An open exchange of ideas is essential to challenging how we think and work — which in turn sparks innovation. Encouraging diversity of thought is key.
Securing able, adaptable people
Aligning the organization’s workforce strategy to the overall business strategy is essential and the war for talent will be a critical lever in implementation and delivery.
To compete with disruptive start-ups, organizations need people with a different approach and attitude to their work — people that combine the digital skills and knowledge needed to innovate with the business sense and resilience needed to survive for the long term.
Leaders with these qualities are needed to create a prosperous and confident digital future. Yet those people are generally not attracted to companies that don’t share their vision for transforming the working world. In this respect, an organization’s purpose will help to differentiate the employee value proposition to align more closely with the expectations of your people.
Coupled with this, traditional models of corporate hierarchies are changing and one-size-fits-all corporate rewards (compensation, benefits, succession planning) will not deliver the performance and behaviors that businesses require — what motivates someone with a young family is going to be very different to what motivates a new graduate or someone working their way to retirement. So diversity of rewards and an enlightened approach to performance management programs will be essential.
How to address the balance
There are steps that organizations can take today to help their workforce and their business strategy deliver at an equal pace.
- Determine whether leaders are ready to facilitate digital innovation and organizational change: Reassign, develop or replace leaders ill-equipped to lead change
- Educate your board in how to meet the demands of a changing workforce: Regularly review and report to the board on whether compensation and benefits are working
- Support HR teams to enable the necessary changes to drive future success: Refresh roles, organizational structures and people processes to suit the new dynamics of future work
- Have every leader embrace diversity and inclusiveness: Without this, younger workers are likely to vote with their feet