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Business Agility

Business Leaders Reap Flexibility Rewards

Business LeadershipGeneral InsightsTalentTalent AcquisitionUncategorized by John Yuva on

In the last 12 months, several high-profile enterprises have rolled back their remote work policies, requiring employees to return to the office. Most cite more effective communication, collaboration, and team bonding as primary reasons. While corporations like Disney, Apple, and JPMorgan will dominate the headlines with their announcements of in-person work, recent Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research (2023) indicates an overall preference for workplace flexibility.

The research revealed that 97% of business leaders prefer some level of flexibility in their workplace. Consider this breakdown of leader preferences: flexible and remote options (64%), a mix of remote and in-person (33%), and fully in-person/office (3%). While there may be some validity to the myriad of reasons organizations are reverting to in-person work, the global workforce coupled with today’s collaborative technologies solves many of those challenges. Obviously, it largely depends on the nature of the work — an office environment versus a manufacturing plant.

How Employees Work Is Personal and Unique to Them

However, business leaders are realizing the value of a flexible work environment. Jennifer Jones Newbill, director, global employment brand for Dell Technologies, was quoted in FlexJobs as saying about the effectiveness of workplace flexibility, “Our employees really value flexible work! Our employees have told us time and time again that they appreciate being treated like adults. They like to self-monitor, and that would include how they pace themselves, what times of day they work, and where they choose to work from.

“The power of my team right now is that we’re global … We really bring a powerful collective by not all being in the United States, sitting in the same building together … If we were doing what we are doing with 10 people, all in the U.S., all in the same office, all in Texas, I don’t think we would be as cohesive and strong as a team.

“How people work or want to work is very unique and personal to them.”

As Newbill points out, it’s not about workplace control. In the past, productivity could come at the expense of forcing the proverbial square peg into a round hole. This often led to lower productivity rates, employee disengagement, and retention challenges. Today’s Future of Work paradigm puts the focus on the employee to maximize their productivity and engagement within the environment best suited for them.

Flexibility Opens Opportunity

What rewards are business leaders reaping from this approach? There are several. And as younger generations enter the workforce, the value will only continue to evolve and grow.

Talent attraction and retention. The war for talent remains. In a competitive job market, providing flexibility gives businesses an advantage in recruiting top candidates. This dovetails into building a diverse, skills-based talent pool, aligning with many agile workforce strategies.

Adaptation to changing expectations. The modern workforce has evolving expectations when it comes to work arrangements. This is only going to increase as younger generations populate the workforce. Millennials and Gen Z, who comprise a significant portion of the labor market, often prioritize flexibility and work-life balance. To attract and retain these employees, businesses must adapt their policies to align with growing expectations.

Employee satisfaction and well-being. Any enterprise that undervalues employee satisfaction and well-being is losing the war on attracting and retaining talent. When employees have more control over their work schedules and can accommodate personal obligations, they tend to be happier, more engaged, and less likely to experience burnout.

Operational agility and resiliency. With today’s market volatility, agility and resiliency permeate throughout workplace objectives. Whether it’s a natural disaster, supply chain disruption, or internal challenges, businesses with flexible work arrangements are better equipped to maintain operations and ensure business continuity.

As much as some business leaders want to institute more workplace control and limit or remove remote work options, the flexible workplace is here to stay. Whether it’s a team of 10 or a global workforce of hundreds, the Future of Work is now ingrained in the global work culture. The value of workplace flexibility can far outweigh the constrained approach. Provide employees with a sense of workplace ownership to cultivate a culture of engagement and resiliency.

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The Five Major Shifts Transforming Businesses Today

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The world of work and talent continues to evolve, especially in the face of global uncertainty. Over the past few years, enterprises have experienced a variety of “Future of Work accelerants” that have forever altered the ways they address how work is done. In the next edition of the Future of Work Exchange‘s exclusive infographic series, we present The Five Major Shifts Transforming Businesses today.

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How Next-Generation VMS Platforms Fuel Agile Automation

Contingent WorkforceTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

In the initial wave of Vendor Management Systems (when these solutions were typically known as “eProcurement for staffing”), simple automation of core requisition and supplier management processes was enough to drive functional value to the procurement- or HR-led contingent workforce programs of that era. As the corporate world evolved, however, businesses realized that the sharp uptick in external talent utilization meant that these workers were becoming not just a bigger piece of the total workforce, but also a more critical one as well. Today, more high-priority projects are led and managed by extended workers than ever before and the percentage gap between FTEs and contingent talent continues to shrink.

In 2023, leading enterprises are diving headfirst into this new era of talent and work, having been:

  • Transformed by a global pandemic, massive worldwide disruptions, and the Future of Work accelerants (e.g., remote work, DE&I, conscious leadership, workforce flexibility, etc.) that resulted from this unique era.
  • “Rebooted” in such a way that omni-channel talent acquisition has nearly become table stakes rather than a “nice-to-have” element of greater workforce management.
  • Reimagined to reflect an innovative convergence of various new elements of work, including flexible work models, a reliance on open talent, advanced workforce management automation, and a “power shift” to workers after several decades of leadership-level authority.

These dramatic industry changes means that legacy VMS systems are no longer powerful enough to manage an evolving external workforce. For example:

  • The rampant growth of the extended workforce, which will approach 50% of all talent in 2023, means that more innovative platforms are required to handle the increased utilization of extended talent.
  • The ways in which businesses need to blend HR, procurement, and talent acquisition capabilities to thrive in the year ahead translates into the need for technology that appeals to and harnesses these three critical functions, and;
  • The transformation of work and talent via Future of Work accelerants must be powered by agile automation and next-generation functionality.

Extended workforce platforms blend the power and tactical value of traditional VMS solutions with next-generation functionality that supports more dynamic attributes of workforce management, such as direct sourcing, total talent intelligence, total talent acquisition, and an overall “candidate-centric” approach that speaks to both procurement and HR/talent acquisition users. Extended workforce platforms expand the power of VMS technology by offering more talent-oriented solutions that augment how a business manages nuanced, Future of Work-led aspects, such as DE&I, talent communities, services procurement, the candidate experience, the hiring manager experience, etc.

Future of Work Exchange research finds that enterprises currently leveraging extended workforce management technology have not only been enabled with many of these accelerated elements of the new world of work and talent (particularly DE&I support, remote work support, direct sourcing, total talent intelligence, etc.), but have also experienced these robust advantages over their peers that are not currently utilizing this type of agile automation.

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Enterprise Agility Through Tribal Teams

Business LeadershipContingent WorkforceGeneral Insights by John Yuva on

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.

Tribal Structure and Agility

Organizations are realizing the benefits of smaller, diversified teams — where the unique skillsets of the contingent workforce can also be leveraged. The goal behind tribal teams is agility through innovative thinking and diverse perspectives. Callum Sherlock, talent acquisition lead for Cyberfort Group, writes, “In agile, you break up development into smaller increments, adopt DevOps, promote open communication, and ultimately reconfigure your teams so they include people from different departments who are responsive to problems as they arise — not six months down the line.”

The tribal approach is utilized by many companies, including Amazon and Spotify. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos believes teams and meetings are less productive with more people participating. Instead, he has a unique two-pizza rule. If there are more people than two pizzas can feed, then there are too many people involved. Of Bezos’s philosophy, Richard Brandt at The Wall Street Journal wrote, “[Bezos] wanted a decentralized, even disorganized company where independent ideas would prevail over groupthink.”

The Spotify agile strategy model is extremely comprehensive with several levels and roles. Author Abhishek Mishra breaks it down nicely in his LinkedIn article. It all begins with a Squad of 6-to-12 people who are responsible for a specific area. A Squad takes a start-up business mentality to problem-solving and innovative thinking and functions autonomously.

Each Squad includes an agile coach to keep the team moving forward on its goals. Multiple Squads that work on a related project belong to a Tribe (42-150 people). A tribal leader ensures the Squads have a productive and innovative environment. Beyond the Squad and Tribe are the Chapters and Guilds, followed by the Trio, Alliance, and Chief Architect.

Employees and Enterprises Benefit

While tribal team models can follow various structures, what they achieve is very similar. Sherlock in his LinkedIn piece says enterprises empower their employees to do their best work by removing the bureaucracy that often stifles innovative and creative thinking. “Building stronger, more rounded professionals out of all of your people, because you’re combining people with different knowledge backgrounds, everyone’s career experience is enriched. People are able to see development from different perspectives because of their newfound exposure to departments that perhaps previously, they would have never engaged with,” wrote Sherlock.

The benefits are wide-ranging for both employees and enterprises. Here are several that should make organizations question whether their teams are structured in the most optimal way.

  • Sense of purpose and belonging. The Future of Work Exchange frequently cites the importance that employees have a sense of purpose in their work. The tribal model does exactly that by recognizing their unique skillsets and how their perspective can add value to the team. That feeling of belonging can have a significant impact on the enterprise culture.
  • Cost and quality control. With smaller teams, everyone takes accountability for quality. And when issues arise, they can be solved quicker with fewer bottlenecks — leading to cost savings. Through different perspectives and knowledge, team members can bring unique solutions to business challenges.
  • Greater efficiency and transparency. An interdisciplinary team yields transparency that may not exist with siloed groups. As a tribal team working toward a shared goal, information sharing provides enhanced clarity for what needs to be accomplished and improved efficiency for how to achieve it.
  • Autonomy to deliver results. A tribal team approach respects the talent on the team and provides the autonomy to forge a path toward a solution. Embracing this new team structure may not come easily for some enterprises. However, empowerment can yield outcomes that lead to additional revenue streams or customer segments.

The tribal team concept is not revolutionary. However, in today’s volatile business landscape where agility, flexibility, and resiliency are essential, tribal teams are critical to enterprise competitiveness. One can think of them as dream teams where unique skillsets are leveraged across the organization. The Future of Work is about innovative workplace strategy and tribal teams deliver at both the enterprise and employee levels.

For a deep dive into tribal models, check out the SAFe Agile Release Train and Spotify’s squad/tribe model. Both are considered leading-edge approaches to agile teams.

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Agile…Like A FOWX

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on

That handsome man above turns six years old today. His name is Lincoln, and my family and I rescued him from a kill shelter in Mississippi in the summer of 2016. Nearly everyone that sees him for the first time remarks that he resembles a fox; his wild mix of pit bull, golden retriever, chow-chow, and border collie (confirmed via “doggie DNA” test!) resulted in the fox-like features.

Before the Future of Work Exchange launched in July 2021, its top-secret code-name in the Ardent Partners offices was “FOWX” as it went through months and months of development before we went live. Naturally, as we launched the site and its research arm, the “FOWX” vernacular made it into daily conversations with our gracious sponsors, the workforce management solutions industry, and, of course, the HR, procurement, talent acquisition, IT, and other business leaders that read this site every day.

So, making the transition back to our boy Lincoln and the wild animal he resembles: the dominant fox species (the common red fox) is currently living and thriving on all continents minus Antarctica due to their incredible adaptability, amazing flexibility, instinctive intelligence, and advantageous speed. They live and thrive in urban environments, rural areas, and rough terrain all across the world. From a 1998 Deseret article:

“Both the growing numbers of the foxes and their assurance in the presence of humans are signs of a remarkable ecological success story of global dimensions. In an age when so many wild species are under threat, their populations dwindling and their futures insecure, the red fox is thriving like few other wild predators. In fact, biologists say, it has become the most widely distributed wild meat-eating mammal on Earth, thanks to an evolutionary heritage that has enabled it to adapt superbly to the presence and activities of people.”

Let’s re-read those characteristics: adaptability, flexibility, intelligence, and speed. Sound like the hallmarks of an agile enterprise, doesn’t it? It seems like kismet that our beloved Future of Work Exchange’s acronym (FOWX), its cute logo, and the animal it was based on all revolve around the concept of agility (not to mention that fact that my sweet Lincoln resembles a fox). Agility has become the foundation of the Future of Work, and rightfully so:

  • Businesses were essentially forced to be adaptable over the past two years given the shift towards more remote- and hybrid-based work, changes in safety and health standards, and renewed focus on DE&I, empathy, and other non-technological aspects of talent and work.
  • Intelligence is at the center of all talent- and work-related strategies, as businesses leverage data and information to execute more strategic workforce planning, optimize how work is done, and continue to prepare the business arena’s continued evolution in the months to come.
  • “Flexibility” has become the literal nexus of the Future of Work, with workers craving flexible work options, leaders becoming more flexible in how they manage their staff, and flexible work models becoming the ideal means to get work done in a revolutionary world of talent, technology, and business transformation.
  • The relative “speed” of an organization in its response to real-world challenges and pressures (and let’s be honest: there’s been a bunch over the past couple of years, right?) contributes to how truly dynamic the enterprise can be during these transformative times.

What’s in a name? FOWX or fox…it’s all about agility and just how dynamic, flexible, and adaptive a business can be in 2022 and beyond.

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How Will Omicron Impact the World of Business?

Business LeadershipGeneral Insights by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Stop me if you’ve heard the story before: the world is seemingly out of the clutches of an easily-transmissible variant of the novel coronavirus, there is talk from epidemiologists regarding the continued efficacy of vaccines against severe disease, and we begin to think the pandemic is beginning its endgame…but then, a new variant of concern pops up, disrupts both real-world plans and our overall hopes, and we’re left wondering if we’re on the verge of yet another wave of COVID that will upend any plans for a return to normalcy.

Over the past several days, a new variant of the novel coronavirus came to light. The Omicron variant reflects two- or three-times the spike protein mutations that its now-infamous cousin, Delta, brought to the world over the past five or six months, and many questions remain regarding the possibility of the variant’s ability to escape vaccine- or infection-led immunity, as well as its transmissibility factor (in what seems like forever ago, the once-dominant Alpha variant was more transmissible than the original lineage of the virus, while Delta’s rampage was largely a result of its increase transmissibility combined with waning vaccine immunity).

For those of you that are interested in learning more about the ongoing pandemic from a virologist’s perspective (truthfully, it’s quite refreshing to read the analysis of a scientific professional when making business predictions), I suggest you check out Dr. Jon Skylar’s “COVID Transmissions,” which are released several times a week. Yesterday’s edition featured these thoughts regarding Omicron:

For right now, I think it is likely that vaccinated people are still well-protected. People who have received an additional booster dose are probably even better protected. If you have not gone out and gotten a booster, I would say that now is the time—provided your healthcare professional of choice agrees.

If you live in the US or Europe, Omicron is not currently the biggest COVID-19 threat you should worry about. People in the US should be concerned about Thanksgiving, upcoming holidays, and travel, which can spread the virus around the country. People in Europe should consider that there is already a lot of Delta variant SARS-CoV-2 causing a surge in cases in your continent, and that raging fire is a much more clear and present danger to you at this time. Other regions have their own unique problems, but I do not think there is currently any place where Omicron variant infections are the biggest pandemic-related worry. Most of these problems, however, can be addressed with ready availability and uptake of vaccines and boosters, and that’s what the world should continue to focus on.

So, what does it mean for the business arena? Well, the first thing to think of is that this tangle with a new variant isn’t the first rodeo for enterprises; we battled through Alpha and are currently contending with Delta, the latter of which will most likely contribute to higher case numbers due to last week’s Thanksgiving holiday. There are expectations that, if transmissibility of Omicron is even two- or three-times that of Delta, that it will become the predominant strain throughout the next several months. Does this portend a winter surge like 2020-2021? Most likely, and hopefully, not; an uptick of vaccinations and boosters will blunt a winter wave the size of what we collectively experienced last year.

However, we are seeing swift action from governmental agencies and a level of heightened concern from news sources. After the Delta variant ripped through the world in a short period of time, there is an expectation that more rigid measures will be taken to avoid an Omicron surge. International flights are banned to and from several countries, some states (like New York) are doubling-down on mask-wearing no matter vaccination status, and, the WHO (yesterday) stated that the global risk from the new variant was “very high.” Here’s how it could affect the business world in the weeks ahead:

  • Initial confusion over specific details (transmissibility, immunity response, etc.) will result in reinstatement of safety guidelines. Travel bans are the first step, and we’ve seen that in spades over the past several days. Epidemiologists have warned that such bans are not always foolproof, as a stealthy virus like this one is almost certainly already circulating in countries that have not yer publicly sequenced cases within their borders. Until there’s more information regarding its supposed increased transmissibility and the effect of vaccines on the variant, businesses will be awash in confusion and be forced to reinstate mask-wearing for all workers (even vaccinated ones) and other NPIs.
  • The consistent focus on “scalability” will be exacerbated. While it’ll take at least another week or two before there is more clarity on the variant’s health impact, business leaders must be prepared to scale their staffing up or down based on the colder months ahead. Many, many organizations battled with a winter last year that saw billions of dollars of lost productivity due to the first full cold-weather season in the pandemic. Hiring managers, talent acquisition leads, and HR execs should not necessarily be panicking, but at the very least ensure that talent communities and talent pools are primed for engagement until the uncertainty settles.
  • There are many, many unanswered questions regarding the impact of Omicron on the economy. The S&P experienced its worst day in nearly 10 months this past Friday, but was up 1.3% yesterday, mainly due to some reports that the Omicron causes mild symptoms in vaccinated and/or previously-infected persons. While this is a combination of anecdotal evidence and very small datasets, it is nonetheless an encouraging sign for the financial market. However, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies this afternoon regarding the impact of Omicron on the American economy, the very opposite could be true. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel stating that current vaccines could potentially “struggle” with the variant wasn’t helpful to Tuesday’s markets, either.
  • The criticality of “balance” should be at the forefront of every executive’s 2022 planning. Agility has been a way for businesses to both survive and thrive, while consistent and cautious planning is what businesses have long leveraged for the sake of preparedness. The two must converge together in order for the enterprise to weather a possible variant wave; business leaders should institute robust planning for 2022 as continued (i.e., continue planning as if we didn’t face a new variant) but have not just a “Plan B” in place, but rather a series of strategies that could be leveraged if we experience a repeat of last winter. Can return-to-office plans be altered quickly and without disruption? Does the IT infrastructure support a fast move to remote work? If sales execs and other internal stakeholders have resumed traveling, is there an alternative that could work in the name of safety? Business agility promotes real-time responses, while solid planning involves data, information, and intuition. The convergence of the two is the ideal way to meet whatever additional challenges the coronavirus throws our way.

This excellent article at Medscape takes a data-driven approach and reconfirms some elements of the concern while also offering some reassuring evidence. But, the bottom line is this: there’s a couple of more weeks of panic, pondering, concern, and anxiety until the CDC and other agencies better understand the transmissibility and immunity-effect factors. A waiting game, yes, but a critical one.

Regarding the business arena, there’s a generic response, here, as well, that’s worth mentioning: expect the unexpected. Just six months ago, life seemed the most optimistic it had been since January 2020. The Delta variant upended most of those positive emotions and there’s always the possibility that Omicron can, as well. However, if there’s one lesson that we’ve learned since March 2020, it’s this: it’s not necessarily the unexpected scenarios we should be worrying about, but instead just how agile and nimble we can be to react dynamically in the face of whatever occurs over the next several months.

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What’s Ahead for Businesses as Vaccine Mandates Loom?

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Late last year, the arrival of the first COVID-19 vaccines was hailed a medical miracle and scientific triumph that proved the world could begin looking towards a coronavirus-free future. Over the holiday season, first-responders and medical workers received their initial jabs while millions of others patiently waited to book appointments at pop-up centers, repurposed sports stadiums and arenas, pharmacies, and medical facilities. (On a personal note, my wife and I received both of our Moderna doses at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. It was quite an emotional trip on account of receiving an historic vaccine just steps from six Lombardi Trophies.)

The Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines offered a glimpse of hope, one that had been missing for the better part of eight or nine months. As inoculation rates soared throughout the late winter and early spring months, many of us believed that a transcendent summer would be ahead. Vacations were planned while business leaders anticipated reopening offices and getting back to a semblance of pre-pandemic “normalcy.” President Biden aimed for a lofty goal of 160 million adults fully-vaccinated and 70% of adults with at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccination by July 4, with actual success coming nearly a month later against those numbers.

Then the Delta variant of the coronavirus swept across the world, and in conjunction with continued vaccine hesitancy, put the United States and other nations back to daily caseloads that nearly mirrored the worst numbers of the winter surge. Executives shuffled reopening plans and enterprises braced for what could be another disruptive COVID wave.

In the midst of all of this, the Biden Administration instituted a national vaccine mandate earlier this month, a hint of frustration in its tone with how the pandemic, at this point, was that of an unvaccinated population. With tens of millions yet to get a shot, this was the only scenario the government could envision if it wanted to continue its bounce-back economic recovery and avoid another fall and winter like the 2020 seasons that nearly broke the healthcare system.

The vaccine mandate in and of itself is quite clear: companies with over 100 employees must mandate COVID vaccinations or have its employees undergo weekly testing. There are hefty fines for non-compliance, which was to be expected, with a rush of push-back from unions, state governments, and other groups across the country. However, while many of us are so laser-focused in our original thoughts regarding the mandate, there are many other questions that need to be addressed, all of which fall on the average business to manage in these uncertain weeks and months ahead:

  • Above all else, this is not the government overstepping its bounds, but rather a major effort to vaccinate a large swath of the 80 million people that have not received a shot as of yet. At this point in the pandemic, the science is clear: the unvaccinated are bearing the brunt of the worst outcomes and overloading hospitals in regional hotspots. Too, the Delta variant is known for its ability to spread faster and wider, with millions of fresh infections happening within the unvaccinated community over the second half of the summer. While the vaccines boast incredible safety and efficacy in regard to severe outcomes (hospitalizations and deaths), those who are inoculated are still able to become infected and can pass along the virus to those who may be immunocompromised or who are not eligible to receive the vaccines (such as children under 12). If these business mandates can make an incredible dent in that chunk of 80 million people, it’ll help alleviate the continued burden on the healthcare system and ensure that the upcoming fall and winter seasons are not repeats of 2020.
  • Weekly testing for large organizations can require serious financial resources…who’s on the hook? Some large businesses have instituted on-site testing for workers, with many of these instances in place for months now (some even dating back to mid-2020). Those sectors that require on-site testing and rapid results have benefited from this model, however, with a national vaccine mandate in place, there are serious questions as to the costs of weekly and more frequent testing and if it falls to the business or the worker. While this issue will become more clear in the immediate weeks ahead, it is something worth watching.
  • Exemptions are expected, however, how do businesses manage larger or more concentrated numbers of these instances? A handful of exemptions (religious or medical) in a 250-person company is manageable; a handful of exemptions within a small team within a larger organization is a problem. How do businesses ensure safety while still respecting legal vaccine exemptions? Is remote or hybrid work a solution to this unique issue? Do businesses attempt to cycle in-person days based on a worker’s vaccination status?
  • Could mandates lead to employer retaliation over OSHA violations? Whistleblowers should feel comfortable reporting mandate violations to OSHA without fear of retaliation from employers or managers. While vaccine mandates are now legal, what is not legal is discrimination against employees under the mandates. This opens another discussion regarding how leaders should be promoting vaccine mandates, how workers who feel uncomfortable receiving a shot should communicate with managers, and how violations should be treated. This is a new era for the pandemic and new ground for businesses; a global health crisis forces new ways of working, so executives must always be thinking of what issues could arise.
  • Vaccine status will soon become a prerequisite in future job descriptions. Candidates now face a world in which “vaccination status” is listed alongside required skills for open positions. Hiring managers must be conscious of worker safety, and ensuring that new candidates are vaccinated goes a long way to maintaining a healthy workplace for all members of the workforce. Expect a sharp increase in descriptions that ask for vaccination status over the coming weeks as the business world adapts to another new element of this evolving world of work.
  • There are more nuances to vaccine mandates that are still being developed…so businesses must be ready to tackle these complexities when they are finalized. The pandemic has been one fluid series of events, and the realm of vaccine mandates for the enterprise world should be no different. Leaders must harness the power of true business agility to adapt to the changes that vaccine mandates will bring and ensure that they continue to remain nimble in the face of continued evolving times.

One critical area to watch for in the coming weeks: while many see the mandates as a “hard” push by the government, the fact that employees have the option for weekly testing softens this stance incredibly. However, COVID testing isn’t perfect, especially in a Delta variant-led world. Vaccinations are forward-looking and are meant to stave off negative outcomes, while testing only captures a moment in time. If businesses experience outbreaks that cause major dips in productivity due to a testing failure (i.e., false negative tests, slow responses from labs, shortage of rapid testing supplies, etc.), it could be a crucial turning point in forcing executives to offer one and only one option as a condition of employment: vaccination.

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Let’s Just Say It Now: The Business World Is Never Going Back to Normal

Business LeadershipDiversity and InclusionTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

“Well, I see us returning to the office right after the holidays.”

“We pushed out our return-to-office date to January 15. Hoping it sticks this time.”

“Back in May and June, our target date to get the office up-and-running against was September 16. It gave our working parents enough time to get situated with school schedules. But now, we just don’t know. It’s too hard to communicate a date to our staff because things are changing so rapidly.”

Those are some direct quotes from HR, talent acquisition, and procurement executives that I’ve spoken to over the past couple of weeks. And then there are these quotes, all from HR executives:

“My maternity leave crossed over with the mid-point of the pandemic. My team and I have all been fully remote since then, and I can’t picture any of us going back to the office except for bi-weekly or monthly team meetings or special projects.”

“Whether or not we mandate vaccinations or negative tests, the truth is that our business has fundamentally changed. We’re under 100 employees, which allows us to be a bit nimbler in how we communicate and operate within a virtual setting, and those employees that want to be back at our HQ have had the option for a few months now…but, I just cannot see how we go back to what we were doing before all of this started.”

“There are some big question marks we have. Our flexible workforce alone is anywhere between 800 and 1,000 people on any given day. We’ve done a pretty decent job of figuring out who is working where and how to effectively track how well projects are being completed, but there are some very stressful conversations ahead for our leadership team and what our 2022 looks like. Most of my team understand that things have changed, but how many really believe these changes are going to stick? That is the fundamental question at hand for us: do we attempt to slowly return to the way things were before? Or do we just accept that our organization has been permanently transformed?

While this is a random sampling of just six executives across the millions across the globe, now is a great time for us to remind ourselves of just how much impact the pandemic had on all aspects of our lives. Think of the first day it really hit home for you. That day didn’t necessarily have to be the true beginning of the pandemic as defined by the World Health Organization, so it ranges wildly for each of us.

I can remember the day after then-President Trump declared a state of emergency, editing a podcast for the following week’s edition of Contingent Workforce Weekly. My wife and mother-in-law spent most of that afternoon at the local Target (unmasked, if we can remember a time like that indoors!), stocking up on essentials in the event we were locked down in our homes for a couple of weeks (or more). That feeling inside of my chest, that sinking feeling, was more than just anxiety. It was my brain telling me that we were in something awful for the long haul.

In so many respects, the pandemic has had an incredibly profound impact on how we shop, how we interact with family and friends, how we travel, and ultimately how we live our lives. Some of us have been mildly sick with COVID-19, others have been hospitalized. Some of us have lost family members and friends. Some of us lost our jobs, homes, careers, and livelihoods. The economy may be bouncing back and the labor market may have recovered the vast majority of job losses from 2020, however, there is an indelible mark on every aspect of our lives, including business, that will never be the same again.

Some businesses may aim for a return to pre-pandemic times, but the way we all work has been transformed…for the better.

There are specific complications that we all wish weren’t part of our daily lives, and we certainly can all agree that the scale of tragic loss of life has been truly heartbreaking. I would bet there are several moments per day, too, when we say to ourselves, “I wish I could go back to the way things used to be” when we think of concerts, movies, restaurants, parties, holidays, etc. In due time, those pieces of life will come back to us at a much lower risk than they are today. For the world of business, however, we shouldn’t be thinking about pre-pandemic times, but rather the ways specific “accelerants” forever changed the way we work…forever. Consider that:

  • Distributed teams are the norm now, and, both workers and executives have realized the benefits of the remote and hybrid work models. “The Great Resignation” is occurring mostly because workers have been enabled with the flexibility they’ve always craved, and now that businesses are sounding the “return to the office!” alarms, those highly-skilled workers are choosing to take their talents elsewhere. Work-life balance, the capabilities to attend to homes and/or children during the work day, and an overarching sense of flexibility are all attributes of the ideal workplace for today’s workers.
  • The move to virtual collaboration also sparked a revolution in the realm of digital transformation. Many businesses eschewed a major remote work overhaul in pre-pandemic times because they thought it could takes several months to achieve. In reality, the move to remote happened for many organizations in a matter of weeks. This proved that moving more operational components to automated and repeatable processes would be much simpler task than originally thought (note: no technology implementation project is easy, but it’s much more fluid today than it was years ago).
  • Today more so than ever before, businesses are focused on true organizational agility. In fact, Future of Work Exchange research finds that 73% of businesses desire to become truly organizations in the months ahead. This laser-like focus on business agility, in which organizations can respond dynamically to real-time situations and challenges, is absolutely a direct result of learning first-hand what it was like to face staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, revenue shortfalls, and a global health crisis all at the same time.
  • There are so many question marks around business travel that some are pondering whether or not we will ever have “road dog” positions anymore that require 75% or more working hours traveling for work. This is not welcome news for airline, hospitality, and similar industries that were decimated by the pandemic, however, the rise of virtual conferences (even though many of us are certainly facing burnout from these, admittedly) means that more and more leaders have access to the content that was only available at traditional conferences and tradeshows. Too, do organizations that rely on in-person events pivot to hybrid conferences? Scale down to one-day symposiums instead of full-blown, three-day events? There are always going to be limitations in the virtual model of collaboration, especially when it comes to key client relationships. However, with so many businesses thriving during uncertain times without the aid of corporate travel, are forced to wonder if we’ll ever return to pre-pandemic levels.
  • The relationships between leaders/execs and their workers has been fundamentally changed as empathy becomes a key component of the management playbook. Employee wellness, wellbeing, and mental health are now all crucial pieces of the Future of Work movement and business leaders are taking note: 77% of executives anticipate that empathy-driven leadership will become a more critical foundation of the employer-employee relationship. An empathetic culture promotes positivity, open communication, better productivity, and is a major solution to worker burnout. As times change and uncertainty continues, workers can be comforted knowing that their leaders are emotionally invested in their wellbeing and support them from both professional and personal perspectives. Eighteen months ago, the notion of empathy-led leadership was not discussed or even on the radar for the vast, vast majority of enterprises. Today? It’s how the typical business wins the war for talent.
  • Changes in how businesses think about their workforce are opening doors that were closed just 18 months ago. Societal changes are sparking a bigger focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). The rise of remote work has allowed hiring managers to expand their talent acquisition efforts beyond their backyards. The utilization of extended or non-employee talent has risen to 47% of the average company’s overall workforce. Business leaders are rethinking and reimagining how work gets done from the bottom to the top; they understand that there are now no boundaries in how they find and engage talent, nor is there a major difference between traditional and non-employee workers if skillsets and expertise are top-of-mind. The myriad changes in the world of work has transformed the way enterprises address talent acquisition and hiring initiatives.

There are always going to be professionals that would like business to return to the ways it was before the pandemic, and those individuals cannot be blamed for wanting to return to a world that was less stressful. But if we take all of the things that have changed about how we get work done, how we view our talent, how the relationships between leaders and their staff have changed, how empathy is now a key element of the modern workplace, and how we have all benefited from the newfound flexibility within our roles, we all have to ask…why we would ever want to go back to the way things used to be?

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