Business Leadership Archives - The Future of Work Exchange

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

Business Leadership General Insights Talent Talent Acquisition Uncategorized by John Yuva on 12/19/2024

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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Business Leaders Reap Flexibility Rewards

Business Leadership General Insights Talent Talent Acquisition Uncategorized by John Yuva on 05/15/2023

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.

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Sustain the Leadership Evolution

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion General Insights HR Uncategorized by John Yuva on 02/27/2023

What the previous three years have shown is that enterprises are resilient. The ability to turn on a dime operationally and transform from an in-person to a nearly fully remote workforce is a stunning achievement. It is the ultimate in change management execution, forever altering the Future of Work paradigm and business leadership as we know it. In defining the Future of Work movement, the Future of Work Exchange identified the transformation of business leadership as one of its three critical pillars.

Workplace Humanization Arrives

How has business leadership transformed? Quite simply, leaders today have a newfound focus on “humanity,” and the need to be more talent-oriented to thrive during uncertain times. During the height of the pandemic, there was no separation between how leadership and employees experienced this global event. Everyone went through it together and had similar fears, anxiety, and concern for others. Many leaders recognized this fact and rebooted their workplaces by retaining employee flexibility and remote/hybrid models once the world started to normalize.

Bridging of Human and Skills-Based Objectives

Along with the humanization of the workplace, the need for skills-based talent became apparent as well. The criticality of enterprise agility, flexibility, and business continuity is now a central part of talent acquisition strategies. It is no longer about filling a job role, but rather hiring candidates that bring specific skills and competencies while also being a good cultural match. Business leaders today actively bridge the human aspect with skills-based execution. Understanding, for example, the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of the cultural fabric, leaders have integrated DE&I into hiring and operational objectives.

Business Leadership Evolves

The Future of Work Exchange and Ardent Partners have identified five ways business leadership is evolving.

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Conscious Leadership as a Future of Work Transformation Attribute

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion General Insights Talent by John Yuva on 11/30/2022

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.