The brave, new world of work

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by Daniel Gross

To say that the way we’re working is changing is one of the great understatements of our age. I’m not just talking about learning to add cool Zoom backgrounds and figuring out when to stop responding to emails. (I try to draw the line at 6 p.m.)

No, the way we think about the very meaning of work, and how to maintain balance, health, and energy while doing it, is a hot topic of conversation—in the workplace and in the pages of s+b. At times, it seems as if it is the only topic of conversation. To be sure, the ongoing pandemic has a lot to do with this, but so, too, do forces like technology, globalization, and evolving consumer habits.

At work, disruptions and innovations have always tended to pile atop one another (fax, email, conference calls, the web, “telecommuting”), and people adjust on the fly. But the organizational contexts in which workers operate—the ways we organize, and the bureaucracies and systems we set up to get the work done—tend to evolve much more slowly. Helping to close the gap between what exists and what is needed has inspired a rich vein of articles in s+b in recent weeks.

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Maintaining network connections

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by Lynda Gratton

As we redesign work for the hybrid future, it is vital to understand the ways that information flows and networks form within organizations.

Our collective experience in the pandemic created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink what we want from work and our working lives. We had a chance to question many fundamental assumptions, adopt new habits, and form new narratives about how work gets done. The experience also confronted corporate leadership teams with the challenge of how they would respond. Would they stay with their old ways or embrace the opportunity to be bold and redesign systems to make working a more purposeful, productive, agile, and flexible activity?

This effort to redesign work is well underway. And as we confront a new hybrid future, it is important that we take the valuable lessons learned during the pandemic with us. One of those lessons, which I’ve observed based on my research and advisory work, surrounds the topic of connections and networks—and their importance in building culture and getting work done.

To begin to reimagine work, you have to create a deep understanding of how your company works. And that involves developing an understanding of the different types of jobs within the business, the tasks that they involve, and the behaviors and capabilities that support productivity. But the classic description of job tasks and the related element of productivity assume an almost static process, which is essentially about the individual. In reality, people, the tasks they perform, and the jobs they do are embedded within networks of human connections. Through these connections flow knowledge, insight, and innovation. One of the major insights from the experience of the pandemic is how important these often-overlooked human connections are to organizational health and vitality. In general, networks shrank. That’s because people working from home spent more time with those they already knew well and less time with people they knew less well, and they created far fewer new friendships. Continue reading →

How Do You Know If You Have The Right Talent To Be Positioned For Success

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by Larry Janis

Having the right talent in the right roles is essential for a successful business strategy. Strategy execution demands a thorough evaluation of not only people, but also of their roles and responsibilities, their impact and their alignment with the company’s business goals.

Corporate leadership and business leaders focused on strategy execution need a talent assessment program that functions as an extension of their strategy planning that addresses the following thoughts and processes:

  • Differentiation between important and critical roles. The successful execution of strategy requires talented people, more importantly talented people in the right roles. Without clear differentiation the people most likely to positively impact strategy may be in the wrong roles or not in the organization at all!
  • A facilitated talent discussion that evaluates talent in an integrated manner; standardizes the organizations’ talent “language” and calibrates talent between divisions, departments and teams.
  • A talent map that summarizes the organization’s talent “picture” in a simple, powerful format. The talent map can be easily referenced for future planned, or unplanned talent decisions.
  • A talent plan that captures the key talent actions required to support the strategy; assigns accountability for completion; encourages all leaders to accept responsibility for the organization talent pool; and provides a mechanism for tracking progress.
  • A partnership with an external recruitment firm that has a solid knowledge of your industry, your competitors and has the ability to react in a timely fashion to acquire the talent you have defined as essential to your business goals.

When planning changes to your staff, consider the following timing considerations:

  • Add in the time for onboarding, learning how your firm does things and understanding the capabilities of your firm: your talent acquisition time frame may extend upwards of one year for your new hire to be fully engaged and productive.
  • If your company operates in a competitive industry, factor in additional time to work through thinned out talent pool: your key competitors are likely seeking the talent they need to drive their businesses to the next level.

Talent processes linked to business strategies offer a considerable competitive advantage. Streamlining the implementation of the timeline, understanding the talent implications of your strategy and recognizing the talents you have and don’t have are critical to successful strategy implementation and differentiating your organization from the competition.

Larry Janis is the Managing Partner of Integrated Search Solutions. Our distinction and differentiation in Executive Search is derived from our unique focus on the successful alignment of executive talent with our clients’ current and future business strategies and their targeted markets. As a catalyst for creative change ISSG is about Business Results not “yesterdays” performance. Because our partnering relationship is long term, we are able to leverage and utilize our knowledge of client’s business and strategy, market expertise, operating knowledge and business experiences to produce lasting results.

Leadership

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Early in the pandemic, Bersin called it the Big Reset: “The Coronavirus is accelerating one of the biggest business transformations in decades.”

As the business landscape evolves and employees reassess their priorities, leadership is changing as well. To reset thinking on what it means to be a leader today, we asked Josh Bersin and other thought and business leaders for their perspective.

 

The most important thing leaders do is listen. If you really hear and understand what’s going on, a great leader can always help move the team in the right direction.”

– Josh Bersin, Global Industry Analyst, HR, business leadership, corporate L&D

 

Great Leadership is about getting the best out of your team, by allowing team members to play roles where their superpowers can enhance the work of others!

– Michael McDaniel, President, Modern Workplace DXC Technology

 

Leadership is about having the courage to change with purpose, quickly and at scale, while taking the time to care for and empower your people.

– Jeffrey Russell, President and CEO, Accenture Canada

 

The most effective leaders surround themselves with the best possible people, then listen and empower the team. They remove obstacles when possible and communicate effectively. These leaders don’t hoard information but rather use it to facilitate others success. Additionally, these leaders are true to themselves and demonstrate action consistent with their declared vision.

– Joshua Strugatz, VP, Regional Strategy & Development, Northwell Health

 

What makes a Great Leader: Authenticity, Emotional openness, Invested in Team/organization’s personal and professional development, Stable Decision Making.

– Sumit Grover, Sr VP – Media and Entertainment, Tech Mahindra

 

If you’re inspired by these perspectives on leadership today, stay tuned…there’s more to come!  And if you are interested in crafting your own contribution, please email me at janis@issg.net

 

 

 

 

Where is the office now?

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by Julia Hobsbawm

We’re in a new phase of workplace evolution. Adapting to three key shifts in working practices will help people and productivity.

Picture a snow globe as the representation of office life. A century ago, it might have had a typewriter or a skyscraper amid the swirling flakes. There would have been a desk, or a filing cabinet. It wasn’t until the internet came about that these things were rendered all but obsolete. We really hadn’t taken stock of this development until the pandemic forced the knowledge worker home to work at kitchen tables and ironing boards in what turned out to be the biggest workplace experiment since the Industrial Revolution.

Today’s snow globe might contain a laptop or a smart phone, but beyond that, anything goes. The disruption of the past two years has proven that the nine-to-five physical office is out; it will be skills, not schedules and proximity, that determine who works from where, and this gives impetus to hiring across time zones and boundaries. Rather than making a daily commute, people will choose where they work—a new way of working that I call the Nowhere Office. Why nowhere? Partly because we are in a liminal space between one phase of work and another, and partly because nowhere is an anagram of “Here, now” and represents the collapse of old long-term planning. Nothing is certain, everything is moving fast. We are nowhere near where we ever were in working life and are unlikely to return to this place again.

Entirely new patterns of work are emerging. The details of hybrid work are still unclear and will continue to change, but it is already the new normal. Last year, in a survey for the Prudential Insurance Company of America of 2,000 people in the US who were working remotely, 87% of respondents said they intended to continue working at least one day a week from home after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Globally, the world’s workers wanted to work from home significantly more post-pandemic than they were allowed to before 2020. The expectation today is that 40 to 60% of working hours will soon be spent in employer or client offices, with the remainder spent working from home (WFH). Companies compelling workers to come back to the office full time are experiencing pushback: when Goldman Sachs—whose CEO, David Solomon, famously called WFH an “aberration”—tried to do it, only 50% of employees complied. How did we get to this moment, and what trends are coming next? Continue reading →