We have seen more change in the past ten months than we have in the past ten years.
Even prior to COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, organizations around the world were having to adapt to things like AI & technology advancements, globalization, the changing nature of talent, and just the overall pace of change we are all experiencing.
I wrote about these trends in an article called: 140 Top CEOs Say These Are The 6 Trends Leaders Must Pay Attention To.
Over the past few months I’ve been working with Pega (paid client) who recently put out The Future of Work Report which is based on a survey of over 3,000 senior managers and frontline IT staff. The findings were quite interesting.
When COVID-19 struck many organizations around the world were caught off-guard.
When I wrote my book, The Future Leader, I was very much focused on the next 5-10 years. But with current events it’s clear that The Future Leader is the present leader, in other words, the timeline to evolve and change has shrunk!
The future of work has been a topic that I’ve been writing about for many years and I truly feel like NOW is when organizations and leaders around the world are taking action. Consider the following finding from Pega.
It’s clear that one of the things that have saved many organizations and industries around the world during COVID-19 has been technology. It is because of technology that employees were still able to create new products and services, serve customers, close deals, and communicate and collaborate. What would have happened if COVID-19 occurred a decade or two decades ago?
Today, every company is a technology company which means every leader needs to be a technology driven leader, but of course this extends to ALL employees. According to the Pega report, 78% of respondents say that everyone in the business should see themselves as part of IT.
This has been extremely crucial now when everyone is working from home and is responsible for things like their own wifi and audio and video set-up.
But, even though technology is playing such an integral role, many employees see room for improvement in the tools and resources they currently have access to.
When I interviewed John Legere, the former CEO of T-Mobile he told me, “Today’s leaders need to either decide to embrace new platforms and technology or be prepared to be left behind.”
For many years there has been a collective fear about the impact that technology will have on work but from the Pega study and from the 140 CEOs I personally interviewed, there is tremendous optimism.
According to the study:
- 46% of leaders cite cost savings and 43% citing revenue generation as changes they are trying to achieve with technology.
- 65% of leaders see technology as an avenue to achieving higher quality work.
- 50% of the leaders surveyed also believe technology will create more reliable work.
- 49% even see it as a way to increase employee satisfaction.
We live and work in a rapidly changing world and it’s clear what worked in the past won’t work in the future. In addition to making changes to technology, my hope is that leaders around the world will use this new found momentum to challenge conventional practices and ideas around work in general.
Reexamine your performance reviews, engagement surveys, flexible work programs, leadership training, recruiting strategies, and diversity & inclusion efforts.
Let’s tear down the many outdated ways of working and replace them with approaches designed for 2020 and beyond.
If you want to grab a copy of the report you can do so here at no cost.
I recently had a couple of live discussions with their team all about the future of work in multiple industries, you can check them out below:
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