Traditionally, procurement focused on cost savings in the supply base and was measured against those numbers annually. However, over time, CPOs realized the criticality of supplier relationships and the resulting innovations that enabled greater marketplace competitiveness. Rather than squeezing pennies from suppliers, the relationships evolved into collaborative, value-added partnerships.

With a value-based approach, procurement is positioned to lead and support various aspects of Future of Work strategies. Let’s look at what both procurement and HR core enterprise contributions entail, followed by how the two functions intersect to complement Future of Work initiatives.

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A Growth in Interdependence and Unity

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

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

So much of our work is team based. The pandemic already demonstrated that all-remote teams can be successful. Whether it’s remote or hybrid, we’re all individuals contributing to the collective success of the team. During an interview with Protocol Workplace, Kat Holmes, senior vice president of UX and product design at Salesforce, shared, “The way we reward employees or recognize employees is still very much built on this individual model of, ‘What impact did you have this quarter? What individual outcome did you accomplish?’

“The truth of it is, ‘Where did people contribute to you, and how did you contribute to other people’s success?’ That’s a shift that’s deeper than just the language of it. It’s really in framing what it means to be a successful team in a virtual environment,” Holmes said.

Bridge Remote and In-Person Team Members  

How can teams build interdependence and unity among remote and hybrid team members? Here are a few ideas.

• Schedule time when everyone meets. For many teams, especially those that are cross functional, it can be challenging to schedule meetings that work for everyone’s calendar. However, the opportunity to interact virtually and be visible cannot be understated. For large teams, strive for a once-per-month all-team meeting to communicate progress, challenges, and upcoming milestones. Recognize those contributors who went above and beyond to help the team achieve its goals. Smaller teams or those specific to certain aspects of a project or business unit are known to meet daily or weekly for briefings. Communication should be deliberate and concise to ensure discussions remain relevant and within the specified timeframe.
• Meet in-person as a team or company. Having the opportunity to meet in-person with team members enhances that sense of connectedness. A Canadian company, for example, had several employees based in Phoenix. Those workers often met for in-person collaboration and activities. Another company that was fully remote held two staff retreats (for those employees located east and west of the Mississippi). The company paid for the flights and accommodations for all employees citing that in-person retreats were essential to unify workers and build community among the staff.
• Decide on a communication system. Regardless of team size, it is important to have a hierarchy of how information is communicated and prioritized. Gregory Ciotti from Help Scout shared how the company prioritizes and communicates specific messages. When do you use Slack versus email? Quick messages with questions or project updates are done as a chat message in Slack. For questions that require a longer explanation or supporting material and are not time-sensitive are communicated through email. Any lengthy team updates regarding bi-weekly or monthly metrics are posted on Slack’s virtual bulletin board. The communication hierarchy ensures that inboxes are not overloaded and that critical information is not overlooked.
• Spark spontaneity. One aspect of in-person interaction now gaining attention is that of social spontaneity. Serendipitous moments walking by a team member or meeting at the water cooler leading to insightful conversations are lost for remote employees. Or are they? In an interview with Sococo, Pilar Orti, director of the remote work training company Virtual, not Distant, promoted the idea of social rituals to build team culture. Whether it’s a virtual coffee break or lunch, or an activity where everyone participates is an opportunity to socialize and share ideas. “Having ideas and innovating are slightly different. We can have spontaneous idea generation,” Orti says. “The online world is much better for that than the co-located because you can have asynchronous online spaces where people can post their ideas as they come up.”
• Choose technology tools that solve a business need. There are technologies for nearly every aspect of communication and collaboration. However, choose technology that solves your specific business need. For example, need a collaborative solution where all team members can track project progress and review associated files? Then Basecamp could be the answer. Looking for a video-sharing solution with collaborative tools? GoTo Meeting may be an option. Virtual whiteboards like MURAL bring remote and in-person team members together for innovative ideas.

The Future of Work movement dictates that teams are going to have distributed members that need a feeling of connection and belonging. Business leaders must recognize this fact or risk having an environment that lacks accountability and cohesion. Now is the time to design a team atmosphere with success as its cornerstone.

The post The New Definition of “Team” in a Future Of Work-Led World appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

Digital employee experience (DEX) is a term that describes how effective workers are in using digital tools. DEX is a growing area of interest as companies adopt a plethora of digital tools to augment their dispersed workforces. Companies want to ensure the tools they have integrated into the workplace are intuitive and enhance worker productivity.

Tom Haak, director at the HR Trend Institute, says, “Technology offers enormous opportunities to improve the life of people in and around organizations. In HR, the focus is still too much on control and process improvement, not enough on really improving the employee experience.”

Today, with remote and in-person workers, enterprises must bridge those two environments and focus on technologies that both attract and retain workers regardless of where they work. Technology that supports the Future of Work comes in a variety of forms. Often, artificial intelligence (AI) permeates many digital solutions, providing automated processes and data outputs for better workforce decision-making.

Throughout the remainder of the year, the Future of Work Exchange will be highlighting several technologies from blockchain to e-wallets, and how they impact Future of Work strategies. However, the following are technologies that business leaders and employees are using now and, in the future, to enhance the DEX and drive workplace efficiency and community.

Communication and collaboration. The COVID-19 pandemic put communication and collaboration to the ultimate test. Enterprises and employees experienced first-hand the potential of digital communication as they grew accustomed to using Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. These platforms proved that remote work could, in fact, be accomplished with the same productive and strategic outcomes as in-person work models. It is one of the major reasons why remote and hybrid workforce options were embraced by enterprises post-pandemic.

There are several communication and collaborative tools to serve the enterprise and its remote and in-person workforce. Basecamp provides both a communication and collaborative platform to keep projects on schedule and lines of communication open. Trello also makes project management run smoothly regardless of where an employee is based.

Beyond these more common collaborative solutions, companies are utilizing chatbots for internal use for collaborative purposes and employee support. ServiceNOW, for example, offers its Virtual Agent solution to bring people to the same collaborative workspace or provide answers to employee questions.

Another evolving collaborative offering is the virtual whiteboard for use during company and team meetings. Companies such as Miro, MURAL, and Stormboard provide effective tools for diagramming and presenting in real time.

Big data (predictive and people analytics). Volumes of data flood enterprises from a variety of sources. For HR and other business leaders, big data is crucial to their Future of Work strategies, generating analytics across the talent acquisition and talent management landscape. Predictive analytics, for example, will grow as a key component of direct sourcing initiatives to curate a pipeline of potential job candidates.

According to a post on the Future of Work Exchange (FOWX), “While predictive analytics are not commonplace today, soon, a majority of enterprises will look to scenario-building as a way to enhance overall talent intelligence. Predictive analytics, in this realm, will augment the organization’s overall knowledge of its in-house skills as well as the expertise available externally (across all talent communities, including talent pools).”

Where predictive analytics will help prepare the enterprise for its future talent needs, people analytics are necessary to understand how employees are embracing digital tools and applications. Are shared applications being utilized by the workforce? Is there participation in virtual workspaces? What are employee sentiments around an enterprise’s digital transformation? People analytics help answer these questions and provide key insights into employee productivity, well-being, and digital adoption.

Virtual reality. In a previous post, FOWX explored the possibilities of the metaverse. Virtual reality will stretch the limits of employee interaction and community. Virtual workspaces where employee avatars can converse and strategize are likely to come to fruition in the coming years. It levels the playing field for remote and in-person employees by creating a setting for everyone regardless of location.

Artificial intelligence is also a major piece of the virtual reality offering. Currently, employees can create an avatar to complete repetitive tasks using AI or communicate with customers to answer product questions. As technology advances, the potential influence of virtual reality on the Future of Work will only increase. Today’s chatbots are just the beginning of how enterprises can leverage the virtual world and bridge humans with AI.

Just as the Future of Work evolves, so too will the technologies that support it. There are dozens of software applications on the horizon to benefit business leaders and their employees. Explore the options and how they align with your workforce strategy.

The post Supporting the Future of Work Through Innovative Technology appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

• Zoë Harte, Chief People Officer at Upwork.
• David Harris, SVP of HR for PepsiCo.
• Sarah Harse, Global Category Leader for HR Services and Professional Education, Johnson & Johnson.

The panel discussion covered a variety of topics. However, a central theme was HR’s cross-functional collaboration in executing the enterprise’s talent strategy. This article explores several areas around that theme. While HR is looked upon by the enterprise to drive talent and other critical initiatives, it cannot do this alone. There must be a partnership across the entire business with other functions like procurement, finance, legal, marketing, engineering, and the like.

Responsibility Lies With Everyone

When it comes to the role of sourcing and identifying talent, who is ultimately responsible? This was the opening question that Buffum posed to the panel. Harte believes everybody is responsible for bringing exceptional talent to drive the business initiatives that are the priorities for the organization. “HR has a powerful role in that. And so do the people managers and so does procurement. We all must do it together to be successful,” she said.

Responding with a procurement perspective, Harse says in the past the function took the upfront role of sourcing, finding the channel, putting it in place, and ensuring it operated. However, that’s not enough anymore.

“Just having the channel available is not enough to really solve the challenges that are ahead for our people leaders. The more we can do to partner with our HR counterparts, our finance counterparts, or our legal counterparts to connect those dots and really think about each of us having a unique role to play — with the hiring manager at the center helping to navigate all these different channels we have available — is really critical,” Harse said.

Communication Is the Cornerstone

Because several business units contribute to the identification of talent sources, cross-functional collaboration is imperative. Harris described this process at PepsiCo, which included partnerships with finance (always a major role within large companies), procurement (to ensure all the contracts and partnerships are in place), and the internal talent acquisition team (securing the available people when and where they’re needed).

Of course, such collaboration couldn’t occur without effective communication. What projects are underway and the associated strategies? What are the different metrics or objectives among the functional lines? Harte says each individual team may be working toward different metrics. However, the role of the leader is to take a step back and look at the overall objectives they’re working toward. Knowing the business mission enables everyone to work together.

“It’s then easier to see how you can merge your objectives and key results together to ensure you’re making good compromises,” said Harse. “Communicate and really have a conversation about that so people understand the give and take of everyone involved. You’ll be able to find alignment and come to some level of agreement.”

Commit to Early Engagement

However, even the best-laid plans and communication can pose challenges. Harse spoke about her own experiences in procurement working through problem areas cross functionally and where opportunities exist to work toward a better goal. She said a common pitfall is the last-minute rush that can occur when a project is tossed over the wall to another function. Because both functions have not been on that journey together, there’s a lack of understanding around the purpose of the project and the work that’s been put into it.

For the individual or team suddenly holding the project, there’s a lack of alignment in terms of priority regardless of the urgency involved. Harse said much of the issue can be resolved with better early collaboration during the ideation phase.

“We have a number of subject matter experts across all our large organizations who can bring significant value to the table. Procurement shouldn’t be viewed at the table as simply the purchasing or supply chain person, but rather the beneficiary of these strategies as well,” said Harse.

She adds that the greatest learning coming into a new role supporting HR is that everyone can identify with the need for talent access. All are people leaders who understand the challenge of filling the seats to get the work done.

“It’s easy to get people on board with that message if you bring them in early and start to engage with legal and finance counterparts at the beginning of the journey to bring down some of those barriers that inevitably come up. This is crucial for those unique relationships we want to build to really be successful,” Harse explains.

The post Upwork’s Work Without Limits: HR Builds Bridges Across the Organization appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

Metaverse Defined

What is the metaverse? Simply stated, it is a virtual world(s) where people interact as 3D avatars, gaming, socializing, and working. That immersive experience is made possible by several technologies. Virtual reality and head-mounted displays, coupled with spatial technology and augmented reality bring the immersion to life. Other technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning act as the brains for the metaverse, enriching the virtual environment through automated transactions, decision-making, and world-building.

The metaverse ecosystem is a vast network of hundreds of companies from a variety of industries all working toward developing specific metaverse attributes — infrastructure, economy, user experience, etc. And there are many metaverse platforms (e.g., Decentraland, The Sandbox, etc.) to put your virtual stake in the ground as no one owns the metaverse (yet).

Transition from Gaming to Business

Much of the metaverse is rooted in gaming. Unsurprisingly, children (and adults) are well-versed with virtual worlds through Minecraft (140 million monthly players), Fortnite (250 million-plus active users), and Roblox (30 million daily players). This bodes well for future generations adapting to the virtual world of work.  As consumers take several steps into the virtual realm with products like Meta’s Oculus and HTC’s VIVE, corporations are now moving closer to their own metaverse offerings. McDonald’s, Nike, Amazon, and companies in sectors like healthcare, finance, and hospitality are taking the plunge into the virtual expanse.

The culmination of virtual worlds leads to a vast decentralized multiverse of metaverses. The Meta metaverse, the Microsoft metaverse, the Nike metaverse, and so on. Does the future hold a centralized, singular metaverse where users can interact with other virtual platforms outside their metaverse sandbox? Whether it’s attending a virtual conference, reviewing specifications with a global supplier, or brainstorming at a virtual corporate retreat, the ability to engage other metaverses or link them together could forever alter business and the future of work as we know it.

A Virtual Work Future

The pandemic itself propelled the world’s workforce into remote work, ushering in a new normal where video conferencing replaced in-person interaction and collaboration. Today, as many companies recalibrate, there’s an urge to bring remote workers back into the office. Instead, now is the time to embrace hybrid and remote work as the future that it is. The timing for the metaverse could not have been better. It has the potential to offer not only enhanced remote workforce experiences but entirely new business models. Here are just a few examples of how the metaverse could impact and revolutionize the future of work.

• Talent recruitment. Recruiting talent can become a more immersive experience for candidates through virtual and augmented reality. Application submittals could launch a link to a virtual environment that allows virtual interaction with human resources or company recruiters. Using augmented reality, candidates might be asked to complete certain virtual tasks related to the job. Results of those exercises can provide greater insight into viable candidates and narrow the talent pool to gold and silver applicants.
• Employee onboarding. Company onboarding can be hit or miss. Some enterprises have a specific onboarding process, complete with presentations and meet and greets. What some companies fail to realize is that onboarding is the first official interaction with a new hire. If that process is disorganized or nonexistent, retention rates could suffer. The metaverse can automate the onboarding experience, bringing to life virtually how the company operates, its mission, and how a new hire’s work is purposeful in achieving enterprise objectives.
• New Zealand-based UneeQ, for example, specializes in the development of digital humans who serve as AI-powered customer experience ambassadors. With this technology, a company can create a virtual onboarding experience using digital humans to automate the process of introducing new hires to all that the company has to offer.
• Team collaboration. Much of the metaverse is about social interaction. Critics of remote work and the ability to collaborate effectively are missing the bigger picture. Virtual collaborative technologies are now available from dozens of providers (e.g., Gather and NOWHERE) that are innovating the space. Whether it’s creating a virtual workroom or lounge, gathering our digital selves (avatars) together for brainstorming and deep learning can bring a sense of immersive that can’t be replicated in a 2D Zoom session. One could argue that utilizing cutting-edge virtual technology to collaborate may result in even more out-of-the-box thinking.
• Training and development. Using virtual and augmented reality, coupled with gamification, training and development can be redefined. Enter a 3D space to learn how to operate a new machine or medical device using haptic gloves to replicate the feeling of a physical object. Or attend a virtual training session followed by activities that test what was learned. All of these examples can be enhanced with gamification elements to build excitement and participation around T&D. Earning virtual badges for completed training modules or high scores on virtual tasks, for example, are ways that companies are flipping the script on learning and development and increasing employee engagement with the process.

The metaverse holds incredible promise for enterprises and the future of work. Part Two on the metaverse will explore how organizations can use virtual reality for product development and operational efficiencies, as well as the emergence of virtual enterprises and economies.

The post The Impact of the Metaverse on the Business Arena appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

No one volunteers to wear a straightjacket unless they are a magician.

It is now almost 25 years since I had my defining services procurement experience.

I was working for a global corporation, and, after spending 11 years in different buying roles, I switched to product management and took responsibility for a portfolio that generated about $200M revenue per year. While in this role, I was asked to spearhead a comprehensive change agenda that included reflecting on the external service providers we contracted at the time.

To achieve this objective, I worked closely with the procurement professionals who supported my new division. I had not worked with this team before but I was confident that we could easily collaborate.

I was so wrong.

During our first meeting, I asked for their opinions and ideas on how to best assess the performance of the incumbent suppliers. “We can do anything you want, Paul, as long as it is already written in the service schedules,” I was told.

But the service schedules didn’t seem to be as well defined as they could have been. I looked at this as an opportunity to get creative with the benchmarks.

“Of course, Paul, as long as we don’t ask the suppliers to do something new. We can’t risk them raising the price,” they suggested.

“We should also start to proactively look for alternative sources of supply,” I said.

“No, we can’t do that yet,” they replied.

“Why ever not?”

The procurement team explained that the contracts were not near enough to term and they didn’t want to waste time qualifying any new suppliers until they started the retendering process.

“But I want to explore what is available in the market,” I said, “and I am sure you have other suppliers you can recommend?”

“Well, not really, Paul,” they said. “We are so busy that we can’t monitor the supply market ourselves, so we typically ask stakeholders like yourself to nominate any additional suppliers for the tender.”

I took this as great news and thought it meant I could identify some new suppliers that we could hold exploratory meetings with.

“No. As we just told you, we can’t do that until we start the retendering process.”

This left me frustrated. I felt like the team wasn’t hearing my needs. I was the product owner and I wanted to begin this work. I also wanted to start meeting with the current suppliers to better understand our return on investment from working with them.

“You mean you want to challenge their pricing?” they said.

“No, not necessarily — I just want to know what we’re getting for our money.”

“Well, we would need to have that discussion with them. You are not empowered to talk commercial terms with suppliers, only the procurement team is.”

“But, I am the budget holder. I have a business need for their services. I am accountable for what they deliver. Why can’t I speak with them?”

“Sorry, Paul, you can speak to them about operational matters but when it comes to any commercial topics, you need to leave that to us.”

“I told you already I don’t necessarily want a price reduction, I just want to understand what value they are giving me.”

“Well, we need to be careful about that. You see, if you start asking them to increase their value then they might want more money. So we can avoid that if we control the conversation.”

And so, there you have it. Twenty-five years ago I first encountered that word “control” in a procurement/stakeholder context, and I have been allergic to it ever since.

Despite me being in charge of a product portfolio that brought in $200M a year, despite being accountable for decisions that affected hundreds of operations personnel, and despite being the budget holder of millions, apparently I couldn’t be trusted to speak to a supplier. Through the eyes of that procurement team, I was a maverick because I wanted to go outside of their process to instigate sensible and necessary business actions. I can still vividly remember the exasperation I felt at how little the team seemed to care about what was important to me. There was no collaboration.

In the 25 years since, in my various roles, I’ve seen many services procurement experiences play out similarly. And this naivety has infected managed services providers (MSPs), too.

Don’t set yourself up for failure.

How many procurement professionals are still viewing an SOW management solution as a way to stop their business stakeholders from doing something? How many MSPs focus their solutions on controlling or reining in perceived maverick or rogue behavior?  If you have spent any time walking in a stakeholder’s shoes, you will agree that this mentality often leads to failure.

Ardent Partners’ and the Future of Work Exchange’s annual buy-side research, similar to many other contingent workforce research initiatives, consistently cites stakeholder resistance as the number one reason why services procurement solutions fail. And the number one reason stakeholders resist a services procurement solution is because, in reality, way too many of these programs have the characteristics of a straitjacket. So, who can blame them?

How to drive stronger collaboration.

In 2007, I returned to procurement, first as a global category leader and then a consultant. My experiences as a stakeholder had a transformative effect on the contribution I was able to offer to my internal and external clients. Here are the three key things I always tried to keep front-of-mind to improve outcomes:

1. Be oven-ready for new stakeholders. When primary stakeholders and budget holders rotate, as they very often do, there is a window of opportunity when the procurement team can be significantly valuable during their acclimatization period. What are the current supply arrangements? What are the issues of the day? How could the new stakeholder be a catalyst for increasing supplier value? Maintain a storyboard that can be ready at a moment’s notice. Being oven-ready like this also ensures the procurement lens is outwardly- and future-focused.
2. Always seek to improve the procurement process. It is critically important that you are regarded as a champion for effective and not outdated buying practices. Stakeholders will want speed and simplicity. Suppliers will want to minimize their cost of sale. True business partnering happens when all parties are invested in each other’s success, so the more you demonstrate a collaborative center of gravity, the more you can expect your stakeholders and suppliers to positively reciprocate.
3. Don’t expect anyone to volunteer to wear a straightjacket. The word control means to “to exercise restraining or directing influence over someone or something.” Through the lens of a services procurement solution, this means that reluctant participation is all you will be able to realistically expect. Better outcomes will result with stronger collaboration, rather than control.

The only way a services procurement solution can be sustainably successful is if it is insight-led and purposefully designed to enable the stakeholders’ objectives, not to control what they can and can’t do.

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn, or visit Randstad Sourceright for more information on their solutions and offerings.

The post Why You Should Seek to Collaborate, Rather than Control, with Procurement Processes appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.