The future of work: one size doesn’t fit all

As future of work models continue to shift, so do the perceived physical requirements that we place on a role. Evaluate whether your workforce has the proper risk exposure, management and oversight, tools and technology, including knowledge sharing and learning practices to perform in their roles to effectively meet the needs of your customers and stakeholders. Much of the value we place on in-person work precedes that the work being performed requires physical work interdependence, and/or deep brainstorming and collaboration. While many roles require physical work interdependence, most white-collar roles do not require it five days a week with research estimates indicating close to 40% of all jobs can be done from home.⁴ Providing the tools for leaders and their teams to evaluate role needs will enable organizations to take an informed approach to empowering employees while meeting their varied needs and desires for flexibility in addition to meeting the needs of your customers and stakeholders.

Leaders have tremendous influence on driving company culture, employee experiences and outcomes. The key to any successful future of work model is empowering and equipping leaders with the right development opportunities, skills and capabilities to lead their teams in an evolving environment. Twenty-seven percent of employer respondents indicated it is one of their top priorities to build out their leader and manager capabilities to manage a remote workforce and support productivity.⁵

Leading teams to work more flexibly, healthily, and effectively means more inclusive, accessible, intentional and considerate leadership. It requires a fundamental change in the skills leaders need to succeed and to bring out the best in themselves and their teams. Leaders need to be equipped with the ability to inspire new ways of working, supercharge people engagement, orchestrate collaboration, enable healthy work and deepen trust to effectively lead with purpose in a dynamic environment

While you may think you know what your employees want, it is important to take the time to evaluate how well you are listening and whether you really understand your employees’ experiences. Employees want to be heard; 56% of employees would stay with a company that emphasized their needs.⁶ Employers often listen closely to employees during onboarding and again when they are about to leave, missing several key opportunities to collect real-time, valuable insights throughout their entire journey. Create a continuous, two-way listening strategy to successfully tap into what people are experiencing to adjust and anticipate ever-changing needs. For example, if your employees want to work fully remote or remote several days per week, and their job function does not require them to be in the office, consider establishing principles that give your employees the flexibility and autonomy to choose when/where they work while supporting them with the right training and tools. Providing this level of flexibility and trust should result in a more motivated, higher-performing workforce and ultimately enable you to attract the leading talent in the future workplace. Companies will need to activate multiple, real-time listening channels to understand how workforce priorities, behaviors and values are changing, and ultimately paint a coherent picture of what employees are experiencing.

During the pandemic, high-performing employees proved that with clear goals, support and autonomy, they can achieve strong outcomes. Leadership needs to recognize that outcomes are more important than output, and long hours in the office do not always equal better work or higher productivity. Define success criteria to measure those outputs against. But what about low performers dragging down productivity and lacking engagement? Consider their job function and what kind of training and skill development may be needed. Not everyone is as prepared or equipped for remote work as others, and employers will need to invest in their people to develop their skills, improve upon any gaps and support them in adapting to these new standards or align them elsewhere.