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.

“Wellness” is often thrown around as a word that reflects healthy corporate “behavior” from the perspective(s) of the workforce (including extended talent), owed to a rise in business leadership’s greater understanding of empathy, inclusivity, and other aspects related to a better workplace. As the story goes, happier employees = more productive (and, hopefully, loyal) workers.

Although the Future of Work Exchange typically discusses how rigidity is the “anti-Future of Work” mindset, something as archaic as a desire for a business’ staff to be productive is absolutely one of those measures that is not bound by time or circumstance. That is, it’s always understandable that an executive remains focused on productivity; without this focus, the enterprise fails.

So why do we need to revisit wellness? Didn’t we just talk about this recently? Well, yes, we did. But that was nearly eight months ago, and, in a pandemic-led, economically-volatile, frenetic labor market-fueled world (both business and personal), the stakes have certainly changed.

A second straight quarter of the U.S. economic shrinking technically means that we’re entering a recession…even though it doesn’t necessarily feel like it. However, many organizations are already taking the steps to prepare for the worst, which means cut to the workforce and the linger specter of layoffs through the remainder of 2022.

And, oh yeah, there’s a still pandemic raging, along with a health emergency for monkeypox. Many, many individuals (as much as 2% or 3% of the total workforce, although that number could be lower or higher) could be suffering from “Long COVID” from past coronavirus infections, with the government still not defining how long-haulers can apply for and receive disability options.

These issues not only mean that wellness in the workplace becomes more important; it also translate into the need to reimagine how business leadership addresses and supports wellness in the wake of an evolving world:

• Today’s “new” wellness rules should always, always include engagement and experience in the mix. Wellness is more than an employee or worker being physically healthy and appearing to be mentally fit for their role. Leaders must ensure that they expand how they support both physical and mental wellness during whichever turbulent times may lie ahead; whatever worked even during the worst of the pandemic may already be outdated. In nearly three years of consistent business evolution, the very concept of “wellness” has been transformed to include concepts like employee engagement and the talent experience. The total workforce should be engaged with leadership and their teams and coworkers, grounded in a positive workplace experience, and also feel appreciated, safe, and valued. The next generation of wellness strategies should always include engagement and experience as foundational elements.
• Even the most stoic of performers may have something deeper happening in their personal lives; thus, there is no one-size-fits-all model that will “catch” those that require intermediation. Dips in productivity, a lack of communication, and poor collaboration are all markers of a worker suffering from something negative. These individuals are most often pointed to as the main recipients of wellness support; however, there are many workers that put on a happy face, remain incredibly productive, and seem to have it all together. These workers may not need support on the surface, however, there’s usually an undercurrent of burnout bubbling somewhere. Business leaders should arm themselves with the necessary attitude and knowledge in understanding what the warning signs are for employee burnout.
• The hybrid workplace requires hybrid leadership…which now requires a more strategic mindset. During the spring and summer of 2020, many business leaders grappled with the complexities of managing a newly-remote workforce in the wake of social distancing, quarantining, etc. Video calls and new modes of leadership were straining, leaving these already-exhausted leaders confounded in how to capture the essence of collaboration without the benefit of in-person operations. Today, the issue has become more severe: onboarding workers can be a nightmare via remote methods, not to mention aspects of reskilling, upskilling, mentoring, etc. Business leaders cannot spend a few hours with a new worker and expect them to function productively while on auto-pilot.
• Wellness was the answer all along to a problem that has plagued the business arena for nearly 16 months. Yes, we’re talking about The Great Resignation. Although the numbers dipped in May (4.3 million quits as opposed to 4.4 million the month before), an encouraging trend is emerging: fears of a recession, combined with inflation, may be helping to keep workers put. However, all it takes is a small wiggle upwards and we’re back to the much worse, higher trend. The refrain of “happier workers stay with their companies” could not be more true today. If a professional is engaged, satisfied, and having a positive experience while also working for leaders that are mindful, empathetic, and inclusive, it reflects an ideal recipe for wellness that also bodes well for retention. If workers have a flexible work-life integration, it is a powerful attribute that enables true wellness and wellbeing.

The post The Rules of Wellness Have Changed appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

In a similar manner, much has been written about the “war for talent,” even in pre-pandemic times. For years now, businesses have had to do all that they can to catalyze talent acquisition and talent engagement. When aspects such as workplace culture, business environment, and diversity and inclusion become key reasons why a worker would choose to bring their talents to an organization, the overall “talent experience” suddenly rises as the top differentiator for enterprises in attracting new talent.

To that end, integrated workforce management platform (IWM) provider PRO Unlimited recently announced an exclusive partnership with global human capital solutions provider Ceridian. The partnership will focus on the integration of Ceridian’s unique Dayforce Wallet into PRO’s innovative Worker Experience solution. Extended workers will have direct access to net pay as it is earned; after an on-demand pay request is completed within the Dayforce Wallet mobile app, funds are deposited directly into workers’ Dayforce Wallet accounts (which can then be transferred to checking accounts, withdrawn for cash, used to make purchases, etc.).

“It’s really about rethinking this industry in the sense that the extended workforce is more than just placing and filling roles,” said Jessica Kane, Chief Client Officer, PRO Unlimited. “We want to bring all of that talent-fueled data and intelligence together for the best possible worker experience. Businesses want to attract the best and brightest workers, and this partnership with Ceridian will certainly drive more choice into the overall talent experience.”

Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 80% of businesses are now focused on transforming their workplaces into more attractive places to work, a statistic that reflects the core mindset of enterprise leaders across the world: develop an alluring, positive environment in which candidates what to work and thrive.

“Skills have really become the new currency,” said Kane. “We want workers to be able to utilize those skillsets, combined with our data and intelligence, to support them along their career journeys and enable them to choose the right paths. Thinking about the opportunities and the clients that offer these roles, how do enterprises attract workers to these positions? Combining our data ocean and integrated workforce platform with on-demand pay through Ceridian, we can leverage all of these innovations in helping workers purse their passions.”

“Worker Experience is a standalone solution that will revolutionize how businesses transform the overall candidate and worker experience,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “Functionality such as worker engagement and profiling (amongst other processes) are already integrated into our platform via WillHire, however, this new partnership will enhance those pieces of our solution and push worker experience management into the extended workforce.”

The concept of “day pay” has become a hot topic in the extended workforce world, as industries such as light industrial, warehouses, and other shift-based businesses experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor. As businesses in these sectors strive to build compelling and engaging candidate experiences, traversing into on-demand pay will become a critical measure. PRO Unlimited certainly understands the implications of this innovative market shift, which is reflected in this unique and pioneering partnership with Ceridian.

The post With Ceridian Partnership, PRO Unlimited Doubles Down on the “Worker Experience” appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

Let’s forget for a moment that the very concept of “remote work” has dominated nearly every business discussion over the past year-and-a-half; while Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 41% of workers are now operating in a remote or hybrid model (compared with 23% during pre-pandemic times), these conversations don’t change the fact that, moving forward, this will become (if it isn’t already) a standard way of working.

The deeper discussions around and within the Future of Work revolve around innovation, not just flexibility or agility. Flexibility itself is just one strategy to apply to how work gets done; innovation, on the other hand, is how work is optimized. The Future of Work revolves around the many slivers of innovation that help businesses: 1) tap into the skills they need in an on-demand fashion, 2) harness the power of new and emerging technology platforms, 3) transform the very way they think about business leadership and business development, and, 4) reimagine the very ways the workforce contributes to and addresses how work is done.

As such, the following outlets of innovation are truly what will drive the Future of Work into 2022 and beyond:

• The “talent experience” is ushering in a new era of the modern-day worker and its ultimate impact on business. The main reason that we’re still facing “The Great Resignation”? It’s not just compensation (although that will always a focus for the workforce). Workers now demand several attributes for their next gig, including a positive workplace, an inclusive culture, clear career paths, chances to reskill and/or upskill, and potential leadership opportunities. This “Age of the Worker” is founded on employee engagement, the talent experience (which encompasses both FTEs and non-employees), personal alignment with a potential company’s brand, and the proper work-life balance.
• The complete transformation of business leadership. The most unheralded aspect of the Future of Work has always been how business executives have been slowly reimagining the ways they manage their people, processes, and technology. The “process” and “technology” pieces are in a consistent state of flux; enterprise executives are continuing to pontificate the relationship between the two and how next-generation automation (particularly artificial intelligence, bots, RPA, etc.) can reboot the tactical and transaction-based facets of the greater businesses. The greatest evolution, however, has been happening over the past year-plus: integrating empathy and wellbeing into core leadership values and strategies. Empathy, as stated here on FOWX previously, is the only way forward for today’s business leaders.
• Reimagining the expansive role of the total workforce. Flexibility is often rooted within the “extended workforce,” which is another phrase for defining the growing impact of agile talent and contingent labor. However, it’s the power driven by the total workforce and the management structures behind this that will spark the next great work optimization strategies. Businesses require total talent intelligence that will give hiring managers and other executives the necessary viewpoints into 1) current skills across the organization, 2) how these skills are linked to critical projects and initiatives, 3) how the organization leverages predictive workforce analytics to forecasting future skills gaps, and, 4) how other business units (particularly product development, sales, IT, etc.) should comprise the makeup of skills within their unique teams.
• Business imperatives reflecting the fluidity of societal, economic, and labor market trends. Make no mistake: the contemporary enterprise must be laser-focused on driving better and desirable business outcomes. However, the line between “business” and “human” continues to blur, its ramifications cascading into the very fabric of organizational operations. Business leaders must be in tune with the societal focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion by baking it into talent engagement, talent management, and workforce planning. Economic factors should be included in workforce and financial forecasting. And, labor market trends should be a guiding light towards how businesses should engage new candidates and how they reimagine traditional means of workforce management. The Future of Work dictates that businesses take into account both internal and external forces in how they ultimately get work done.

Make no mistake about it: the Future of Work and flexibility will be forever linked, especially as we crawl our way out of the most uncertain period of both our personal and professional lives. However, when we get to the very core of the Future of Work movement, innovation must be its nexus for businesses to truly optimize how work is done.

The post The Future of Work is More Than Flexibility appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.