I’m lucky enough to have spent the past 18 years of my career at two firms (nearly 12 years with the famous Ardent Partners, the research parent of the Future of Work Exchange), however, before my foray into the world of human capital technology, the Future of Work movement, and talent management and technology research, I spent some time at companies with not-so-empathic leaders.

For example:

• A VP who told me that it wasn’t okay to say “How’s it going?” to another person if I hadn’t met them yet.
• A company owner who said that if I ever got tired, I wasn’t fit for a career in writing. (Let me know if you know someone that has never been or will never be tired…)
• Another company owner (same company, different owner) who said I had a “defeatist attitude” when I told him that I didn’t feel appreciated or valued enough after working 80+ hour weeks for a straight month after two employees quit.
• A CEO who said, after finding a single (one!) spelling error in a document that I produced (that totaled over 40 pages), that I needed to spend more time focusing and less time “theorizing” when writing, and;
• A certain company owner (twice on this list!) that told me that I “would never find anything out there” when I resigned and gave my two weeks’ notice.

The specific examples above all link back to one key element: a terrible workplace culture. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research has discovered that, over the past 12 months, 72% of businesses have taken steps to enhance workplace culture to better foster collaboration, engagement, diversity, and innovation.

Workplace culture isn’t just a nebulous concept anymore, but rather a true Future of Work state that affects talent acquisition, talent attraction, hiring success, brand awareness, and talent sustainability.

For too many years, I focused on those negative experiences, as well as my own professional mistakes. Sometimes they drove me to be better. Sometimes they hindered my progress. And, sometimes, they affected my mental health.

The mistakes and failures of the past, especially those stemming from poor leadership, can serve as invaluable lessons to shape the workplace cultures we strive for today. Rather than allowing past missteps to hold us back, we should use them to catalyze meaningful, positive change. Two years ago, ten years ago, or even twenty years in the past – the ideal workplace cultures we envision today should be informed by what we wish we had experienced back then. Reflecting on the shortcomings, pain points, and dissatisfactions of the past equips us to actively create the thriving, employee-centric environments we want to see now.

In today’s globalized, competitive business landscape, workplace culture has become a critical component of success. Elements like worker wellbeing, mental health support, employee experience, and overall company happiness are no longer optional – they are essential for retaining top talent, fostering innovation, and driving enterprise-wide prosperity.

Organizations that prioritize cultivating positive, enriching workplace cultures will be best positioned to thrive. By learning from past mistakes and intentionally shaping workplace cultures aligned with employee needs and values, companies can gain a competitive edge in attracting, developing, and retaining the best people.

The key is to let the lessons of the past propel us towards a better future, rather than allowing them to hold us back. With this mindset, the missteps of yesterday can become the catalysts for the workplace cultures of tomorrow.

The post Learning from the Past to Build the Workplace Cultures of the Future appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

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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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.

Inclusivity Is Paramount

93% of business leaders state that they are focusing leadership efforts on developing and cultivating a more inclusive workplace culture. Not only does this invoke a sense of belonging within the workforce, but it can enhance brand reputation when promoted on recruitment portals and in the media. More job candidates are seeking employment with enterprises that place a premium on inclusivity.

Providing Purpose

Over the next 12 months, nearly 70% of business leaders plan to develop a vision and plan for making work more purposeful across the organization for its total workforce. In his Fast Company article, Raj Indupuri, CEO of digital clinical software and service provider eClinical Solutions, said it’s critical to have leadership goals that all employees can align with. “In my experience, it’s more enjoyable to come to work when surrounded by others who are equally passionate about your purpose.”

A Focus on Well-Being

Throughout 2023, nearly 75% of executive leaders anticipate enhancing the ways the business improves worker well-being and mental health. While the impacts of the pandemic have subsided, the emotional effects continue to linger. Monitor employee well-being and mental health through surveys and regular one-on-one check-ins with team members. Such feedback is crucial to identifying employees who may require specific mental health services or programs.

Empathy-Driven Leadership

Today, 65% of executives include empathy in their management styles, which reflects a flexibility-driven approach to leveraging more humanity in how they lead. This can lead to more open communication between employees and leadership, as well as a greater comfort level in presenting ideas that could result in untapped innovation.

The Conscious Leader

Over the past year, 73% of executives have moved towards more of a “conscious leadership” approach, which centers around the understanding of worker perspectives, emotions, and concerns. Conscious leadership brings the human aspect of leadership management full circle.

Is the current business leadership transformation sustainable? The outlook is hopeful. By modeling and promoting such behaviors as empathy, conscious leadership, and a focus on DE&I principles, it unifies the workforce to not only adopt those approaches but also hold business leaders accountable. That accountability will help sustain the Future of Work ideals and continue the evolution of an employee-centric workplace.

The post Sustain the Leadership Evolution appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

Earlier this year, the Future of Work Exchange featured a piece that discussed why the Future of Work movement required more humanity:

“This is where the “human element” enters the picture. Today’s business leaders don’t have to wrap every one of their approaches in a sheen of empathy, they just need to integrate more humanity into how they manage and structure their workforce, as well as how the overall enterprise gets work done. This transformative strategy towards leadership requires a bit of “reimagination” and a dedication to emotions and being purposeful with those emotions.”

Today’s business leaders have been bombarded with recommendations from both sides of the Future of Work coin, feeling they must improve their technology utilization and acumen and enhance they way they manage and lead. It’s the type of pressure that can be too much to bear, especially considering that 1) we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, 2) there’s a war raging on the other side of the world that is both a humanitarian and economic crisis, 3) supply chain disruptions are still the norm, and, of course, 4) a tight and competitive labor market is one giant staffing nightmare (hello, Great Resettling!).

But, the truth is this: no matter how much like it feels we’ve returned to “normal” in some aspects of our lives (back to concerts? Movies? Restaurants?), the business arena is one that will forever be altered by the many Future of Work accelerants that transformed it over the past near-26 months. And it cannot be said loudly enough: the workplace itself has changed and must continue to change in the months ahead.

There’s a “heart” in the center of every organization, one that beats in tune with the way the enterprise treats its workforce, partners, suppliers, and customers. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic forced us, as people, to give more heart to ourselves and each other. We’ve seen this in parallel with many businesses around the world…but there are too many out there that haven’t bought into this concept. The Future of Work, in 2022, is about empathy. It’s about emotional intelligence. It’s about the humanity within ourselves, our leadership, and our workforce. It’s about the way we treat each other when things are great…and when things aren’t so great.

That beating heart at the center is reflected in workplace culture. It’s reinforced by the way leaders allow staff the flexibility they need to get work done and be normal, functioning humans, parents, caregivers. We’ve talked about conscious leadership, empathy-led leadership, and other non-technological shifts that have welcomed the Future of Work into businesses across the world. The best workplace cultures are ones that prioritize enterprise values and support “beyond-perk” attributes for their staff, such as hybrid work models, true flexibility, and behaviors that reflect corporate, ethical, and social responsibility.

The heart of workplace culture must pump with purpose, fueling both leaders and workers alike with a sense of inclusion, diversity, and wellbeing. These non-technological attributes, when combined, form the foundation of a corporate culture that is appealing to new and existing workers, helping to redefine talent retention. And, critically, in a business arena in which approximately 43%-to-47% of talent operates remotely (according to Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research), the permeation of a positive and human workplace culture means that even staff that aren’t in the physical location will benefit from this major shift in business leadership and corporate transformation.

The post BEST OF 2022: The “Heart” of Workplace Culture appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

Neha and Christopher discussed a variety of issues related to the state of talent and the future of work (click to listen to the full interview). This is an excerpt from that conversation. (Note that this excerpt has been edited for readability.)

Neha Goel: As we explore the human element in the workplace, let’s talk about another tenant of the Future of Work — empathetic leadership. Is this something you are seeing put into action? And can empathetic leadership be measured in a meaningful way?

Christopher J. Dwyer: Yes and no. I feel like there is an appointed effort. There is a very focused effort for leaders to be more deliberate in leading with empathy and leveraging conscious leadership tactics. But, I do not think many organizations have a handle on how to measure it.

That is where we need to go as business leaders. It is tough to measure something like that, however, because it is so qualitative. How do we know that we are doing the right things as leaders? Or how do we know that we are leading in the right way? How do we know that our employees are having a positive experience and that they feel safe and comfortable? Do they feel that they are part of an inclusive culture?

It circles back to the question of how to measure those things. NPS scores are not going to help. Informal surveys may give you some type of picture. This is the next big leadership challenge going into the second half of the year and into 2023. It can be difficult measuring not just empathy, but how cognizant you are of your leadership and its impact.

It is encouraging to see that more leaders are very conscious of their styles of leadership. But you still see many leaders who are not flexible and still rigid — the Elon Musk-type celebrity CEO who does not care about flexibility or employee feelings, and insists we need you in the office and you need to be part of the team. (Editor’s note: check out yesterday’s article on Malcolm Gladwell’s horrible take on remote work.)

We are so far past that. I have been saying for over two years that there is no way you can put a positive spin on a worldwide pandemic that has killed so many people. It has disrupted life so much. But if you were to take the positives of the fallout from the pandemic, there are many accelerants from the Future of Work angle that came to light.

You have remote work, the reliance on automation and tech, and the desire to be more data-led to gain a better understanding of where we are going as a business and how we are going to survive. But there is the other piece where leaders need to realize that they need to change their leadership style or risk losing workers.

“I am going to lose the talent that exists in my business, and I do not want that to happen.” I do see leaders doing it, but measuring it continues to be a challenge. I do not think many organizations have that figured out yet.

NG: That is fair. It would be fascinating to have you back in a few months and see potential progress.

CJD: Absolutely. I look at some of the most read articles on the Future of Work Exchange since we launched, and one of the top three articles is a piece on why empathy is the only way forward.

A reason it is one of the most popular pieces is that business leaders are interested in trying to hone their style to be more flexible, more empathetic, and more conscious in thinking about their workforce and their staff.

I remember the early days of the pandemic quite clearly. Memories of COVID-19 close contacts and quarantining, 14-day isolations, and kids unable to go to school. Neha, you have young kids, as I do. How disruptive was it to have kids at home for weeks and months at a time? And remote learning was not exactly a conducive way to learn for them (even though it’s a great way to work, haha).

Truly conscious leaders understood how difficult that was for their staff. And they were the ones who were offering flexible options or realizing that, “Hey, this person needs to sit with his or her daughter as she does second grade remotely. Yes, he or she is going to be offline for a couple of hours, but will be back in the afternoon.”

It is leaders who truly step into their workforce’s shoes and acknowledge what everyone is going through and recognizes the need to support them through this. Those are the leaders who are realizing their workforce is happier. They are more engaged. They know that we are here to support them.

I would love to come back in four or five months and say we have a couple of real-life cases we can share of how a business was able to measure its effectiveness. Did our profits go up? Did we have less turnover? I think those could be some of the early metrics to use.

The post Can We Measure Empathy at Work? appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

“This is where the “human element” enters the picture. Today’s business leaders don’t have to wrap every one of their approaches in a sheen of empathy, they just need to integrate more humanity into how they manage and structure their workforce, as well as how the overall enterprise gets work done. This transformative strategy towards leadership requires a bit of “reimagination” and a dedication to emotions and being purposeful with those emotions.”

Today’s business leaders have been bombarded with recommendations from both sides of the Future of Work coin, feeling they must improve their technology utilization and acumen and enhance they way they manage and lead. It’s the type of pressure that can be too much to bear, especially considering that 1) we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, 2) there’s a war raging on the other side of the world that is both a humanitarian and economic crisis, 3) supply chain disruptions are still the norm, and, of course, 4) a tight and competitive labor market is one giant staffing nightmare (hello, Great Resettling!).

But, the truth is this: no matter how much like it feels we’ve returned to “normal” in some aspects of our lives (back to concerts? Movies? Restaurants?), the business arena is one that will forever be altered by the many Future of Work accelerants that transformed it over the past near-26 months. And it cannot be said loudly enough: the workplace itself has changed and must continue to change in the months ahead.

There’s a “heart” in the center of every organization, one that beats in tune with the way the enterprise treats its workforce, partners, suppliers, and customers. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic forced us, as people, to give more heart to ourselves and each other. We’ve seen this in parallel with many businesses around the world…but there are too many out there that haven’t bought into this concept. The Future of Work, in 2022, is about empathy. It’s about emotional intelligence. It’s about the humanity within ourselves, our leadership, and our workforce. It’s about the way we treat each other when things are great…and when things aren’t so great.

That beating heart at the center is reflected in workplace culture. It’s reinforced by the way leaders allow staff the flexibility they need to get work done and be normal, functioning humans, parents, caregivers. We’ve talked about conscious leadership, empathy-led leadership, and other non-technological shifts that have welcomed the Future of Work into businesses across the world. The best workplace cultures are ones that prioritize enterprise values and support “beyond-perk” attributes for their staff, such as hybrid work models, true flexibility, and behaviors that reflect corporate, ethical, and social responsibility.

The heart of workplace culture must pump with purpose, fueling both leaders and workers alike with a sense of inclusion, diversity, and wellbeing. These non-technological attributes, when combined, form the foundation of a corporate culture that is appealing to new and existing workers, helping to redefine talent retention. And, critically, in a business arena in which approximately 43%-to-47% of talent operates remotely (according to Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research), the permeation of a positive and human workplace culture means that even staff that aren’t in the physical location will benefit from this major shift in business leadership and corporate transformation.

The post The “Heart” of Workplace Culture appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

The truth is that so many of us were historically focused on hardline metrics and benchmarks regarding productivity and how work was addressed and done that many business leaders forgot about the most critical component of all when it comes to the Future of Work: the human element.

While there are many lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from the viability of the hybrid (and remote) work model and the continued impact of agile talent (as well as how crucial digitization is in managing operational enterprise processes), there is one experience that should become a permanent foundation for how business leaders manage moving forward.

Mental wellbeing should be front-and-center in every leader’s plans for 2022…and every year after that. In fact, mental wellbeing within the workforce goes hand-in-hand with the trends towards empathy and empathetic leadership; empathy and wellbeing together, then, form a Future of Work-led convergence of non-technological elements that can truly transform the way workers structure their careers and better manage work-life integration.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) estimates that nearly 44 million people in America experience mental illness on average every year. And, to boot, NAMI also estimates that roughly 75% of all chronic mental illnesses begin by age 24…coincidentally, the age when most adults are at the very beginning of their career journeys.

If we are going to look at the impact of mental wellbeing from an archaic point-of-view, fine, let’s do that (but for only a moment): workers that are suffering from a mental illness are more likely to be disengaged from their work, less productive within the scope of their roles, and more likely to miss key milestones and delivery dates. The more important thing to do, though, is look at this from a human element: workers suffering from mental illness are more likely to have the problem exacerbated by stress from their jobs, more likely to require professional and medical assistance, and, unfortunately, more likely to engage in extreme and self-harmful behavior (such as drug and alcohol abuse, and, unfortunately, suicide).

That’s why viewing mental health at work from purely a productivity standpoint goes against the grain of being more “human” in how we manage the workforce. As the pandemic lingers and the collective trauma weighs on those suffering from mental illness, now is the time to build the business response to this epidemic:

• Provide (and communicate the availability of) mental health support through wellbeing resources. Businesses will often state that they have built-in resources for workers to leverage if needed. However, there has been a collective failure on the part of leadership to actually (and consistently) communicate the availability of those resources to their staff. Amongst many lessons learned over the past 18 months, there is a clear need for enterprises to invest in mental resources in order for their workforce to feel supported. Does the business healthcare plan cover tele-therapy? Are psychiatrists and LMHCs part of the overall medical network? Workers require fast and easy answers to these questions.
• Eliminate the negative stigma around mental health and related conversations. The very concept of mental health is still unfortunately a taboo topic in both the personal and business arenas. However, it doesn’t have to be, nor should it be. Mental health is just as critical as physical wellbeing; for far too long, many people (both within the personal and business realms) considered mental health to be far less important than physical health, when, in fact, the two are inherently linked. It is encouraging to see public figures, such as Atlanta Falcons star wide receiver Calvin Ridley and tennis hero Naomi Osaka, step away from the globe’s biggest sports to focus on mental health. As mental health and mental illness become destigmatized, there is hope that more and more individuals will speak up when they need to refocus on their own emotional wellbeing without fear of negative feedback from colleagues and managers.
• Involve various stakeholders in the architecture of mental wellbeing strategies. It shouldn’t fall solely to the HR group to facilitate the development of workplace wellbeing, especially as it concerns mental health initiatives. While human resources can be responsible for the foundation, other key stakeholders should provide their best perspectives. At its core, a mental wellbeing strategy should revolve around core mental health policies, execution of those policies, and ways that illness can be monitored so the appropriate steps can be taken for intervention and support. The ultimate point is this, however: whatever strategy or program is built, it needs a strong backbone that is supported by various groups across the enterprise. If mental health is to be taken seriously, then business leaders across all functions need to be prepared for issues as they arise and understand that aspects such as risk mitigation are just as critical as worker rehabilitation.
• Understand that mental wellness takes many forms, particularly depression, anxiety, burnout, etc. Mental wellbeing isn’t just linked to an imbalance of emotions, but rather a full “tree” of conditions that are all linked to overall mental health. Depression and anxiety may be pre-existing illnesses that are likely to be exacerbated by working conditions, while burnout occurs in even the most stout of workers that may not have historically shown signs of mental illness. “Accommodation” is ultimately the key here; business leaders must understand that mental wellbeing is a critical attribute of the Future of Work, and thus doing what they can to support and accommodate workers as they experience mental illness is a foundational way to ensure that talent can get the help they need and be ready to contribute to the greater organization when they are ready to do so.

The post Mental Wellbeing’s Critical Role in the Future of Work appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.