. This time, we’re focused on perhaps the most dynamic topic in today’s exciting world of work and talent: DIRECT SOURCING.

Going into 2020, direct sourcing and talent pools were top priority areas for businesses across the globe. One global pandemic and a Future of Work-accelerated business arena later, it has become even more critical for businesses that want to thrive in the months and years ahead. 2021 and 2022 were mired in “The Great Resignation” and a “Great Resettling” of workers across various industries, roles, verticals, etc. Along with the volatile labor market that this sparked, businesses are also worrying about the specter of another economic recession while also attempting to plan for an important calendar year in 2023 from corporate objective standpoints.

Direct sourcing, and the concept of Direct Sourcing 2.0 (a FOWX original term meant to define the next era of direct sourcing), has proven to drive incredible value across several key areas of talent acquisition, recruitment, and workforce management, including: enhancing the candidate experience, boosting the hiring manager experience, revolutionizing talent engagement, improving the overall quality of talent, and enabling seamless talent redeployment.

Join Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange on Thursday, November 10 (at 2pm ET) or an exclusive webinar, How to Scale Your 2023 Hiring Initiatives With Direct Sourcing. We’ll unveil some brand new data points, several Best-in-Class strategies for launching and maximizing direct sourcing programs, and so much more! Register now!

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The Second Thing You Must Know About The Future of Work

Business LeadershipContingent WorkforceDiversity and InclusionGeneral InsightsHRTalentTechnology and Innovation by John Yuva on

The Future of Work Exchange (FOWX) and Ardent Partners recently hosted their complimentary webinar, The Five Things You MUST KNOW About the Future of Work, which discussed the critical capabilities that enterprises can unlock to truly optimize the way they address talent acquisition, extended workforce management, and, most importantly, work optimization. Over the next five weeks, we’ll be recapping each of the five things discussed during the event.

In our second installment this week, we’ll be diving into the “first-mover advantage” and what that means for innovation and resiliency.

Adoption of Future of Work Accelerants

The number two must-know about the Future of Work is that the first-mover advantage (in this case, early adopters of Future of Work-era strategies and solutions) translates into urgency for innovation. During the scary early days of the pandemic, businesses were either struggling for survival…or were thriving. When we think about where we are today, let’s look at the organizations that adopted some of these Future of Work accelerants: they tapped into remote work, became more diverse and inclusive with their workforce and in their workplace, while also improving their workplace culture and overall work optimization strategies.

Businesses also embraced aspects like artificial intelligence and used their technology more expansively. For example, a Vendor Management System (VMS) wasn’t used just for requisitions, but also to build scenarios and leverage predictive analytics to scale the workforce and understand what could happen tomorrow based on today’s numbers. Doing so could lead to smarter and more educated and intelligent-led talent decisions. Thus, there is an urgency for innovation.

This is not simply about thriving, but surviving as well. Those businesses that have adopted some of these accelerants, whether they’re strategic or technology-led, are much more likely to thrive in the months ahead. The first-mover advantage sets these organizations up very nicely for the future.

Thrive Through Understanding and Embracement

The Future of Work Exchange’s architect, Christopher J. Dwyer, highlighted a discussion he had with a director of talent acquisition, who said it was easy for her company to transition to a remote workforce because it was already a hybrid workplace. The company took what it learned in pre-pandemic times over so many years that it was fairly simple to transition to remote work. It already leveraged both HR and contingent workforce technology and had those systems integrated, so it knew where its workers were across the globe — a company with approximately 300 global locations. She said the company had the capability to know who was working on what projects, where they were located, when their assignments ended, and what locations were being hit hard by a COVID-19 surge, which allowed them to react in real time. Speaking with her months later, said Dwyer, the company was thriving because of the lessons learned and its embrace of Future of Work accelerants during the early days of the pandemic.

This is not to say that a business struggling in 2020 couldn’t be thriving today. The first-mover advantage means that enterprises shouldn’t sit back and watch others pass them by in terms of what they’re adopting and embracing from Future of Work, innovation, and progression perspectives. What else is happening out there? What are their peers and competitors adopting from a technology perspective? How are their business leaders managing the workforce? How are they treating their workforce? Why are they losing talent to other organizations? Why are they getting hit harder by The Great Resignation than others?

The next economic recession will be unique because of existing inflation; however, many industries are doing well and thriving because of lessons learned and the collective trauma experienced over the last three years from the pandemic. During the next downturn, companies are likely to weather the storm much better because of the technology they’ve adopted and the new strategies they’ve embraced. The innovative thinking that comes from those decisions makes companies better suited to handle the challenges of today.

Flexibility Cannot be Underestimated

What does this mean for the workplace? In many respects, hybrid is the ideal workplace model because of the flexibility that workers crave. Obviously, many workers are unable to work remotely because of their job description. And, some businesses look at remote and hybrid work models with concerns about productivity and workforce control. However, time and time again, workers have proved that avoiding a 90-minute commute to and from work allows them to be more productive each day.

It also speaks to the flexibility of taking care of life events. The ability to go to the dentist or pick up a sick child from daycare or school can mean a great deal to workers. Workers are humans, not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It doesn’t matter if you’re a contractor that worked 4.5 hours or an employee who has been with the company for 40 years. These are not faceless workers. We are humans and humans crave flexibility. We want the ability to feel connected to the organization.

A famous CEO of the world’s largest search engine said that “the Future of Work is flexibility.” We’ve been saying this for a long time on FOWX and it’s true: the Future of Work is built on flexibility.

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