Digital Transformation Archives - The Future of Work Exchange

The Most Powerful Future Of Work Tool? Our Minds.

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/01/2024

There is often a major discussion around the technology-led attributes of the Future of Work movement, particularly with artificial intelligence (AI) garnering headlines and encompassing the average LinkedIn feed. However, entering a new year, there should just as much conversation around another key facet of the Future of Work: the transformation of business thinking.

This space and most of the Future of Work Exchange’s thought leadership revolves around the concepts of automation, technology, and the platforms revolutionizing the greater world of work and talent. In fact, our definition of the Future of Work pointedly refers to these advancements: the evolution of talent engagement and talent management through new technology, as well as the introduction of exciting platforms that are actively pushing the boundaries of “work optimization,” are two distinct components at the very core of this movement.

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“Balance” in the Future of Work: Harmonizing Human Centricity and Digital Evolution

Business Leadership Talent Acquisition Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/05/2024

It can be tough to strategize around the best-fit approach for optimizing how we get work done. Digital-focused plans have been top-of-mind for the past several years, with the concept of “digital transformation” a rightly-hyped strategy that prioritizes automation, linkage of enterprise systems, scalability of core processes, and (most importantly) real-time convergence and access of insights and data.

However, the “digital enterprise” cannot survive on technology alone. Innovation does not occur in a vacuum, regardless of just how advanced businesses software (and hardware) is across the greater organization. “Human centricity” should be heralded as a proactive and forward-thinking approach that places not just people in the center of work optimization, but the skillsets inherent within the human workforce.

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The Five Major Shifts Transforming Businesses Today

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/04/2023

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.

Consumerization Will Continue to Shape the Future of Work

Business Leadership Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 03/14/2022

This past weekend, my family and I had the opportunity to watch the new Pixar movie, Turning Red, in the comfort of our own home instead of in a crowded movie theater. Now, I know this isn’t a unique scenario, as many facets of film have been changed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney+ has been a forerunner of the “the premiere is my home” line of blockbuster films over the past two years (in fact, one vivid early pandemic memory I have is rewatching Onward over and over again with my kids during those early lockdown weeks), allowing its users to access new feature films on-demand and from the comforts of the living room.

Other major films, such as The Matrix Resurrections, Black Widow, and Dune, proved that the pandemic also accelerated specific elements of consumerization, mainly the concept of on-demand and digital access to entertainment. We can all remember, as well, vying for coveted Peapod and Instacart delivery slots in the spring of 2020, which was a critical element of consumerization borne from necessity: the age of social distancing meant that many of us would rather pay a slight premium for doorstep delivery of our normal groceries instead of traversing to stores in a pre-vaccine, pandemic-led world.

The very concept of “consumerization in business” is not a new idea; for the past several years, business professionals have desired the same style and accessibility of tools, technology, and applications both in a working environment and as consumers. There was a speed in which e-commerce ran that, for many years, left enterprise technology woefully behind in terms of operating capacity. The move to the cloud, combined with a digital transformation renaissance, has changed that. Consumerization has firmly entrenched itself into the most critical tenets of the Future of Work movement.

In light of and because of the pandemic’s acceleration implications, business leaders expect the speed of the consumer in how they operate the inner-workings of the enterprise. Talent should be engaged and sourced within hours, not days or weeks. Project visibility needs to be extracted in real-time. Budgets and financial data should be proactively garnered, not requested. There is a “fluidity” that we take for granted as consumers: we buy items on Amazon with just a click, we order pizza for delivery in less than a minute’s time, and we can schedule a taxi ride just as quickly.

The consistent rate of innovation and transformation within the consumer world of technology has been creeping into the business arena; all the pandemic did was firmly push it into the fray. Two items stand out (amongst many) in this discussion, leading businesses to focus on these attributes of how they blend a consumerized culture with evolving technology.

Self-service configuration and the journey behind the UX.

Technology serves many, many purposes for the average business, however, at its entry point, it serves only one: that of the person using it. Automation in the world of the consumer must be fast, self-serving, and have a purpose; if it wasn’t, the average person would not utilize their mobile devices for the vast, vast majority of his or her daily processes (communications, content, commerce, entertainment, social networking, business networking, etc.). And so it must be for the business realm: enterprise technology needs to be applicable and accessible to all of its users while also supporting the “journey” (or purpose) within its overall user experience.

Every user must complete a specific task while leveraging an enterprise system. With this in mind, the consumerized aspects of today’s business technology should herald an overall UX that aligns with that “journey,” enabling professionals to harness the power of innovation at their very fingertips. In the same vein, the ability to mold technology into a more agile offering (something we’re absolutely experiencing in the world of workforce management automation) that is tailored to an individual user’s needs, wants, and preferences is what will help the typical enterprise in 2022 navigate not only the complexities of digital transformation, but truly thrive through innovation.

UX and self-service configuration are inherently linked, of course, with the two attributes of technology continuing to be optimized to benefit the user, the customer, the supplier, the partner, the hiring manager, etc.

Consumerization has, for several years now, danced with the business arena. Today, it’s not a matter of when this concept will shape the Future of Work, but rather, to what extent.

No, For Real: We’re Not Going Back

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/15/2022

Last summer, I wrote why the business arena was never going back to “normal,” my arguments owed to the fact that the vast majority of enterprises across the world were now operating in a corporate landscape that encouraged flexibility, innovation, and new and strategic ways of getting work done.

That was in the summer, a time when most of us were just a few weeks removed from being fully-vaccinated and ready for some semblance of normalcy in our personal lives. Could we attend a sporting event in-person? Could our kids finally return to school full-time? Would we be able to have dinner with our older relatives?

We now know that the Delta variant of the coronavirus had much different plans. And, shortly on the heels of that surge, Omicron brought its own playbook.

So now we’re within the end of the winter months. Many of the cities and states that experienced horrible caseloads and hospitalizations around the 2021 holidays and into January are now seeing those waves start to subside. And, inevitably, as things gets better, that question makes its return:

When do things get back to normal?

I was struck by this article in The New York Times by Charles M. Blow this past weekend. Blow writes:

All of us, I believe, were simply waiting to see when our lives would reset, and what the new normal would look like. We still believed that if we did the right things — at least if enough of us did them — that the pandemic would pass and things would snap back to the way they were.

But, as each month passed, and then each year, it became more and more clear that COVID would most likely move from pandemic to endemic.

There are many reasons why our personal lives will never return to normal, given the tremendous change we’ve collectively experienced over the past two years. Blow’s article, “There Is No Post-COVID,” illustrates how “COVID has made us reconsider everything, the meaning of home and work, the value of public space, the magnitude and immediacy of death, what it truly means to be a member of a society. We are still finding the answers to those questions, but the America we knew ended in 2019.”

While business itself doesn’t straddle the line between life and death, a novel virus that has upended the lives of billions of people across the world was always likely to bring permanent change to the way we work, how we work, and, of course, why we work. There should not be a single business leader that could honestly ponder when we would return to the “normal” ways of getting work done.

Societal change has dictated that we invest in and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. Technological change has pushed us into new realms of digital transformation and automation. Leadership has transitioned into empathy-led business culture that pushes the “human” side of business into the forefront. Talent has undergone a revolution that has fundamentally altered the relationship between a business and its workforce, resulting in a “Great Resignation” that will forever transform the dynamics of talent engagement and talent acquisition.

We can see, however, how businesses would apply Blow’s quote above to their corporate world. Those early months of the pandemic, well, more like the first year (before the first vaccine campaigns), heavily-dictated just how much we in the business arena yearned for those halcyon days of 2019. No masks, no social distancing, no supply chain disruptions, no economic uncertainty. Instead, we faced layoffs, furloughs, and a veritable rollercoaster ride that seemingly had no end.

But the world has changed tremendously since then, both from personal and professional perspectives. Remote and hybrid workspaces are flourishing, while the power has shifted to the worker in today’s revolutionary war for talent. Businesses now know that the volatility of today’s market can be flipped to become competitive advantages. The economy is thriving. “Adaptation” has become a foundation for the future. Digitization has come full circle and is now driving innovation within the business stratosphere.

And, most important of all: the Future of Work has been realized.

Remote and Hybrid Work May Have Issues, But They’re Undeniably Powerful Future of Work Attributes

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/09/2022

I’ve long devoured news and analysis related to the concept of remote and hybrid work…and not just during these crazy pandemic times. I’ve been a hybrid worker for the entirety of my career these past 16 years, and, particularly over the past decade, more “remote” than “hybrid.” I’ve stepped into an office only a handful of times since March 2020. Besides my own experiences with the hybrid work, the Future of Work Exchange is committed to helping businesses and workers better understand the implications of such a model, the benefits, how to structure a hybrid infrastructure, and, of course, how the hybrid workplace factors into the digitization of work.

A recent New York Times article by Elizabeth Spiers, former editor in chief of The New York Observer and the founding editor of Gawker, argues that we, as both leaders and workers, have lost some semblance of “work” with it becoming “too casual” over the past two years. “What We Lose When Work Gets Too Casual” highlights that:

“There are trade-offs, though. The loss of workplace formalities like fixed start and stop times, managerial hierarchies with clear pathways for advancement and professional norms that create boundaries between personal and professionally acceptable behavior only hurt workers. Though the pandemic-era transformation of white-collar work seems empowering at first, we should not be deceived: Many of these changes mostly benefit employers.”

Spiers further writes that employers can take advantage of an environment in which the lack of shift formality means that workers will pump extra hours into their work and projects without the extra pay (for salaried employees, of course). This is, in fact, a common drawback to the hybrid model, in which workers cannot seemingly “unplug” from their work and suffer burnout, anxiety, and stress.

It’s often too easy for those work remotely to get caught up in work, to subconsciously allow personal and professional worlds to collide, and to let “casual work culture” become the foundation of a remote working environment. The office becomes home, and the home becomes the offices, Spiers writes. She’s not wrong, as for those white-collar employees that have been working remotely for a lengthy period of time, there is very little crossover between the personal and professional arenas. We stare at our phones checking email, keep our laptops within reach, and spend late nights toiling away. Working at 11pm is just as common as dialing into a video call at 11am.

Spiers’ points are made with good intentions, and she focuses on the fact that this setup mainly benefits the employers. What she is missing, however, is the inherent flexibility that is baked into the hybrid work model. This is what workers crave, it’s what they desire. They want to be able to do the things they want to do without having the pressure of in-person work, long commutes, and endless in-person meetings.

However, there is one idea, above all else, that needs to be taken into consideration. It’s the one driving factor that separates remote work in 2022 vs. remote work in the early months of the pandemic. Businesses must enable their employees with the necessary strategies, solutions, and tools to succeed. Working remotely (or in a hybrid model) does just that, and it’s the most critical argument here. Too much of a “casual” feel to work doesn’t mean that work is being negatively impacted nor does it mean that all remote workers will succumb to burnout (as Spiers writes: “Their personal needs don’t get met because work has so invaded their personal lives that there is no dedicated time for non-work life.”).

Remote work burnout is an issue, for sure. We’ve written about it here on the Future of Work Exchange (rather recently, too!). And I won’t be a hypocrite here: there are many weeks that I’m hitting 70 or 80 hours (or more), as are many of you reading this article. There are times when I sacrifice my personal or family time for work. However, the flexibility will always outweigh whatever imbalances pop up from time-to-time. The fact that I can make breakfast for my kids in the morning or say hi to them in the afternoon instead of being locked in an office? I would gladly take some of those late nights and long weeks for the ability to do these things. It’s a beneficial trade-off, as is the fact that I gain two hours not spending on commutes everyday; I can take the dog for a walk if I have an hour break, or schedule a doctor’s appointment without having to take an entire day off.

The other big point Spiers made in her article is that employers have the ability to “punt” on advancement conversations due to the “informal” environment of remote and hybrid workplaces. She argues that junior and less experienced employees may take on additional work without a clear path to promotions and advancement. While this may be the case in some organizations, I can confidently say that not all business leaders think this way.

The most glaring omission in Spiers’ article is this: she doesn’t mention the “Talent Revolution” happening today, nor the fact that the so-called “Great Resignation” is occurring because of a lack of flexibility within the workplace. Tens of millions of workers have left their roles because of lack of these dynamic benefits, so much so that business leaders are actively trying to configure new ways to find, engage, and source talent based on the overall culture and flexibility of the enterprise itself.

Work may be becoming more casual, but that’s not a bad thing.

Building the Hybrid Workplace is 2022’s Best Path Towards Digital Transformation

Business Leadership Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/07/2022

As far back as four or five years ago, you couldn’t escape the greater business discussion of “digital transformation.” The discourse around digital transformation was quite simple and straightforward: enhance organizational efficiency, operations, and functional value through the adoption of automated solutions and digital technology. Now, the conversation may be much more stripped down than the concept itself, however, as implementing enough systems, connecting them via intricate architecture, and driving real solution adoption are all much more difficult, of course.

The other side of digital transformation (particularly business agility), too, is the fact that the “digital enterprise” harnesses the power of digitization to boost internal and external experiences (candidate, supplier, user, etc.) and end-to-end business processes. When this is taken into consideration, the goal of becoming a truly digital enterprise is that much harder, given the interconnections required to achieve these technology-led and business goals.

An enterprise’s best path towards digital transformation today is to capitalize on something that had been organically growing since before the pandemic while becoming a standardized way of operating during disruptive times: remote and hybrid work. The “hybrid workplace” requires many of the same measures that end-to-end digital transformation does, up to and including executive buy-in, the necessary software, and the cultural attributes needed to drive adoption and value.

Developing the next great hybrid workplace requires investments and resources akin to a full-scale digital transformation. No one said it was going to be easy, however, if a business had been long willing to invest time, money, and energy into digital transformation, why shy away now? Consider the stakes at hand: the so-called “Great Resignation” is largely occurring because employees desire flexibility, agility, and other aspects not related to compensation. The hybrid workplace is not just a “nice to have” at this juncture but rather a pure business investment that will pay incredible dividends in terms of productivity, engagement, and worker experience. Back in 2016 and 2017, digital transformation was the hottest business topic; let’s take that level of passion for digitization and apply it towards building the next great hybrid workplace.
Removing redundancies means a smoother, end-to-end experience for both traditional and remote workers (as well as other key stakeholders, partners, and suppliers). Digitally transforming the workplace to account for a hybrid infrastructure doesn’t just benefit those that primarily work from home. The digital enterprise is founded on a seamless user experience that allows all stakeholders and employees to access data, automation, intelligence, content, etc. in an on-demand manner. By shoring up technology gaps, removing redundancies for access (i.e., too many access points for stakeholders and workers), and providing a near-limitless experience, the greater business benefits from these digital enhancements.
An operational hybrid workplace translates into a superior employee/worker experience. While it’s true (and stated above) that workers crave flexibility, they also desire an overall “work experience” that allows them to be productive, happy, and collaborative. During the early days of the pandemic, the shift to remote work was borne of necessity, leaving little room to account for hybrid workplace nuances. Today, businesses have had time to plan and implement the best-fit hybrid work infrastructure and can truly develop a digital workspace that not only is operational and efficient, but also enables workers with a more positive overall experience. Most importantly: they will have the tools they need to be productive and effective in their roles…a surefire factor in keeping them from taking their talents to another organization.
Hybrid work technology represents the best of what digitization has to offer, allowing enterprises to set the stage for digital transformation. The simplest reason why developing a hybrid workplace is the easiest pathway to digital transformation? The technology in use is current, modern, and is connected to the core components of the Future of Work movement: it creates accessibility, drives intelligence, and boosts interconnectivity between humans and systems. Digital workspace technology is collaborative in nature and enables communication between functional units, as well as automated, on-demand sharing of data and content. The original foundations of digital transformation, even several years ago, revolved around the concept of real-time connections and superior interconnectivity between workers, leaders, customers, and suppliers. The hybrid workplace of today represents all of the aspects…and more.

Fueling Innovation Through Hybrid Work

Business Leadership Technology and Innovation by Featured Contributor on 01/10/2022

[Today’s guest contribution was written by Tim Minahan, EVP Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer at Citrix.]

Given the flexibility and tools to work when, where and how they choose, employees can deliver transformative ideas and results.

The shift to remote work may have been sparked by a public health emergency, but the same technologies that unlocked new ways to ideate and collaborate out of necessity have given rise to some surprising benefits.

Video meetings put every face in the same-sized box, regardless of seniority. Virtual communication tools gave introverts more opportunities to be heard. Neurodiverse and disabled employees, for whom office work might have introduced anxiety or physical challenges, suddenly could participate on their own terms. And all of this has opened the door to greater innovation.

According to “The Era of Hyper-Innovation,” 93 percent of business leaders say that increased digital collaboration has amplified more diverse voices, resulting in richer idea generation. And as hybrid work becomes the norm, the vast majority expect enhanced equity and collaboration to continue and fuel an era of hyper-innovation.

To capitalize on this, leaders will need to abandon some long-held perceptions and think outside the box when it comes to where and how work gets done.

Believing Doesn’t Mean Seeing

Proximity bias, or the tendency to favor those who are seen most often, is one of the greatest obstacles to equity and innovation in the hybrid workplace. It’s nothing new. Research shows that prior to the pandemic, employees sitting closer to leaders may have enjoyed more opportunities for advancement. And according to a study out of Stanford, many managers still see in-person employees as harder workers and higher performers, and grant them more promotions, bonuses, and other opportunities.

But proximity bias doesn’t have to persist. With the right technologies and work policies to support them, it can be overcome. Among the actions leaders can take:

Ensure in-person and remote employees get equal time with managers. Whether meetings with employees are planned or ad-hoc, keep track of them, and create a system to ensure each group is getting equal attention.
Develop objective performance metrics rooted in outcomes, not visibility. This will help reduce the power of proximity bias when evaluating employees for assignments, promotions, and bonuses.
Facilitate bonding experiences that everyone can participate in.Talk with employees to figure out how they want to build stronger relationships with co-workers. Consider creating virtual “break rooms” where employees can drop in for a water cooler chat. Or work with employees to form virtual interest groups or clubs.

Technology Should Liberate, Not Frustrate

To harness the innovative potential of distributed employees, organizations need to adopt solutions that remove the frustration from work and enable them to collaborate with their peers easily and effectively, whether they are working from home, in the office, on the road, or anywhere in between.

Go digital. Digitize all documentation and workflows to ensure equitable, impactful collaboration. Moving to a cloud-based digital workspace solution that serves as a unified hub for collaboration can help with this process.
Establish guidelines to support equitable use. If one employee is remote, consider running the entire meeting virtually to create a more level playing field for participation.
Conduct an IT audit to compare the remote and in-person experience. Using surveys, focus groups, and IT tickets, identify gaps. Then, make an action plan to close them.
Invest in tools that allow for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. Synchronous collaboration tools, like Zoom or Teams, are important. But equally important for innovation are tools that enable employees to do solo deep work or contribute to the team on their own time, wherever they may be. Provide for both.

Beware the Digital Divide

Business leaders are optimistic about the potential of hybrid work to send innovation into hyperdrive, and with good reason. But the model is not without risk. If not carefully implemented, it has the potential to create a new digital divide that, left unchecked, could establish two classes of workers and infuse the workplace with inequity and bias.

To narrow the digital divide that hybrid work threatens to open, companies must implement technologies and work policies that provide for an equitable environment, in which both remote and in-office employees can equally engage and collaborate in a transparent and efficient way. A shared digital workspace, for instance, provides a common and transparent environment in which teams have consistent access to applications and information and can efficiently collaborate on projects to get work done, wherever it needs to get done.

Innovation isn’t an inevitable consequence of hybrid work. It stems from giving employees the space they need to do their best work, on their terms. Leaders that understand and adapt to accommodate this can foster such environments and help their employees – and ultimately, their companies – innovate and succeed.

Tim Minahan is the executive vice president, business strategy and chief marketing officer at Citrix, a leading provider of digital workspace solutions.

Six Big Future of Work Predictions for 2022

Business Leadership General Insights Uncategorized by Christopher J. Dwyer on 01/04/2022

It’s impossible to capture every single possibility for the Future of Work in a single article. What we can do, however, is pinpoint five of the biggest possibilities for work optimization in the year ahead.

Before the path to predictions start, I think it’s important to chat about some caveats here. We are in a much different place than we were a year ago at this time. So, in talking about the future of remote work, the year ahead isn’t going to revolve around whether or not it’s beneficial and viable (which, yes, IT IS!), but rather transforming non-traditional workplace environments into more effective and productive settings.

Without further ado:

Since we teased it above: the digital workplace and the digital workspace will converge. There’s a stark difference between the “digital workplace” and a “digital workspace.” Digitization, as part of broader digital transformation initiatives, has long entailed replacing core pieces of enterprise operations and processes with repeatable, scalable, and interconnected automation. The digital workspace, on the other hand, involves the enablement of truly digital, virtual, and automated access to productivity and collaborative tools for workers no matter where they are located (in the office, on the road, in their home offices, or at their kitchen tables).
The solution to the “Great Staffing Shortage” and “The Great Resignation” revolves around worker prosperity. The one thing that is maddening around the so-called “Big Quit” is that there are so many leaders around the world that cannot grasp the reality of why workers are leaving; on the surface, there are a variety of reasons that include equitable treatment, better compensation, better working conditions, more flexibility, etc. However, dig deeper and “worker enlightenment” shines: the workforce wants to prosper.
Data remains important, but intelligence becomes the gamechanger. In today’s talent tech ecosystems, there are several key platforms from which data flows freely: VMS, HRIS, extended workforce systems, direct sourcing platforms, and proprietary tech offered by MSP solutions. The candidate, FTE, non-employee, freelancer, and professional services data that can be extracted from these solutions presents businesses with an opportunity to derive true total intelligence and allow hiring managers to execute real-time decisions based on the depth of skillsets and expertise within the company’s total talent network. In an age when staffing shortages are the norm, a difference of just a day or two can have major ramifications on the success of a new project or initiative.
Culture becomes the most critical non-technological Future of Work attribute in the year ahead. Businesses have long been successful despite their culture; in 2022, the average enterprise will thrive because of their culture, not in spite of it. Empathetic leadership that converges with an inclusive workplace, environments that promote the power of the worker, and an overall positive, engaging candidate and worker experience are factors that will enable businesses to retain talent, drive talent attraction, and, most importantly, attain true talent sustainability.
The extended workforce continues to grow. This is a prediction that I’ve been making every year for the last dozen or so years, and, I don’t see it changing in 2022. The extended workforce is founded on agility and flexibility, consequently the two biggest areas of need for businesses as they traverse yet another pandemic-led year in which work and talent evolution is the norm. Closing in on half of the globe’s entire workforce, the extended workforce will become even more of a competitive differentiator in addition to the business continuity and “elasticity” that it drove over the past two years.
“Adaptation” molds the way businesses adopt, leverage, and scale innovation. I remember becoming a bit bored of the “digital transformation” discussions of a few years ago, with too many conversations around automating pieces of the business that should have been automated years and years ago. When the pandemic hit, enterprise technology took on a whole new meaning, one that unified the way businesses interacted with customers, suppliers, and their remote workforce, while also developing a culture of real business agility that could help the greater organization better adapt to changing times. Whether it’s core workforce management technology, blockchain-enabled operations, AI-fueled analytics and data analytics, or digital staffing, businesses in 2022 will find that the way they adapt to evolving times will dictate and shape the very ways the harness the power of innovation.

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

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 09/14/2021

“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?