Remote Work Archives - The Future of Work Exchange

The Fluidity of the Future of Work

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 03/05/2024

For well over a decade, the “Future of Work” phrase has elicited both excitement and confusion. There is an inherent joy associated with the pathways of progression around the concepts of “work,” yet, complexities remain from defining exactly what is the “future state” of how we work. As the phrase, and its subsequent movement, caught fire in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic while the rules of work changed, the “Future of Work” became a foundational piece of business lexicon and we bore witness to an ever-evolving landscape of revolution, innovation, and technology.

Four years ago at this time, many of us (well, let’s be honest: all of us) were focused on the most critical of all Future of Work accelerants: remote and hybrid work. Who could know back then that this would open the floodgates into new and exciting ways of structuring workplace environments?

The Future of Work Exchange has oft-discussed this concept of “acceleration” in that pandemic-era restrictions, and, by consequence, the forced changes of how we work, pushed enterprises across the globe into a new era of work optimization.

With our backs against the proverbial wall, we responded by innovating. And by innovating, we continued to transform how we work, when we work, and where we work.

With nearly a quarter of 2024 in the books (time flies, doesn’t it?), the landscape of Future of Work-led shifts within the workplace (and how we work) represents the true fluidity of this movement; as technology continues to progress and as businesses seek to innovate around the areas of proficiency, efficiency, and productivity, we can anticipate a continuous evolution in the workplace dynamics, such as:

The much-vaunted four-day workweek. The Exchange’s John Yuva wrote about this strategy in 2023, finding that four-day workweeks “lead to lower stress levels as well as a happier and more loyal workforce,” as well as a major increase in productivity. The issue keeping the strategy from adoption, though? The vertical-to-vertical adherence to four days instead of five means that there’s a gap in customer- and client-facing servicing, leaving managers to struggle over another staffing issue in an era when the labor market is already volatile.
“Chronoworking” as a potential workplace disruptor. Chronoworking is innovative as it aligns work schedules with individuals’ peak productivity times, optimizing performance and creativity. However, its adoption can be challenging due to the need for a shift in traditional work paradigms, potential resistance from established routines, and the necessity for effective communication and coordination among team members following varied schedules
The convergence of new workforce generations and the importance of workplace culture. With Boomers mostly out of the workforce and Gen Xers approaching the last decade or so of their careers, it means that millennials and Gen Z workers represent the majority of today’s talent. Although this shift has been happening in some capacity over the past few years, the newer blend of workers means that there’s the utmost pressure on leaders to shore up workplace culture and ensure that the “work experience” meets the evolving requirements and desires of the younger generation.
The impact of AI on the workplace. Artificial intelligence is the next great level of innovation, with generative AI as its calling card. Generative AI is poised to revolutionize the future workplace by automating complex tasks, fostering creativity, and enhancing overall efficiency. Through its ability to autonomously generate content, solutions, and insights, generative AI will free up human resources to focus on higher-level decision-making and innovation. This transformative technology holds the potential to reshape workflows, streamline processes, and create a more dynamic and adaptive work environment, ultimately driving increased productivity and competitiveness in the evolving landscape of the modern workplace.

Employee Experience and the Power of Engagement

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion General Insights HR Talent by John Yuva on 02/29/2024

One business constant over the last four years is uncertainty. Whether it’s the economy, geopolitics, or the overall market, enterprises must contend with that sense of the unknown. As such, having a flexible and agile workforce is essential when market dynamics shift. Flexibility and agility often derive from employee experience (EX) initiatives. Organizations that prioritize employee experience are more internally aligned and can better pivot when needs arise.

However, essential to employee experience is understanding that it goes beyond employee satisfaction. Rather, it is a strategic imperative that directly influences organizational culture, success, and the ability to navigate an ever-changing business landscape.

Employee Experience Begins and Ends with Engagement

A core element of employee experience is engagement — with a lack of engagement consequential to an enterprise. For leading organizations, engagement begins in the recruitment/hiring phase where an emphasis on desired skillsets and cultural alignment contributes to talent retention; engagement is then prioritized through the last day of employment with workers serving as enterprise ambassadors in their next opportunity.

What are the consequences of low employee engagement? According to an article by Jim Harter, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Workplace for Gallup, a 2023 survey of U.S. employee engagement of full- and part-time employees showed a 1% decline between mid-year (34%) and end-of-year (33%). This reflects an overall contraction of 3% compared to the annual high of 36% in 2000 when Gallup first began reporting U.S. employee engagement statistics.

A 1% mid-year decline and a 3% overall-high decrease may seem minuscule, but Harter points out the significance. “Each percentage point gain or drop in engagement represents approximately 1.6 million full- or part-time employees in the U.S.,” he writes. “Trends in employee engagement are significant because they are linked to many performance outcomes in organizations. Not engaged or actively disengaged employees account for approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationally.”

The bigger observation from the Gallup survey is that nearly 70% of organizations are not actively engaging with workers. This presents an even bigger challenge for their talent retention, productivity, and market competitiveness efforts.

A Thriving Employee Experience

Employee experience begins with a culture shift — one with an intentional and sustainable foundation. It is not a finite strategy, but rather an evolving enterprise mission. Today’s Future of Work paradigm encompasses many elements that contribute to a successful employee experience approach. The following are EX areas that can have the greatest benefit to an organization’s success, productivity, and overall well-being.

Remote and hybrid flexibility. Here at FOWX, we’ve talked extensively about remote and hybrid work. Since the pandemic, the flexibility to work remotely has become one of the biggest EX benefits. Many organizations made remote/hybrid work models a permanent choice for employees. However, over the last year, several of these same enterprises pulled back on remote work and implemented return-to-office mandates. The employee response was swift in some cases, with workers publicly protesting these decisions. Studies have shown that productivity increases with remote/hybrid work models and leads to improved employee well-being. Organizations should focus on providing tools that foster virtual team-building activities and creating policies that support work-life balance.

Employee empowerment. When workers are empowered to perform their jobs and advance their skillsets, it instills a sense of trust and greater employee satisfaction. As more organizations pursue digital transformation, they introduce new workflow technologies and platforms. These technology investments are to streamline processes, enhance productivity, and enable global collaboration. To thrive in this evolving digital environment, business leaders should empower workers with continuous learning opportunities, such as right-skilling, upskilling, and other training programs. This “people” investment contributes to a more positive and productive employee experience.

DE&I focus and promotion. Despite growing criticism and legislation surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, workers continue to value enterprises that actively promote DE&I and implement policies and programs to address existing gaps. Younger generations in particular expect organizations to align with societal expectations through the integration of diverse hiring practices and unconscious bias training. Such programs not only create a workplace where workers feel valued, respected, and recognized but can lead to higher levels of engagement and innovation.

Human-centric culture. When organizations prioritize their employees, the culture reflects this by placing importance on employee mental health and well-being. This generally requires empathetic leadership capable of addressing work-life balance issues that can lead to stress and burnout. A human-centric culture is an employee experience-first workplace, offering remote work opportunities, setting boundaries for work-related issues, providing mental health services and encouraging their use, and fostering a check-in management approach whereby managers meet with team members weekly to evaluate workloads and gauge overall well-being.

Employee experience is a central Future of Work topic that FOWX will continue following. How enterprises approach EX amid growing in-office mandates and DE&I criticisms is yet to be seen. However, there’s little denying that EX is an underlying factor in business success. At the end of the day, employees are the lifeblood of enterprises. How workers perceive their organization and culture is significant to productivity outcomes and overall organizational health. In today’s modern business environment, EX is essential.

When a Return to the Office and Workplace Culture Collide

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/27/2024

Although it’s hard to believe, it’s been four years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. And in that time, several key Future of Work “accelerants” took the business arena by storm. The extended workforce, long a viable source of talent, saw a remarkable increase in utilization as businesses sought true workforce scalability in the face of uncertain times.

Direct sourcing began to take off as a means of nurturing talent communities and developing a near-self-sustaining source of on-demand expertise. Skills-based hiring emerged as a way to look “beyond” costs and pay rates to revolutionize how enterprises innovative and leverage next-generation skillsets.

Empathy-led leadership and emotional intelligence became crucial endeavors to separate the successful leaders from those that would eventually lose their staff to the Great Resignation. And, of course, the most famous Future of Work accelerant of all, remote and hybrid work, drew most of the spotlight and headlines.

In the wake of social distancing and quarantines and general fear of spreading a once-in-a-lifetime virus, many businesses (that could do so) quickly transitioned to a remote-first infrastructure. This, of course, raised numerous challenges, from issues with trust to concerns over worker productivity. As we know by now, the move to a hybrid workplace resulted in more benefits than drawbacks: in addition to staff having more control over their schedules, they also found that work-life integration vastly improved, as did overall wellness and satisfaction with their leadership, teams, and general everyday business lives. (And, of course, we covered all things remote work here on the Future of Work Exchange.)

While there were very early opponents of the remote work model (hi, Elon) and others that continued to rebel against the thought of workers being at their home offices (James Gorman, we see you), there was a clear and resounding outcome: remote and hybrid work would forever be a foundational element of the world of work.

Four years now removed from the beginning of the pandemic and three years since the arrival of highly-effective vaccines (not to mention two-plus years since the first inklings of “normalcy”), businesses have spent the past 18 or so months dabbling in “return-to-office” mandates that have essentially divided enterprise leaders, with some calling for extreme, pre-pandemic office structures and others sticking to pandemic-era hybrid formats.

While the benefits of both remote and hybrid workplaces are proven and abundantly clear at this stage, the hard truth is that, at some point, companies were bound to slowly increase the number of required days in office, regardless of their stance on RTO mandates.

The business arena of 2024 is the closest we know that resembles pre-pandemic life, and, as such, represents an opportunity for enterprise executives to harken back to those days when offices were bustling and proximity collaboration was an everyday occurrence. However, as stated here on the Exchange in the past, there’s no shoving that genie back into the bottle; workers and professionals not only desire the benefits of remote work, but have also learned the best ways to balance work-life integrational attributes within this model over the past few years.

Today, business leaders are engaged in a tug-of-war with their staff over RTO mandates and the best possible means of balancing “required in-office days” with ensuring workers want to come back to the office. And there’s a major aspect here that is critical to the future of in-office and traditional workplace structures: culture.

“Why would people abandon the comfort of their routine for a commute to the office? Culture is the answer. It’s the way they are treated upon arrival, the atmosphere of the building, and the motivation they feel from leaders and their fellow team members. Culture is empowering and dictates success, fueled by the everyday people who create it,” says Jim Love, Director, Strategic Client Solutions at Talent Solutions TAPFIN.

The very essence of an organization’s identity, values, and camaraderie is intricately tied to its culture, and this moment in time, when RTO mandates are becoming a norm, demands a deliberate and strategic approach. A thriving workplace culture is not merely a byproduct but a catalyst for productivity, innovation, and employee well-being. As employees transition back to shared physical spaces and traditional workplace environments, the culture sets the tone for collaboration, engagement, and a sense of purpose.

As RTO mandates become a part of the fabric of 2024, workplace culture will be the key to convincing workers to come back to the office.

“Culture isn’t one thing. It’s all the small things. And it doesn’t start at the top down. It starts when you smile at the front desk associate. Or when you thank the maintenance staff for the great work they do. Those compounding and small-but-mighty actions are what make people want to feel part of something bigger. Give them a reason to come back – make it ingrained in who you are as an organization,” says Love.

Neglecting the critical role of workplace culture in return-to-office mandates risks creating a sterile environment void of inspiration, hindering the potential for collective achievement and sustained success. In this pivotal juncture, organizations must not only welcome employees back to their desks but reinvigorate them with a vibrant, inclusive, and empowering culture that fuels the journey ahead.

Adds Love, “Don’t just acknowledge and appreciate culture…create and sustain it. Preach your culture, and when necessary, use words. It is the foundation we build to bring people together. When it’s created and sustained, people will come back. Authenticity is what matters…and your culture should shout that!”

The Next Great Era of the Hybrid Workplace

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 09/13/2023

“We’re not putting that genie back in the bottle” is a phrase I’ve used at least two or three dozen times over the past few months whenever I’m asked about the realm of remote and hybrid work and how return-to-office (RTO) mandates are impacting these attributes. No matter how the economy shifts and no matter how far the pendulum swings back in favor of the employer, the phrase will always be true.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a watershed moment for humanity. And it was also a turning point in the business world.

There was much talk about “The Great Recession” and the veritable “talent revolution” happening within the workforce; the idea that workers (finally) would have more control over not only their workstyles but also their destinies sparked an innovative movement, buoyed by Future of Work accelerants like empathy-led leadership, more inclusive workplaces, and, yes, flexibility.

The Great Recession wasn’t going to last forever, though, especially as the economy tumbled and life in general began to revert back to pre-pandemic ways. It was inevitable that many of the strategic gains of the pandemic, specifically the power shifting to the worker, would fade as the world emerged from the emergency phase of the pandemic. This is, of course, all part of a “Great Resettling” as organizations around the globe configure the future of workforce and workplace operations in a post-pandemic landscape.

But back to the genie and its bottle…

RTO mandates are part of the enterprise fabric of 2023, an unfortunate parallel to uncertain economic times and a corporate universe that sadly eschews culture for profits (something seen in some organizations, not all). However, as much as we read about brand-name CEOs and executives demanding that workers return to the confines of the office, there is still a harsh reality at hand for the leaders that want to turn back the clock:

The hybrid workplace wasn’t meant to be temporary solution…it was designed to be the very future of how we work.

It makes sense, no matter how we slice it, that the large-scale remote work “experiments” are over. That’s one thing that I’m sure we can all agree on; the idea of “fully-remote” is still a crucial element to many businesses but not a foundational layer (anymore) of the workplace for others. This is where the acceptance and embrace of flexibility, even in a changing business world, forms the next great era of the hybrid workplace.

Tell someone that they can no longer walk their children to the bus stop two or three mornings per week. Tell someone that early evening baseball games will have to be missed because of long commutes from the city. Tell someone that doctor’s appointments can no longer be prioritized ahead of work commitments. Tell someone that the flexibility that finally became an accepted aspect of the workplace is suddenly going to vanish.

Discuss these concepts with a highly-skilled worker who epitomizes Best-in-Class expertise, and you’ll observe a swift decline in talent retention—all in pursuit of regaining a semblance of control. The evolution of the hybrid workplace extends beyond physical location; it involves acknowledging that the workforce has integrated flexibility and autonomy into how they work, transforming these into non-negotiable expectations.

What does the next great era of the hybrid workplace entail? It’s so simple: infuse flexibility into how workers style their work preference and communicate the importance of “balance” within in-office vs. remote structures. It shouldn’t be an all-or-nothing approach, as this will not only alienate valued members of the workforce but also leave the enterprise with a negative workplace culture that will taint talent acquisition and candidate engagement efforts. While not a perfect example, companies like Penguin Random House seemed to have adopted this approach, with the company’s CEO, Nihar Malaviya, recently stating, “The needs of the various departments around the company are distinct, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Therefore, each division and department will discuss how we will work together; different managers may make different decisions for their teams based on their job functions and business priorities.”

Again, not perfect, but not so hard-line that workers and potential candidates will be disengaged from the organization. Expect to see more and more enterprises, especially in the Fortune 1000, “resettle” into a mode of working that balances both traditional and new ways of thinking. Flexibility became non-negotiable for the workforce, given just how much it allowed professionals to achieve a better work-life integration. For the sake of both talent retention and talent acquisition, businesses must develop a model that works for the company brand, its culture, its workforce, and its workplace.

As we navigate the post-pandemic landscape, businesses that grasp and adapt to this new reality, where flexibility is a bedrock of the workforce, will flourish. The genie may not return to its bottle, but this doesn’t signify chaos; instead, it heralds the emergence of a more adaptable, empowered, and productive era in the world of work.

What Happens When Return-to-Office Mandates Impact Recruitment, Talent Retention, and the Employee Experience?

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 08/08/2023

As I’ve said dozens of times on video, on the Future of Work Exchange Podcast, and during numerous webinars: there is/was no silver lining to a global health crisis that killed millions of people and permanently disabled millions more. Many of us were sick ourselves, and many of us lost people close to use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a dark time in our lifetimes, a period in which everyday routines were altered as lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing became a frustrating (and frightening) norm. While we are three-and-a-half years removed from those scary early days of the pandemic, the ramifications will always be apparent…especially in the business arena. In fact, Future of Work acceleration is now perceived as one aspect that was a positive result of the incredible change brought about by the crisis.

Remote and hybrid work models became the calling cards of the pandemic’s impact on corporate culture, as many organizations swapped to fully-remote infrastructures (in the earliest days of the pandemic) and to more hybrid-oriented workplaces when vaccines became omnipresent. Less than two years after the pandemic began, many threads of “normalcy” were apparent in both personal and business life.

And, of course, when the word “normalcy” came back into rotation, it meant one significant thing for some business leaders: getting workers back to the office. These corporate executives craved one major attribute in the face of The Great Resignation and many months of uncertainty, particularly control, better visibility, and, of course, more regulation around worker productivity.

But, there was no putting the “genie” back into the bottle, so to speak. The pandemic was an opportunity for workers (both traditional and contingent) to broadly and loudly speak for their rights; they craved flexibility, better working conditions, clearer career paths, and, perhaps most importantly, purpose. The pandemic took an emotional, “human” tool on the professional world; workers desired fulfillment beyond their salaries.

So, today, we sit in an interesting position. The economy could be heading for a “soft” recession, or, it may not. The labor market remains volatile. Unemployment remains historically low. Life, for the most part, is as back to “normal” as it could possibly be.

However, the lessons learned from the pandemic, which, by now, should be standard practice moving forward (see: empathy, agility, flexibility, etc.) aren’t sticking for many business leaders, some of which expect their workers to now flock back to the office as if remote and hybrid work were just a fad. This sense of, essentially, “flipping a switch” and return to the bustling office days is not only ignorant, it flies in the face of the many progressions we’ve made since the pandemic began.

Last week, Yahoo published an eye-opening article that detailed survey results from three separate studies on remote work, hybrid workplaces, talent retention, and recruitment. What did they all have in common? Take a guess.

“Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.

Meanwhile, a staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules, according to the Greenhouse report. Moreover, employees from historically underrepresented groups are 22% more likely to consider other options if flexibility comes to an end.

In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2-3% pay cut.”

In 2021 and 2022, remote work was not just a workforce model, but rather a representation of the real flexibility that professionals desired in the wake of the pandemic’s overarching impact. The new world of work dictates that businesses optimize their innerworkings based on the principles of agility, a concept that cascades down into how they find talent, how they align that talent with work, and, of course, how that work is done.

In 2023, remote work should not be considered a “perk” or a “nice to have,” but rather an accepted, hardline work model that promotes the talent experience, improves morale, enhances worker satisfaction, and contributes to greater productivity. Abolishing remote and hybrid work policies for an archaic modicum of control is a foolhardy exercise in how to lose talent and demolish recruitment. Yes, folks, there is still a “war for talent” raging, no matter the economic conditions around us. The businesses that adapt, that have adapted, are the ones that understand the proper balance between flexibility and traditional modes of working.

Talent is an enterprise’s top competitive differentiator, today and always. Retention was a problem even before the pandemic and The Great Resignation; in 2023, losing even a handful of highly-skilled workers can be a death knell for a business that struggles to compete in a globalized market. Remote and hybrid work models aren’t just means of organizational flexibility, but rather:

An effective way to enhance the worker experience through flexible schedules and the “freedom” to make their days more dynamic.
A robust means to improve mental health and worker wellness.
A way of expanding talent pools and talent pipelines to include highly-skilled candidates that reside in other regions.
A powerful workforce productivity concept that promotes quiet spaces, personalized methods of getting work done, etc., and;
The best possible way for keeping and retaining top talent while boosting morale, improving culture, and enhancing overall employee engagement.

The workforce revolution is still happening today, even in post-pandemic times. Remote and hybrid work stand as Future of Work cornerstones, seamlessly blending flexibility and innovation to sculpt a dynamic and interconnected global workforce.

Removing Limitations is the True Future of Work

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/22/2023

“When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.” —Charles M. Schwab

There is something to be said about the personal effects of removing “limitations” on ourselves as people and as professionals. In order for us to truly thrive, we have to leverage rationale that doesn’t limit us in any way. We must be open to new ways of thinking that can change our lives for the better, and this often starts (or should start) with embracing change in all of its forms.

If there’s anything that the business arena learned in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that change is not always a choice. Seemingly overnight, life was halted in ways we could have never imagined. Entire sports seasons were delayed and postponed, businesses were shuttered, and concepts like “lockdowns” and “social distancing” became part of everyday vernacular (as did facial coverings in any type of public setting).

As humans, we adapted, we changed, and we persevered. Although times were frightening and the ambiguity of those days are memories we will unfortunately never forget, many of us saw our fundamental beliefs change in such a way that allowed us to foster better connections with ourselves and each other.

As people, we became more in tune with our emotions, routines, and purpose. As professionals, we now continue to become more aware of our emotions, routines, and…purpose. Sense a pattern? “Purpose” was a fundamental reason why the so-called “Great Resignation” persisted for such a long time. If “work” was such a critical piece of our foundation, then the reevaluation of its place in our lives was amped more than ever so before. Unhappiness, a lack of flexibility, and a lack of true purpose were all limitations that needed to be broken through.

We changed as humans, and thus, we changed as professionals. Through either choice or evolution, we removed limitations on ourselves to optimize our personas.

Enterprises must follow the same approach if they want to thrive in this dynamic new business arena. Archaic thinking threatens the very success of the average organization, be it through a lack of flexibility, failure to adopt new work models, and a general ignorance of innovative technology. Some business leaders are rooted in pre-pandemic thinking, with a belief that now that the emergency phase of the crisis is over, it is time to return to the ways of 2019.

As the Future of Work Exchange once stated months ago: we’re not going back. Not now, not ever.

To think that there is some semblance of years past in 2023 in beyond is, frankly, disengenuous. It speaks to a possible fear of the future, that progression somehow means that business will enter an era of chaos. In some ways, thinking archaically is akin to a level of comfort, a warm and fuzzy feeling that’s synonymous with “easier” times that weren’t founded on uncertainty and change. If we think like it’s 2019, does that mean that the world around us will look, feel, and act like 2019?

Well, no, of course not. 2019 thinking is old thinking, and old thinking is a limitation. And, limitations are essentially barriers to innovation. The workforce is changing. The workplace continues to change. Workers themselves continue to change. Technology is evolving, as is its role and impact on every feature of the modern organization. All of this means that leadership needs to change, as well. We must embrace the transformation around us, be it open talent, blockchain, digital staffing, flexible and empathy-led leadership styles, etc.

There is so much that can be done in today’s dynamic world of work, whether it’s applying artificial intelligence to both tactical and strategic attributes (i.e., scenario-building, predictive analytics, etc.), developing new and exciting work models that promote real workplace flexibility (such as remote work, hybrid workplaces, or even introducing the metaverse to business operations), or revamping the ways the greater business engages and acquires talent (i.e., direct sourcing, omni-channel talent acquisition, etc.). The Future of Work Exchange has often stated that “the transformation of business thinking” is a fundamental component of the Future of Work movement; in essence, the pandemic challenged the ways businesses ran and forced them to reimagine nearly every facet of how they operated.

Although the pandemic was a humanitarian crisis that caused untold loss and disruption, it resulted in an opportunity for businesses to “reset” and rethink the ways they operate and address how work is done. Many attributes of the progressive enterprise were accelerated, enabling a chance to experiment with technology and innovative strategies, as well as push the boundaries of what was possible in regards to the flexible (and agile) workplace and workforce. Many business leaders claimed this opportunity to reimagine what was possible in a corporate setting, but many did not…an all-too-common result of the weight of limitations on leadership’s thinking.

The Future of Work is a movement that is founded on flexibility, innovation, and business transformation. It thrives on new ideas and fresh concepts. Right now is an opportunity for business leaders to remove limitations from their thinking and develop the next-generation workplace (and, of course, workforce) that can take the enterprise into a new dimension.

Technology Adoption an Accelerant for Future of Work

Direct Sourcing General Insights HR Solution Providers Talent Technology and Innovation by John Yuva on 05/23/2023

Within the last few months, coverage of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality have heated up. With apps such as ChatGTP, anyone can test the AI waters and its relevancy to workplace efficiencies. Recent Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research indicated the adoption of new workforce technology and solutions is an enterprise imperative for 68% of survey respondents.

One of the defining characteristics of the Future of Work is digitization. Enterprises are now operating with more remote and hybrid workplaces. Thus, technology is imperative to a cohesive and efficient workforce. What this means for the individual employee is more daily immersion in various technological platforms and solutions. Upskilling will be a critical aspect for workers as they harness more advanced technologies to communicate, collaborate, and execute their roles.

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 “FOWX Live” Executive Roundtable Is Back…Join Us In Boston on June 13

Uncategorized by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/15/2023

Last year, the Ardent Partners team hosted the inaugural Future of Work Exchange LIVE (“FOWX Live”) executive roundtable event, which saw executives from around the globe connect, converse, and network around topics such as the extended workforce, remote and hybrid work, the evolution of talent acquisition, services procurement, etc.

The second annual edition of our exclusive executive roundtable series returns on June 13 in Boston at the historic Harvard Club venue. Join us for an engaging and exciting event in the heart of Boston as we discuss the topics that are driving change in the world of work and talent.

This event will bring together thought leaders and industry experts to explore key topics such as the impact of technology, the changing nature of work, and strategies for attracting and retaining top talent. Whether you’re looking to optimize your procurement processes, revamp your talent acquisition strategy, or improve your HR practices, this event is for you.

Don’t miss this opportunity to network with like-minded professionals and gain valuable insights that will help you drive success in your organization. Register now to secure your spot at the Future of Work Exchange LIVE executive roundtable event in Boston on June 13. We look forward to seeing you there!

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.

What’s The Deal With Virtual Layoffs?

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on 04/24/2023

Try not to read that title aloud in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.

There’s no denying that recessionary fears are resulting in sometimes necessary cost-cutting strategies for businesses across the globe. And there’s no way around budgetary concerns when the economy is still at an unsettled point only three-and-a-half months into 2023. Layoffs are an unfortunate attribute of the corporate arena, in which headcount is reduced in mass quantities as a result of poor performance, market conditions (like we’re experiencing today), a global health crisis (hello, pandemic), and a slew of other reasons.

The world’s biggest and most popular fast-food chain will always weather whatever storm they face, but even McDonald’s has limitations on how they can operate in an uncertain economic climate. Alongside global organizations like Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Meta, Google, etc., the golden arches now faces their turn in the “let’s reduce headcount to save dough” game that so many other enterprises have faced over the past several months.

While layoffs can be heartbreaking and disruptive, they are a cost of business. No one would fault McDonald’s or any other large global entity for slashing their workforce in 2023’s rocky economic road. However, there’s a very, very fine line between a layoff and cruelty…a line that McDonald’s crossed just this past week.

We’re not lovin’ this. At all.

As stated above, yeah, layoffs sometimes need to occur for a business to move forward. Especially in the world we’re living in today. Although costs need to be front-and-center, there’s a right way to conduct layoffs and a completely, erratically wrong way to do so. Guess which way McDonald’s chose?

As reported by The Wall Street Journal:

“In an internal email last week, McDonald’s told U.S. employees and some international staff that they should work from home from Monday through Wednesday so the company could deliver staffing decisions virtually. McDonald’s asked employees to cancel all in-person meetings with vendors and other outside parties at its headquarters.”

McDonald’s U.S. employees were told to work from home for three days and await word on whether or not they would be laid off. Imagine working on a critical project for the fast-food giant; a worker now has the normal, everyday stress of their position while also anxiously anticipating word on whether that position would be cut.

Would anyone be surprised to take a peek at the productivity numbers for those three workdays and notice something off? Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research has found that nearly 75% of businesses are currently experiencing workplace culture issues due to worker anxiety related to economic conditions. And this sentiment was in place before the McDonald’s anti-Future of Work, apathetic display earlier this month. Asking employees to work from home and await a catastrophic decision acutely contributes to this anxiety.

On top of all of this, McDonald’s rolled out sweeping cost-cutting measures (even as the company continues to herald new store openings across the world) such “allowing” employees to keep their jobs with reduced compensation and less bonuses and equity awards. Part of this restructuring also included changes of titles across the organization.

The bottom-line for all of this is all too clear: virtual layoffs, for some organizations, may be a necessity given available resources, however, this is still an area that flies in the face of our Future of Work movement…especially in an age when the candidate experience and the worker experience are supposed to be paramount.

Some may feel that organizations have no choice to deliver layoff news virtually because it’s part of the way we work today, maybe considered a dark side to the remote work boom. Others believe that life-changing news, particularly layoffs, should happen in-person as part of face-to-face meetings.

What’s missing in all of this is the human factor, that sense of empathy and emotional understanding that was such a positive outcome from working under pandemic conditions. Employees will have questions about severance, equipment, and other aspects of their roles; at their core, layoffs are very, very personal conversations that should not occur in a mass environment, let alone virtually.

McDonald’s will unfortunately join fellow corporate giants such as PepsiCo, Twitter, and Google as household brands that drew ire from the world of work for their emotionally-absent layoff methods. Layoffs are a woeful but necessary piece of business today and always, however, they are made much worse when the human factor is completely erased from the process.