18 award winners include Department for Education for Smarter Working Project of the Year
18 award winners include Department for Education for Smarter Working Project of the Year
Communication and engagement with employees are an essential part of business at any time. The benefits of an engaged workforce include improved employee retention and loyalty, a happier and more motivated workforce and better general well-being. Most observers feel that employee engagement is a key pillar of the future of work.
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There’s no doubt the coronavirus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19, is causing mass disruption around the world. The outbreak is a human tragedy – the likes of which is a cause for great concern. It’s also having a growing impact on the global economy, forcing businesses to rethink their workforce strategies, putting health and safety first.
These are Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) times. As businesses and governments around the world wrestle with the multi-faceted challenges they’re facing, workplaces are closing and people are self-quarantining. COVID-19 is taking the world by surprise, and raising questions that require thoughtful, people-first responses.
Over the weekend, we’ve been contacted by a whole range of stakeholders – governments, shareholders, customers, businesses etc. – all asking how we can work together to support one another through this challenging time. The importance of crowdsourcing is becoming more acute.
The immediate priority for employers has been on ensuring the health and safety of employees, providing remote and flexible work options for those who can work from home. Reducing psychological stress has also been a priority, as many businesses seek to take a measured and altruistic response.
However, the outbreak has forced many other businesses to question the adequacy of their preparedness for such events. Not all organisations are best equipped to cope with such disruption, leaving many wondering how to respond.
How we respond to unexpected events can make all the difference to the outcome – on a global, social and economic level – but how well we respond is directly correlated with how well we are geared up to respond. How well we are prepared for change.
For example, Wazoku and InnoCentive use the value of open innovation in conjunction with idea management software to help connect and engage workers focused on solving challenges and managing change. In a world where we can’t always use our offices, laboratories, R&D centres and meeting rooms, people are working remotely to advance solutions to the problems our world and businesses face.
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If I asked you to assess the knowledge and skills of the people you work with, would you say your company boasts the smartest workforce in the world? Even if it’s a resounding yes, and you're blessed with the most talented employees, do you think they’re organised and mobilised to solve your most complex business problems – both now and in the future? What about when AI fully kicks-in or disruptive start-ups muscle into your space? Or prices skyrocket to the extent that certain resources are no longer available to your organisation?
Whatever trends are teetering on the horizon, there’s no doubt the global business landscape is changing – and doing so at a rapid pace – but it’s not all doom and gloom. Our ability to create, innovate and reinvent ourselves, our work and our lives is part of what makes us human. We adapt to survive and thrive. We solve problems, tackle challenges and come up with solutions to progress and move forward.
How many of us, though, do so alone?
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Ah, the age of disruption! The future of work! The fourth industrial revolution! Futurists and thought leaders have been talking about this for some time. The world of work is changing – on a technological, political and social-cultural scale. Powerful new forms of technology are increasing our rates of productivity capability; demanding new skillsets in the process. How can we adapt and transform our organisations into something that can actually reap the benefits of this new world order?
Business transformation can be overwhelming to some, but it needn’t be – after all, this is the fourth industrial revolution, not the first. As humans, we can be resistant to change but we also know change is fundamental to progress, which is fundamental to growth. Especially as we seek to avoid the risks of becoming irrelevant and obsolete.
Whatever our views are on the future of work, one thing’s for sure: times are changing. Advancing technologies are fuelling a robot-and-AI-filled future, which means we will need to innovate faster and with more agility if we hope to be relevant for the future of work. Here are 10 things your organisation can do today to prepare for change, disruption and the need for innovation:
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The workplace of today is so different to the workplace of 50 or even 25 years ago; it has changed completely. Everything is faster, more immediate, more accessible and more global. The workforce itself is more geographically dispersed, more transient and less tied to the physical workplace, with technology, of course, underpinning a lot of these changes.
We now regularly speak of the gig economy, multi-generational workforces and zero hours contracts – terms which weren’t even thought of 25 years ago. The concept of a job for life is now gone. It’s perfectly acceptable to spend just two or three years in a role, building a portfolio career or having several careers during one’s working life.
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There’s no question the world of work has evolved over time. Advances in mechanisation, mass production and, more recently, technology have shaped where and how we work, as well as what we produce. The need for people and organisations to innovate has always been there but what’s much harder to comprehend, and therefore navigate, is the rapid pace of change we’re experiencing, on a scale we’ve never seen before.
Driven by advancing technologies, accelerating connectivity, and changing attitudes towards employment, organisations are operating in a dynamic environment – one where fast-growing start-ups are disrupting traditional business models and AI is replacing human labour. Most organisations today understand the importance of innovation but there was a time when it was a dirty word.
At this year's Innovation Roundtable Summit in Copenhagen, I moderated a roundtable discussion on some of the challenges businesses face when trying to build a more agile organisation, grow a culture of innovation and navigate leadership and mindset.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the Q&A – all answers are anonymised and summarised.
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Every change starts with an idea. At its inception, most of these changes are (or may seem) quite small changes. Did you know that Google started off as an academic experiment by two PhD students to understand how web pages link to each other? From little ideas great oak trees can grow!
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