Shaping up, shifting out - November 2021

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ONLINE SALES TIPS Selling in a virtual setting can be a tricky proposition

THAT THURSDAY FEELING Four-day weeks are the next big thing – so what’s the catch?

MAPPING THE MINDS OF YOUR EMPLOYEES Business Reporter speaks to Chris Quickfall about how cognitive difference can be a real boon in the workplace

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THE FUTURE OF WORK • NOVEMBER 2021

Shaping up, shifting out SPECIAL REPORT

A sea change is taking place in how and where people work – and what they’re willing to accept there. We look at how businesses can keep workers happy as the ‘Great Resignation’ takes hold

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The new nine-to-five is here to stay G “The unspoken rule that anybody not in the office is out of luck in business meetings is now dead”

OING TO work doesn’t necessarily mean you are travelling any further than the spare bedroom or the upstairs office these days. Interactions with coworkers have gone virtual and even as we approach the sunset of the pandemic, it is unlikely that things will return to the way they were pre-Covid.

As business leaders, it’s crucial to acknowledge that the nature of how and where we work has shifted forever. Work is no longer a place, it’s what you do and how you do it.

The “normal” world of work was already changing before the pandemic hit, thanks to improved capabilities in data infrastructure and video and audio communications. Covid-19 has been a critical catalyst for change in working habits and a massive accelerant to the digital transformation that was already reshaping the working world.

The data from industry analysts bear this out. Research by Gartner shows 74 per cent of companies will permanently shift to more remote workforces. By 2024, Gartner expects these remote workers will represent 30 per cent of all employees worldwide – a total of approximately 600 million people.

Our customers report that in the future all meetings will have video and at least one remote attendee, meaning meeting room experiences need to improve. We need to provide the combined hardware, software and services to connect people, spaces and technology. And – most importantly – we need to create equality among meeting participants, regardless of their location.

The unspoken rule that anybody not in the office is out of luck in business meetings is dead. Now everybody understands what

it is like to work remotely. We may be more forgiving of ringing doorbells, barking dogs, lawnmowers and honking traffic in the background, but our standards have also risen. We all now want tools not toys. We want to see video images that are better than our built-in computer camera. Essentially, we want to appear professional, no matter where we are working.

This means changes to our office conference rooms. Analysts estimate that of the roughly 50 million conference rooms in the world, fewer than 10 per cent have

Raise your profile

Lead the global business debate with video content that inspires and educates See business-reporter.co.uk/br-studio to get involved

video facilities. Clearly that will no longer support the vastly increased numbers of remote workers.

The technology to do this already exists.

The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning has improved and simplified the meeting experience. Cameras are now smart enough to make professional, broadcast-quality images and follow all the action automatically. Unwanted sounds are eliminated, letting the speaker’s voice come through. More capabilities are on the nearterm horizon, including indexing and analysing video meetings, automatic transcriptions and highlights, simplifying meeting initiation and measuring sentiment after a call.

Our industry’s mission is clear: connecting people, technology and spaces to transform inequitable hybrid interactions into seamless workspaces, where there is no difference between the people physically in the office and those working remotely.

This is how we will deliver the future of work. We’re well on our way there.

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Dave Shull is president and CEO of Poly @PolyCompany www.poly.com

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N RECENT years, the way in which organisations approach sales has changed, with a greater emphasis on a consultative approach and building relationships. The days of cold-calling and pressured sales were already on the way out before Covid-19 struck, forcing a more virtual approach that relied more on softer skills.

“People who work in sales need to be able to sell in the hybrid world,” says Liz Sebag‑Montefiore, sales director at HR consultancy 10Eighty. “It’s important to think about how to communicate in hybrid business development meetings, the importance of committing equal time to focus on the client and you as the one selling and how to feel connected when you’re not physically in the same room.”

The following pointers reveal what top sellers do differently, and they could help you to optimise your sales strategy for 2022:

Do your homework Top sellers prepare for every engagement, setting a clear purpose with an expected outcome in mind, says Premal Patel, managing director for retail marketing firm Catalina UK. “They also understand who the decision makers and the influencers are and apply different strategies for both groups,” he says. “Top sellers also don’t give up. Even when the process feels difficult or near impossible, they find a way to overcome the hurdles, maintain positivity and create the right impact to win the sale.”

Top tips for selling in the virtual world Covid-19 has led to all sorts of challenges and upheavals in the world of work – not least for sales professionals. Here are some ideas for getting the most out of the new normal…

Identify the need It’s essential to understand the problem the client needs solving, says Mike Drew, partner and head of the technology and IT services practice at recruiter Odgers Berndtson. “They listen, adapt and bring together partners to deliver a holistic business solution, rather than just selling isolated services or products,” he says.

Challenge clients Part of a more consultative selling approach means being prepared to ask tough or in-depth questions, points out Pete Evans, UK practice partner of global sales development firm SalesStar. “To become a true partner, you have to be constantly challenging your client, continually adding value,” he says. “Clients are looking for partners and salespeople who truly understand business, not more friends.”

Build multiple relationships In the current climate, with teams likely to be more physically disjointed, it’s likely any sale will involve different stakeholders. According to research by software firm Showpad in 2019, almost a quarter (24 per cent) of all B2B buyers had more than five people involved in their last B2B purchase. “This means relationship-building between the salesperson and primary buyer is highly important, so that buyers don’t get lost in the sea of conversations,” says Iain Masson, RVP UK & Nordics. The most important skills today are empathy, focus and brevity, he adds.

Being able to work in a broader ecosystem of organisations is crucial, too. “Most organisations don’t just sell their own products or services, so one of the big drivers is how to manage and grow these

partner ecosystems,” says John McLaughlin, chief commercial officer, human capital solutions, EMEA at Aon. “We’re seeing this moving down the ranks, with people thinking about it earlier in their careers.”

Social media The pandemic has made it imperative to use social channels to engage potential buyers, says Michael Cupps, senior vice president, marketing, at software firm ActiveOps. “This is less about ‘look at me and my accomplishments’ and more about sharing information that will intrigue potential buyers to engage in a conversation,” he says. “They will then adapt to the right amount of in-person and digital engagement that allows the customer a mutual pace to evaluate and close.”

Stay on top of technology

operatives will handle a range of tasks including:

Making use of the latest technology is a growing part of a successful salesperson’s toolkit. “Today, artificial intelligence and machine learning can help analyse an organisation’s lead prioritisation and opportunity-to-close-won scoring, and ideal customer profile alignment,” says Craig Charlton, CEO at SugarCRM. “That enables them to understand which businesses are similar to other businesses in their customer base, and the attributes that make these customers the best and most profitable.”

• Designing compensation/ incentive plans • Territory structuring and alignment • Sales and revenue strategy • Lead management • Process optimisation • Sales technolog y and methodology evaluation • Pricing and contract support • Hiring and training • Data modelling, analytics and reporting

Support act Sales operations roles play a vital role in helping increase the productivity or effectiveness of the sales team by reducing friction in the sales process. Typically,

NOVEMBER 2021 Publisher Bradley Scheffer | Editor Dan Geary | Head of production Maida Goodman | Subbing and design Joel Meadows, Mark Mitchell | Project managers Paul Aitken, Adam Robins, Richard Keane

Effective sales operations teams will need a wide range of skills including technical and operational competence, collaboration and project management, as well as creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

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Leading from the front in the new world of work Post-pandemic, leaders need to positively embrace the opportunity to create a work environment that helps attract, build and retain top talent

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IKE OTHER major historical events, Covid-19 has divided our collective memories into a “before” and “after”. Prior to the pandemic, the five-days office-based workweek was the norm, and hours of daily commute an integral part of most people’s lives. Tools such as video calls and instant messaging had long existed, and some pioneers had been preaching the benefits of remote work for years. But human behaviour at large did not adapt, and the century-old Monday-to-Friday office trot continued across the globe.

Fast-forward to March 2020, and, within a matter of days, businesses in their masses switched to fully functional work-from-home operations based on existing technology. It took the perfect storm of the pandemic to blow us out of our habits and into our new work-from-home reality. So, what had held us back from adopting working patterns that are evidently better suited to many people’s lives - not to mention more environmentally friendly? Habit and the fear of challenging accepted norms; few of us were willing to change our own behaviours or take advantage of remote work when no one else seemed willing to go along.

Eighteen months on, we have seen remote work delivering both higher productivity and better work-life integration. Unsurprisingly, many employees no longer wish to revert back to the pre-pandemic status quo. And yet, businesses have also learned that working exclusively from home doesn’t present the optimal solution either. While existing social ties and company culture transferred into the work-from-home norm at first, over time culture weakens and creativity suffers as serendipitous in-office encounters, spontaneous connections, learning by immersion, and the ability to feel and contribute to a team’s vibe, no longer exist. Onboarding new colleagues, instilling in them a sense of belonging, and developing trusted relationships is incomparably harder in a remote-only world.

The future is hybrid – but when and how?

The future of work will need to combine the best of remote and office-based working in a hybrid model, which will require challenging the habits formed over the past eighteen months: employees accustomed to working from home, some not wishing to return to the office ever, and others ‘not now’. With the news cycle continuing to raise concerns about Covid-19 flare-ups, leaders wanting to bring people back to the office risk

being stigmatised as unempathetic, irresponsible or worse. The result has been confusion and lack of direction across large parts of the workforce.

Finding the right path to a sustainable longterm work model turns out to be more complex than moving to remote work all at once back in March 2020. Many business leaders are now grappling with questions such as: What hybrid model will work for their business and employees - a directive or a more ‘laissez-faire’ model? How can leadership keep oversight of productivity?

How can performance be assessed fairly across a hybrid workforce? When is the right time to roll it out? What are their competitors doing?

Reporting from the frontline The pandemic became real for us as early as January 2020 when Chinese travel restrictions prevented some of our Shanghai colleagues from returning to work after their Lunar New Year holiday. In mid-March, we equipped our entire workforce – 1,200+ colleagues on three continents – with home-working equipment and closed our offices. By summer last year, we started forward planning and considered what the future of work will eventually look like.

To better understand on-the-ground realities and employee sentiment, we launched consecutive surveys to solicit our colleagues’ views on their ideal future of work. The results from our first survey were eye-opening: 91 per cent of our employees said their favourite part of working

“Business leaders are now grappling with questions like what hybrid model will work for their business” at our firm is their peers, 84 per cent said they feel more connected to the company culture through in-office work, and 75 per cent of respondents said they find it easier to collaborate with colleagues in-person. At the same time, our people were clear about the benefits of working from home and about not wishing to return to 100 per cent in-office.

We launched a second survey to contrast various models of hybrid working. People’s opinions were ambivalent around specific design choices: for example, some people preferred a decentralised hybrid model, whereby they could choose on what days to be in the office. This model, however, would not deliver the key benefit our people seek: being in the office at the same time as their colleagues.

And transitioning into a decentralised model is difficult as the chicken-and-egg situation needs to be overcome whereby no one wishes to return unless everyone else does.

Mustering courage and pragmatism, we decided to move ahead with our “3+2” future-of-work model: mandatory in-office work Monday through Wednesday, with the option to work from home on Thursday and Friday. Our survey data gave

us the confidence to proceed with this model: 82 per cent of our colleagues preferred this proposed “3+2” model over various alternatives, and 91% viewed it as making AlphaSights ‘more attractive’ or ‘significantly more attractive’ as a place to work relative to the pre-pandemic status quo. Being back together three days a week, the energy in our offices is palpable, and anecdotal feedback and sentiment data suggest that “3+2” is exceeding most people’s expectations.

Lessons learned As businesses move towards a post-pandemic future, determined leadership will be imperative.

Unlike March 2020, there is no perfect storm forcing new norms upon us, and no arrangement along the spectrum from fully-remote to fully-in-office will be popular with everyone. Leaders need to make a clear and compelling case for whichever model they propose: data-driven insights, transparent decision-making and leading from the front are key. While it takes courage to steer into a new work model, leaders should positively embrace the rare opportunity at hand: creating a work arrangement that will help attract, build and retain the best talent, which ultimately lies at the heart of sustained corporate success.

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Max Cartellieri is co-CEO of AlphaSights admin@alphasights.com www.alphasights.com

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Evolution not revolution in the workplace As the pandemic recedes and workplaces and roles coalesce into something more tangible, Paul Bray looks at how firms are applying what we’ve learned over the past two years, and how it’s clarified the truly important aspects of in-person working

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S SOON as last year’s lockdown began, London-based experience design consultancy Matter of Form did an odd thing.

“We immediately used the weaker rental market to find an office that was twice as big and twice as nice as the previous one,” says COO Fred Moore.

With businesses widely expected to downsize their real estate now that many staff are reluctant to return to the workplace full-time, this might seem rather extravagant. But Moore has no regrets.

“We never for a minute questioned the importance of the office. It’s critical for a highly collaborative and creative company like ours. While people can work remotely for two days a week, our office has never felt more vibrant and alive.”

This attitude is more common than you might think. “Although fewer people are using office spaces, our data indicates that companies are retaining their square footage to increase comfort and create areas for collaborative working and socialising,” says Sabine Ehm, research manager at workplace analytics company Locatee.

This is pretty much what Matter of Form has done. “Pre-Covid our office used to be open plan,” says Moore. “It’s now a series of cubby-holes, booths and collaboration spaces. People need privacy for Zoom calls and lots of room for workshops with clients and colleagues.”

As Anne ter Wal, associate professor of technology and innovation management at Imperial College Business School, points out, a lot of critical decision-making and exchange of ideas takes place not in formal meetings but during informal chats, and the easiest way to do this

is to spot that a colleague’s door is open and pop in. No online technology can properly mimic this.

So although a firm whose staff work remotely two days a week could technically get by with 60 per cent of its former office space, this would be a mistake, argues ter Wal. “Organisations should definitely resist the temptation to scale down their office space to drive down costs, because if they don’t offer the capacity for their full workforce to be in the office if they wish, they’ll miss out on the benefits of these dynamic interpersonal interactions.”

However, while the office may continue to be the powerhouse that drives the business, hybrid (ie, remote-plus-office) working models are almost certainly here to stay, and businesses will need to learn how to combine the two styles to best effect.

“Virtual working is perfect for the existing stuff: carrying out existing projects, working with existing collaborators, and working on familiar problems,” says ter Wal. “But doing new things, building new collaborations and solving complex new problems, is

really difficult in a virtual workplace, because it often originates from spontaneous interactions.”

According to Nora Grasselli, programme director for executive education at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, designing hybrid work processes is the biggest challenge currently facing business leaders and their teams.

“Most teams are struggling with creating innovation, managing complex tasks and conflicts, and addressing the necessary evils of a remote setup.

Managers need to help them prioritise tasks, manage productivity and worklife balance, and connect team members more. And teams and team leaders needed to find the right allocation of tasks in a fully distributed virtual setup, such as reporting, working on shared documents, and one-on-one interactions such as coaching.”

“We saw early in the pandemic that managing workloads and leading teams in hybrid situations poses different challenges,” says Leanne Wood, chief HR officer at Vodafone. “So the attributes we regard as key for leaders have evolved, with more emphasis on trust,

psychological safety, self-care, digital skills, and social and emotional awareness of themselves and their teams.”

One thing managers may not need to fret about post-Covid is monitoring staff’s output and progress, because out of sight no longer means out of mind.

“With all the digital tools we have now, we don’t need to guess so much what people are doing, as there are many more metrics, goals, results and outcomes to monitor,” says Josh Bersin, CEO of HR research and advisory firm The Josh Bersin Company. “There’s also a trend toward agile goals that get revisited regularly, so the annual review based on annual goals has changed to something much more responsive. I know one company that had seven levels of talent reviews and spent a million hours a year on them.

They’ve simplified to one level of review, and saved a lot of time.”

The last two years may have precipitated a broader shift in leadership styles. Sam Mather, founder of leadership and organisational consultancy Riseability and a lecturer at Henley Business School, believes the pandemic

has witnessed the death of the ego-led “command and control” leader.

“These leaders lost their power base, because they no longer had the experience from which to provide all the answers,” she explains. “They were learning as they went along, like everyone else. The pandemic demanded leaders who were transparent about this and worked collaboratively to find solutions. These are the leaders that people will continue to follow in the ‘new normal’, the ones they connected with emotionally in trying times.”

So perhaps it is just as well that, as Bersin believes, “The pandemic has demonstrated the power of cross-functional communication, teamwork and agile, ‘get stuff done’ iterative problem-solving. Every company found ways to deal with the new normal by getting together and making quick decisions.

“This new model of teams coming together to solve problems quickly works well going forward, and I think it’s now embedded as a default in modern, digital 2020s business practice.”

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Paul Bray talks to Chris Quickfall, CEO of Cognassist, about how cognitive diversity is far more common than we might think – and that people who think and see things differently can be of immense value to businesses if they know how to unlock their potential

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T ALL started when Chris Quickfall’s university friend broke his leg. “I lent him my lecture notes, and when he gave them back he said, ‘I’m dyslexic, and I think you may be, too,’” Quickfall recalls.

The friend’s hunch was confirmed by the university’s student services centre.

“They talked through how my brain works differently from the average brain, and taught me how to make simple changes, like using a visual diary. It made a massive difference to my life.”

Although the diagnosis was a bolt from the blue – Quickfall had never experienced “classic” symptoms such as letters appearing jumbled – it made perfect sense. It explained why he excelled at maths and science but struggled with history and languages. Why he initially failed his A levels despite being diligent. Why he had difficulty remembering appointments and organising his time.

That was two decades ago, and dyslexia has dominated Quickfall’s life ever since – in a positive way. “I thought a lot about what cognitive diversity such as dyslexia meant, and what I could do about it.”

While still at uni he set up a business selling computers adapted for people with dyslexia. A string of cognitive diversity-related start-ups followed, culminating in 2017 with Cognassist, which promotes understanding of cognitive diversity in education and the workplace, and develops affordable cognitive assessments.

Quickfall’s lack of an early diagnosis is nothing unusual. Cognassist has brainmapped 125,000 people and found that one in five had a definable cognitive diversity. Yet only one in 500 had a formal diagnosis. That suggests that a lot of us are more cognitively diverse than either we or our employers realise.

When asked to define cognitive diversity, Quickfall smiles and says there is a classic answer and a good answer. The classic answer is a list of conditions including dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, ADHD, ADD, Asperger’s and autism. But these are just broad labels, “buckets” in which to dump people.

The “good” answer is that all people’s brains process information slightly differently, which means that we all have strengths and weaknesses compared with the average – and that, as so often, the “average” person never exists. With the right tools, at the right price, it should be possible to assess everybody, and this is Cognassist’s Holy Grail.

Mapping the minds of your employees Chris Quickfall (inset, right), CEO of Cognassist, says that hiring more cognitively diverse people makes sense for firms – from both a moral and a business perspective

“I can’t believe we’re in a knowledge economy, where businesses’ biggest P&L item is staff, and yet we don’t want to understand how people’s brains work and how to help them perform at their best,” says Quickfall. “I think that in 10 years’ time every knowledge worker will know their cognitive profile.”

Practising what he preaches, Quickfall ensures that all new Cognassist recruits undergo cognition mapping, which helps the firm capitalise on their strengths and support their weaknesses.

“Two managers have been identified with weaknesses in verbal memory – processing what they read and hear, remembering it, actioning it…” says Quickfall. “Now this has been recognised, they’ve built strategies to manage it.”

If one goes to a meeting, for example, they will write more detailed notes for the

“I can’t believe we’re in a knowledge economy, where businesses’ biggest P&L item is staff, and yet we don’t want to understand how people’s brains work and how to help them perform at their best”

other, and they have developed specific ways to mark actionable items – an “A” in a square if they need to do something, an “A” in a circle if they need to tell their team, and so on.

Another manager was found to have very strong visual processing. It made him realise he tended to favour mediocre ideas presented via a really good PowerPoint over better ideas in a plain Word document. Acknowledging this unconscious bias means he can compensate for it.

Conversely, a junior employee was found to have much better problem-solving powers than her line manager. “We could give her really complex work that her manager used to do, and she came up with more creative solutions,” says Quickfall.

The key point is that none of these individuals is in any of the cognitive diversity “buckets”. They just have personal strengths and weaknesses.

As well as understanding and supporting individual staff, employers should not shy away from recruiting people with more pronounced or formally diagnosed cognitive diversity, Quickfall believes.

Dyslexic people can be better, more imaginative problem-solvers, a quality

Quickfall recognises in himself. “I did a sandwich year at Shell Oil and found I was very good at problem-solving, although in common with a lot of dyslexic people I needed longer to do it.”

People on the autistic spectrum may be able to concentrate on difficult problems for long periods, and see meanings in big data that others cannot. People with ADHD can be highly creative, with above-average ability to pull in ideas from different sources.

And staff with any marked cognitive difference tend to be more loyal employees and less likely to job-hop.

However, standard recruitment processes often unconsciously discriminate against cognitive diversity. “If the interview process doesn’t match the job, you might accidentally filter out the best,” says Quickfall. If recruiting software engineers, for example, it makes little sense to rely on a see-who-canshout-the-loudest approach.

Most employers have taken on board that supporting gender and ethnic diversity is not only morally right but also good for business, because diverse teams and businesses tend to perform better. Quickfall hopes that cognitive diversity will be the next barrier to fall.

“Cognitively diverse teams tend to be more innovative, with different perspectives and different mental approaches. There’s no competitive advantage in having the same brain repeated 20 times.”

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Technology considerations for the hybrid work environment “What’s become clear is that the era of the fivedays-a-week, nine-to-five office schedule is over”

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VEN IN an environment of what’s felt like constant change during the past couple of years, the workplace may just now be reaching its true pivot point.

While government figures and business leaders are encouraging, and in some cases even mandating, workers to return to the office, many still do not feel comfortable coming back in such a high capacity – either because of safety concerns or an unwillingness to sacrifice the increased flexibility and conveniences they’ve enjoyed in remote settings.

What’s become clear is that the era of the five-days-a-week, nine-to-five office schedule is over, replaced by a hybrid work model where employees split their time between on-site and remote environments at a schedule that accommodates their personal and professional needs. Thus far, employees across various industries have greeted the emergence of hybrid work with great enthusiasm.

However, the varying demands of the hybrid work environment place more pressure on business and IT leaders to identify tools and operational structures that suit every employee’s preferences. In particular, this transition allows organisations to revaluate their technologies and identify potential upgrades that can align the best of office and remote work styles.

Work technology is no longer just a functional part of the day, but a potential differentiator in maintaining a growth trajectory and even retaining and recruiting top talent. While hybrid work will look

different for every organisation and industry, these three considerations can serve as a starting point to identify the right balance of flexibility and productivity.

Laptops and personal devices are more essential than ever Our laptops have arguably become the most important part of our professional lives since the advent of remote work. Not only have they allowed us to continue our daily tasks from anywhere we wish to work, but we can now quickly and easily connect and engage with our colleagues at a time where on-site meetings are not always possible. It’s no surprise, then, that Barco research revealed that 77 per cent of workers said they could not imagine working without their laptop.

Given employees’ newfound reliance on their PCs, there’s no reason to expect laptop-driven communications to fade once workers are back in the office. After months of enjoying the simple connectivity that video conferencing platforms have offered during the pandemic, workers likely will not have the patience for the complex wire networks and connectivity challenges of legacy conference rooms.

For business and IT leaders, this change signals a priority to not do away with laptops as the focal point of work, but rather empower hybrid employees to accomplish more within them. This includes making a core investment in their virtual collaboration capabilities and make meetings more accessible to all employees through the PC. Barco’s ClickShare platform, for instance, connects with users’

laptops to automatically set meeting rooms and peripherals to pre-defined conditions, all while supporting the virtual meeting hubs we’ve grown to know, such as Teams, Zoom and WebEx. This ultimately allows users to simply walk into the room and connect without the need for technical start-up needs, and for remote participants to continue joining in just a single click.

Video: the root of hybrid One aspect of the old workplace that employees did not miss during the pandemic was battling colleagues for the coveted video conferencing room. Working from home demonstrated just how successful video conferencing could be when controlled through a laptop.

The transition to hybrid work means that every room in an office can become a video conferencing room. Wherever employees are taking or leading a meeting, they still desire the ability to walk in, open their computer and get started without delay or complex setup. Through platforms such as ClickShare, businesses can expand their workers’ capabilities without a significant technology or layout overhaul. Likewise, businesses can ensure that in-room peripherals, such as microphones, cameras and speakers, also easily connect to personal devices.

for remote workers. While there is no way to truly replicate the in-person engagement that occurs within offices, remote employees may be conscious about being left out of key discussions, decisions and even on promotions or pay rises if they are not present all the time.

In these scenarios, technology can help fill the gap and make every participant in a meeting feel as if he or she is at the table regardless of location. ClickShare Conference includes virtual blackboarding, annotation and polling to make content visible and actionable among remote and on-site participants. Additionally, the platform offers capacity for small breakout groups where remote participants can share their insights without feeling as if they are speaking over those in the room. Through bridging technology, no meeting knowledge goes lost or overlooked and all employees can feel as if their voice is heard.

Much as in larger society, the technology that fuels hybrid work will only improve over time. At the same time, the needs of employees will change. The businesses who stand the best chance of thriving in the hybrid model will be the ones who can find the ideal intersection of these two dynamics. Embracing continued change offers an opportunity to reimagine their work environment and improve the experience for employees wherever they choose to do their jobs.

Levelling the playing field One of the greatest challenges facing business leaders in this new hybrid world will be avoiding the feeling of an inferior experience

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Shaping up, shifting out In an age of great upheaval and societal shift, it’s perhaps no surprise that people are upping sticks to find work that is better, different, or simply more meaningful.

Nick Martindale looks at the phenomenon of the Great Resignation…

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S THE business world starts to tentatively look to a post-Covid future, attention is once again turning to ensuring organisations have the skills they need to compete. For many, it ’s not a pretty picture. Research undertaken on behalf of Personio by Opinium suggests 38 per cent of 2,002 employees from a range of industries, sectors and sizes across the UK and Ireland are looking to change roles in the next year, which could cost UK firms almost £17 billion in the next 12 months.

A number of other studies back this up: Workhuman’s 2021 International Survey Report finds 46 per cent of UK employees plan to quit their jobs in the next year, compared with 27.5 per cent pre-pandemic and 38 per cent in other countries. A study by recruiter Randstad, meanwhile, which surveyed 6,000 workers, finds 69 per cent of employees are now feeling confident enough to move to a new job in the next two months, with only 16 per cent worried about finding a new role. The “Great Resignation”, as it has been termed, is alive and

46% The percentage of Uk employees who plan to quit their jobs in the next year Source: Workhuman

well, and it’s no surprise that 78 per cent of organisations cite skills shortages as one of the top three challenges facing their organisation in the near future, according to Cielo.

There are a number of reasons behind this, with the impact of the pandemic perhaps the most obvious. “Many people are reassessing their priorities and aspirations,” says Liz Sebag‑Montefiore, director and co‑founder of HR firm 10Eighty. “The pandemic has changed some people’s mindsets, who now value their time more. People want more flexibility and happiness, and are reflecting on what work now means to them, how they are valued and how they want to spend their time going forward.”

The desire to work from home and for greater flexibility in working hours and location are an obvious consequence of the pandemic and enforced remote working. Research by the Project Management Institute finds 35 per cent of workers now want to work from home exclusively, with 34 per cent looking for a hybrid working arrangement and 31

“AI and automation technologies were already ‘redefining’ job roles and the skills required in the workplace, but the sudden acceleration of digital transformation programmes has led to more jobs becoming automated over the past year”

per cent wanting to return to the office full-time. “Employees are not prepared to return to the same working lives they had before the pandemic, with lengthy commutes and time spent in the office,” says Ashwini Bakshi, PMI’s managing director of Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa.

In fact, flexibility is now more important for many workers than pay, according to research carried out by LogMeIn and Forrester, which finds 60 per cent of employers would be willing to take a pay cut for more flexibility and 83 per cent

say they would stay loyal to their current employer if they can retain the flexibility they have grown accustomed to. “Those that don’t offer the flexibility that employees are now used to may soon see a huge employee churn,” warns Bob Quinn, vice president at LogMeIn. “When humans are given choice and then it is taken away, it’s instinct to resist. The world has shifted, whether we like it or not, and employees have tasted freedom.”

Flexibility isn’t the only tangible consequence of the pandemic. John Lees is author of How to Get a Job You Love, and has detected a greater desire from people to engage in what he terms “work with purpose”. “The social upheaval of the pandemic has made a lot of people examine and realign their values and reflect on what kind of work feels purposeful,” he says. “People are seeking work which gives them purpose at a deeper level, greater job satisfaction or the ability to ‘give back’.”

Other factors are also at play, including the thorny issue of Brexit. “This has accelerated some of the underlying and

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systemic causes which we’re seeing bubbling to the surface at the moment,” says Nick Gallimore, direct of talent transformation and insight at Advanced.

“The classic example right now is that of HGV drivers. Even pre-Brexit, there was a challenge around attracting new drivers and retaining drivers which was putting pressure on organisations, but Brexit has really accelerated that.” There’s also an element of “attrition debt”, he adds: people who would have moved on in the past 18 months but were put off from doing so because of the pandemic and uncertain economic outlook.

People are certainly keen to move forward in their careers, says David Morel, CEO of boutique agency Tiger Recruitment. “When we surveyed over 1,000 workers, more than a third said they’d been in their current role less than a year and that a lack of career progression was the reason why they left their last job,” he says.

Alan Hiddleston, director of corporate learning EMEA at D2L, also hints at another underlying concern for some.

“AI and automation technologies were already ‘redefining’ job roles and the skills required in the workplace, but the sudden acceleration of digital transformation programmes has led to more jobs becoming automated over the past year,” he says. “If companies are not willing to upskill and retrain their workforce, or

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“Businesses which are organised around their core purpose will have no trouble attracting and retaining young talent, because this generation is not motivated by money or pretence” offer alternative roles, there will naturally be a cause for concern among employees.

This will likely lead them to start looking for jobs elsewhere.”

Quite where employees are heading off to is a matter of debate. A survey by jobsite Monster found a third of candidates want to move to a new sector. “We have known for a long time that a change in career is common at ‘life-pivoting’ events, and after a pause,” says Rod McMillan, marketing manager. “The pandemic was a mass ‘life-pivoting’ event for millions of people at the same time, and then furlough and lockdown caused a pause.

It’s been the perfect scenario to drive career change.”

Lees, though, says that while career-changers generate more publicity, the majority of people tend to stick to what they know. “The idea of retraining is often something of an urban myth in career change,” he says. “The market reality is that there are many ways of making a change by simply building on

your previous experience, and then expanding your skills in a new role.”

One possible destination is to leave the world of employment altogether, with a record 770,000 new businesses created in 2020, according to Tyl and NatWest.

Research carried out by The Accountancy Partnership earlier this year found twofifths (43 per cent) of people who had started their own business did so to improve their work-life balance and a fifth (19 per cent) were striving to improve

their mental health. “For those who felt a lack of control or experienced problems with bosses when working for someone else, it seems to be a popular alternative and key driver in the ‘Great Resignation’,” sugge st s L e e Mu r phy, m a n ag i ng director.

For organisations looking to prevent a mass exodus, there are tools that can be deployed. First up is to talk to them about what they are looking for, advises Sebag‑Montefiore. “They are likely to say

Winners and losers The shift in business practices post-pandemic has had positive and negative repercussions As always when any workplace shifts occur, there will be winners and losers. According to research by employment agency Randstad, those working in manufacturing, construction, technology and logistics are the most confident when it comes to finding new jobs, which could spell bad news for employers in those sectors.

The least

confident workers can be found in call centres, as well as in HR, legal and accountancy.

Geography could also be a factor. With people more likely to seek remote work they are no longer tied to major cities, meaning organisations based in London or the south-east could suffer. “This

could boost hiring in other parts of the UK with lower cost of living and average wages,” suggests Rod McMillan, marketing manager at Monster.

“There is a big opportunity for regions such as Scotland to benefit from the redistribution of employment within the UK. However, if the jobs are already in cheaper parts of the UK, then they may potentially get filled abroad.”

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10 flexibility,” she says. “Do what you can to enable remote and flexible working, understandi ng t hat t h i s w i l l mea n different things to different people. Be open with communication and have regular honest conversations with employees.” Investing in training and development is also important, she adds, including for those who work remotely.

Improving employee eng a ge me nt i s a l s o v it a l.

According to O.C. Tanner’s research, engagement levels have dropped by an average of 18 per cent in the past year, with one in three employees now feeling disconnected from their leader. “Demonstrating a connection to purpose, prioritising employee experience and delivering a consistent and genuine recognition programme are some of the ways you can ensure your best people stay put, and to continue to attract new talent,” says Robert Ordever, managing director of O.C. Tanner Europe.

Recognising the work employees have done can help to create a more positive culture.

Workhuman’s survey suggests those who have been recently recognised are three times more likely to report an improvement in workplace culture, and more than four

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“While some factors driving the quest for fresh challenges may prove temporary, it’s likely the majority will remain relevant on a permanent basis”

times as likely to say they are happy at work. “When emp l o y e e s f e e l g e nu i n e l y appreciated and valued at work, recognised by both their managers and their peers, they will naturally be much less likely to leave,” says Derek Irvine, SVP strategy and consulting at Workhuman.

Businesses also need to ensure they offer employees the purpose they are seeking, particularly for younger workers. “Businesses which are organised around their core purpose will have no trouble attracting and retaining young talent, because this generation is not motivated by money,” says Neil Gaught, founder of Single Organizing Idea. “They want to be heavily invested in the cause, and for their work to be meaningful.”

It’s also important to consider t he wellbeing of

employees in the wake of the pandemic. “When we asked organisations what they felt had become far more important to existing and prospective employees, 90 per cent said employers’ efforts to support wellbeing,” says John Backhouse, principal consultant of people science at Workbuzz. Team leaders and low-level managers are at most risk of burnout right now, he adds, along with workers who haven’t been able to work remotely during the pandemic.

For this latter group, employers need to think about other benefits, such as enhanced holidays and in-work breaks, reduced hours, a reduction in weekend work or enhanced benefits, he adds.

While some factors driving the quest for fresh challenges may prove temporary, it’s likely the majority will remain relevant on a permanent basis. But for organisations which can effectively hold on to staff, there is a silver lining. “Supply and demand will drive changes that are likely to be painful in the shor t to med iu m te r m, but beneficial in the long term,” says McMillan.

“This will lead to better working conditions, more training opportunities and higher salaries, driving increased productivity.”

The Great Resignation in numbers citing the need for a pay increase and 37 per cent keen to receive a “signing bonus”.

But 35 per cent want to work completely remotely (35 per cent) or more flexibly (33 per cent). At the same time, just 19 per cent say they’re finding job-hunting easier, despite the record number of job vacancies 69 per cent of Brits will look for a new job within the next two months. Within this group of jobseekers, 45 per cent say they will seek new employment within the next year, and 11 per cent are already actively job-hunting When asked which work perks are most essential when choosing a new job, those with direct financial benefits are still the most popular, with 79 per cent

42 per cent say they have become more loyal to their employers during the pandemic, although this may just be a short-term result of fears over job/financial security Source : Bullhorn More than half (55 per cent) of the UK’s workforce are currently looking for a new role 2.5 million senior-level Brits are predicted to be actively looking for a new role, while 77 per cent of Millennials

have signalled an imminent job switch Employees at senior executive level are 37 per cent more likely to have spoken to a recruiter in the past six months than any other career level Replacing these executives and managers will cost approximately 33 per cent of the average annual salary Source : Employment Hero

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Addressing the root causes of the ‘Great Resignation’

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ITH MILLIONS of behaviours that indicate they take rapid and effective action. workers rethinking were planning to leave.

As the data in this report what work means to Globally, the expected aver- reveals, there are specific them and how they want to be age industry turnover rate scoring behaviours that can valued by their employers, the decreased by 5.9 per cent in the not only predict but help to Great Resignation trend could first half of 2021, compared prevent voluntary employee just be getting started – beyond to the same period in the pre- turnover. the initial waves of record-set- vious year.

Before the pandemic, poting turnover reported in some This drop in expected em- tent ia l leavers could be industries and regions. ployee turnover occurred across identified around six months The latest findings from all industries, with the consumer before their actual departure, Peakon, a Workday company, and transportation sectors with turnover intention dropbased on analysis of more than seeing some of the biggest de- ping significantly during that 60,000 leavers across 250 or- creases, alongside others such time. During the pandemic, ganisations worldwide, however, it has been has identified that 27 per possible to identify pocent of current employees tential leavers up to “The drop in expected have similar scoring be11 months ahead of time, employee turnover occurred haviours to employees who as they showed a more across all industries, with the gradual decline in enhave left their job over the consumer and transportation gagement scores. past year. sectors seeing some of the Drawn from millions of When strategic deciemployee responses, this sions and actions at all biggest decreases” data reveals that more than levels of the organisation a quarter of all employees as manufacturing, professional are aligned with ever-changing around the world in different ser v ices, non-prof it and employee expectations, it’s industries are showing clear, technology. possible to look past “The measurable warning signs norFor most people, the ongoing Great Resignation” and start mally associated with people economic uncertainty and lack planning for “The Great who have already quit. of job opportunities at the start Regeneration.” of 2021 meant that leaving their Download our new HeartEmployees have current role was not an option, beat repor t, “ T he Great been waiting for the but as vaccination efforts have Regeneration: Turning the Tide right time to leave started to yield positive results on Employee Resignations,” to Our research indicates that in some regions, this reluctance learn more about why employees many people are harbouring a may be waning. are leaving, and how organisapent-up desire to leave their tions can identify the signs that current role. Why? Employees It’s not too late for someone is planning to leave, have been willing to stay in organisations to act before it’s too late. their current roles for nearly The “Great Resignation” is far twice as long during the pan- from a foregone conclusion – INDUSTRY VIEW de m ic , de s pite s c or i n g especially for organisations that https://bit.ly/3HfaYf0

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Enabling an effortless employee experience Martin Cross, CTO at Connect, argues that effective hybrid working requires a reassessment of the employee experience of technology

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F ALL the enormous changes we’ve had to deal with over the past 20 months, the technology shift has been one of the easiest.

When workplaces had to shut, technology was the answer: the remote working tools that IT departments had been quietly deploying for years suddenly came into their own. Starved of outside contact, even the most technophobic colleagues embraced them. Teams and Zoom weren’t just business tools; they became the key to our social lives.

Now, as people return to offices in increasing numbers, it’s a natural assumption that we’ll keep using these same tools to support what’s called a “hybrid” working model – some at home, some in the office.

But rather than blending easily, traditional office and home working cultures may well clash.

And this time, with solutions and networks fundamentally designed for office working, technology may be part of the problem.

The hybrid meeting Let’s start in the meeting room. Four of you are around the table. Now you need to get your three remote colleagues dialled in. Forget Teams; there’s that weird spider-phone to remember how to operate.

Switch on, and someone is there waiting to be admitted. Another is having tech problems and the third, once he’s joined, starts with the small talk you’ve already had. It’s disjointed and awkward, and you’ve not even begun.

With the meeting underway, the four in the room are exchanging views naturally, picking up cues from body language. By contrast, those at home are struggling to get a word in. When one does, their voice keeps breaking up. To assist, a meeting room colleague makes notes on the whiteboard, that those at home can’t see.

At this point, the colleague with tech problems finally joins in…

of it already. Tools such as Teams, WebEx and Slack have been designed or rapidly enhanced over recent months, to enable collaborative multi-location working.

What we now need is a way to bring these easily into the office environment.

To support hybrid working, meeting rooms need to be equipped with display screens, full audio and video capability and – crucially – a way of allowing people to use the same tools they’ve become accustomed to from home, in the office. Ideally, you’d just walk in with your laptop and start the meeting on the big screen.

But it’s not just meetings we need to consider.

Think too about the ongoing collaboration between teams in different locations. Instant messaging and chat tools are crucial here; the smarter workspaces – again, the likes of Teams and Slack – make it easy to store these conversations.

Essentially, what we’re looking for is an environment where every member of the team has access to all the same tools, wherever they are working.

An effortless employee experience Hybrid isn’t just about location Over the coming months, scenarios like this will be replayed in organisations across the country.

Hybrid working means not just that individuals will be mixing time in the office and home, but a hybrid of technology and working cultures. To make that work effectively requires some thought.

Inevitably, technology exists to facilitate this new hybrid model. Indeed, businesses have a lot

In the world of the contact centre and customer service, organisations have invested extensively in delivering an “effortless” customer experience. Customers would rather deal with organisations that are easy to do business with.

But it turns out that reducing customer effort often serves to deliver efficiency gains for the organisation

Martin Cross

“To deliver an effortless and consistent experience to all employees, organisations need to look at a distributed model, where the power is at the network edge, closer to users”

itself, removing bottlenecks and duplication.

Why not apply the same logic internally too?

An effortless employee experience will save time for the business. It will liberate teams to focus on what they’re discussing, rather than how the discussion should take place. And in a world where your people can choose to work literally anywhere, taking away some basic frustrations could even help with retention and attracting new talent.

Rethinking the network The most common frustration employees face is a slow connection. While sometimes that’s a user problem, there remains a fundamental issue on the business side.

Pre-pandemic, organisations built their networks on the assumption that most staff would be office-based and only a small proportion working remotely. That led to a centralised model, with capacity a nd ne t work i nte l l i g e nc e focused on the office or data

centre, which remote workers accessed via a virtual private network (VPN) connection.

When hundreds of people are remote, that model no longer makes sense. The capacity is in the wrong place.

Instead, to deliver an effortless and consistent experience to all employees, organisations need to look at a distributed model, where the power is at the network edge, closer to users. That reduces the risks of sluggish video performance or issues with any other real-time tool – benefiting not only remote workers, but also those in the office.

The experience is better.

Crucially for businesses, these models put security controls at the edge too. By recognising a user’s identity, device and location, the network determines what services and applications the user can access. Instead of needing to connect to multiple tools in multiple ways, there’s a simple, consistent experience for the user, and the business retains control.

Moving to a distributed network model is arguably the single biggest change in corporate networking in a generation. But if we are committed to hybrid working as the future of work – which most analysis suggests we are – we need our networks to step up. A distributed model will not only provide an effortless employee experience, but will also give organisations the agility, security and scalability needed.

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Management control in digital transformation D IGITAL TRANSFORMATION should be an organisation-wide strategy, with a focus on equipping internal teams with the tools and workflows within a controlled all-in-one environment, to deliver quality service to clients. Without a consolidated strategy to deploy a company-wide digital resilience, disparate communications and business interactions are outside of management oversight, and organisations cannot have full transparency into business practices, making it difficult to maintain streamlined workflows and control over them.

A branded OneStop App enables organisations to efficiently manage their internal teams to deliver just-in-time, high-touch service to their clients, while seamlessly managing internal operations.

Many brands have important business data spread across messengers and email – to the point that it becomes almost impossible to maintain consistency and manage it all. The problem with having a variety of disparate channels is that it is much harder to streamline client-centric workflows and manage persistent relationships throughout the customer lifecycle.

These environments also present new challenges

When implementing a digital strategy, it’s imperative for organisations to retain management control for a more streamlined, efficient business process

in privacy and security – when an organisation cannot assume control of its digital strategy, it cannot ensure safety to clients and the business as a whole since it is relying on other parties.

Also, difficulties in enabling streamlined workflows can mean the entire experience can be disjointed for both clients and employees.

It is notoriously difficult to maintain control across such disparate workflows. It is harder to ensure confidentiality, security and integrity, and delivering persistent customer relationships can become almost impossible. Using many services means having important client data spread across them, reducing the potential for that data to be distilled into actionable insights.

Furthermore, disparate digital communications have an adverse effect on productivity, where

employees often end up spending more time sifting through emails than serving their clients.

Digital resilience depends on maintaining management control over the entire organisation, and premiere service delivery relies on having a structured system in which all customer interactions and data can be managed and protected.

Addressing these needs becomes much easier when everything is managed under a OneStop Client App. Organisations can deliver the same streamlined, secure client experience and maintain a fully auditable transcript of all transactions and interactions. This also enables brands to deliver a premier white-glove service over the convenience of mobile – vital in today’s service-driven economy where people expect efficiency and personalisation.

A digital strategy must factor every stage of the client journey. A managed environment where administrators can retain full visibility into their workflows, measure performance and hold staff accountable is business-critical. By bringing everything together with a OneStop Client Collaboration Portal, that serves as a fluid extension of organisations’ service structure:

clients can get in touch via a branded app anytime, anywhere, with premier service access. The same applies to employees too, who can better respond through one fully integrated system.

Moxtra’s OneStop Platform solution is built to scale and evolve with rapidly advancing technology and enables organisations to further enhance brand recognition by delivering a digital service experience for clients, under their brand. Get started today with a OneStop App for streamlining and managing client-centric business processes.

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Empty shelves and a lack of skills: supply chain leaders need an adaptable plan to cope in a crisis

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ARTIME US president Dwight D Eisenhower once said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” – words that still resonate today in a climate of continued supply chain disruption.

From shortages of delivery drivers through to Covid-19 and Brexit-induced challenges, the need for effective planning has never been greater.

As the Institute for Government explains, things are not about to get any easier either, so businesses have a choice – stick a finger in the air and hope for the best or start planning intelligently for a future of continued disruption.

As Rick Lambrecht, a director at Olivehorse, says, “Planning is the activity that converts your strategic objective into operational reality.”

Quite simply, if you want your business to have any chance of not just surviving but growing in the coming months, it has to be able to turn ideas into actions, and ensure that those actions can be adaptable to meet the unforeseen and

unpredictable nature of today’s markets and economies.

At Olivehorse we have segmented how we treat planning, to help businesses overcome multiple supply chain challenges and, importantly, cope with whatever is lurking around the corner.

Our long-term, mid-term and shortterm planning structure addresses key planning phases, based on organisational data. This facilitates more informed decision making and helps build resilience into supply chain management.

• Long-term planning includes the Annual Operation Plan and a business/planning model that will deliver on that AOP plan. This must take into account financials, demand and supply plans, fixed assets and inventory, all coming together in the Sales and Operations Planning Process.

• Mid-term planning is defined as the period over which strategic assets

period where the plan meets the actual sales orders. It can vary significantly from the forecast. The options to respond to these significant changes are hugely reduced here; however, there is some flexibility. Buffers and headroom provisioned for in the mid-term plan can now be used. Products, which share the same components, can be rebalanced in line with sales.

are fixed but operating outside of the material lead time. The options available to the business are now hugely reduced. There is, however, room to flex the plan. The purpose of the mid-term is to protect the short-term plan from fluctuations in demand and supply at the best

service and lowest operational cost/ highest margin.

• Short-term planning – the ability to make any major changes in production volumes in this period is hugely reduced. Capacity is set, materials have been ordered. It is also the

The traditional planning process is to plan to forecast, with the assumption business will adhere to that plan. The adaptive planning model is designed to accommodate headroom, buffers and many alternative options to ensure the business can adapt to and be resilient to changes in the plan. Businesses that ignore this will not be able to address unpredicted changes and will suffer the consequences for it.

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Four ways people workflow automation is changing business Workflow automation offers so many new opportunities, in general, and People Workflow Automation is no different – businesses need to grasp the implications of it right now

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S A LEADER, I know that opportunities are everything. They can help set your company up for success, and can drive growth in a host of ways. That’s why People Workflow Automation to me is so exciting: because it ’s set to help HR realise many new opportunities.

How? It starts by automating people processes, across your entire business, to help HR go beyond itself, but I want to peel back the layers a bit and talk it through in more in-depth. Here are the four key ways I think People Workflow Automation is set to change the way work is done.

1. By removing delays across the business Attention fragmentation is a massive issue for so many organisations, and many may not even notice it. But, while delays like these may feel minor at the time, they have a distinct effect that adds up and ends up being a huge drain on productivity.

Studies have shown that each involuntary distraction costs people a delay of more than 47 total minutes of lost time switching between applications and getting back into the flow of work. So, for each vacation request, paperwork submission, or signature, you’re losing valuable or value-adding business opportunities (and what could be achieved with them).

And the last thing you want is for unnecessary delays to get in the way of work, or to get in the way of opportunities for your people and your business.

The course of the pandemic hasn’t made it easier of course, with an explosion of tooling leading to the average HR team needing 6 different applications, on average, to get their work done (as per a study conducted by Personio and Opinium across Europe).

People Workflow Automation’s emphasis on reducing and removing delays, across apps and teams, is a transformative element here. It’s a way for businesses to focus on helping employees perform, without being held back by delays that get in the way of opportunities.

2. By putting productivity in the spotlight People processes, and all the potential delays involved, add up to hold back productivity and may lead to missed opportunities. Simply put,

for all the time spent trying to simply keep up, you lose out on possibilities to make your work even better and to focus on a host of other things.

That might reveal itself in dwindling employee satisfaction or engagement scores. Maybe it makes it more difficult for employees to recharge and take breaks, or at worst it could be a security risk or result in a lack of compliance across your entire organisation.

Productivity, not only how but the way people work, is in the spotlight more than ever.

Think of it like this: People Workflow Automation offers an integrated workflow, where one click triggers a flow across applications and teams, all to achieve the goal of hiring, managing, and developing employees from day one (and even before then).

It’s achieved by deep integrations to applications that span across the business, but it’s also giving your HR team the time and ability to focus on overall workforce productivity like never before.

3. By reestablishing and refocusing on people processes Whether onboarding a new employee, provisioning them with the applications they need to get the job done, or allowing another to easily call in sick or stay up to date with their team’s absences, people processes happen across your business all day, every day.

“Productivity, not only how but the way people work, is in the spotlight more than ever”

Simply put, your people processes need to be able to make your people, and your company, successful. They should keep things running smoothly by reducing delays, and they should facilitate the great work that needs to happen for businesses to grow.

It’s a refocusing and democratising of enterprise automation that, after the pandemic, is due for SMEs. Especially when it comes to onboarding, provisioning, or helping employees reach new levels of performance, now is a great time to revisit the work that goes on around people.

4. By enabling HR to go beyond HR I have always tried to discuss and emphasise how central strategic HR needs to be and the position it needs to take within a business.

Basically, HR needs the time to focus on strategic initiatives and tasks to really help power an organisation (and to help them scale).

People Workflow Automation, based on the concept of people processes that touch every level of business, opens up this conversation and the

opportunity for HR teams - building on and powering organisational velocity in every way.

Most importantly, it helps achieve organisational velocity. That’s a concept grounded in frictionless business operations and a better state of work, designed to help organisations achieve their ‘need for speed’ without sacrificing quality.

So, all of a sudden, your people processes are not only easier, but your HR team can keep track of them, alter them, optimise them, and learn from them. All in an effort to bolster business.

Don’t miss out: people workflow automation is here While things may be working at your company today, there’s a whole world of opportunity at your doorstep. The fact is that People Workflow Automation is helping take things not only to a new level, but an entirely different one, too.

To sum up, People Workflow Automation changes the way that people work by getting your apps and your people ‘talking.’ And, from a business and organisational perspective, that is the beginning of an endless world of possibilities.

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Ross Seychell is chief people officer at Personio, Europe’s leading HR software company for small and mid-sized businesses www.personio.com www.linkedin.com/company/personio

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That Thursday feeling…

Trials and studies are recommending that the traditional working week be shortened from five to four days, and that it can be done without losing productivity. Is there more to it, or could Thursday soon officially become the new Friday? David Nicholson investigates

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ORKING FEWER hours for the same pay – who would say no to that?

Yet despite a slew of studies lauding the benefits of a four-day working week, with pilot programmes in Iceland, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain and Japan, there remain reservations. Some experts point to serious flaws in the concept, while employers are noticeably cool.

On paper, it promises a virtuous circle of lower employee stress, maintained or even increased productivity, better work-life balance and greater happiness.

The results of the 2015-2019 Icelandic study are strikingly positive: when 2,500 public sector workers worked a shorter week for the same pay, their well-being dramatically increased, with no loss of productivity.

Iceland’s trade unions renegotiated working patterns and now almost 90 per cent of the country’s workforce enjoy shorter hours, or have the right to do so. “This study shows that the world’s largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success,” enthused Will Stronge of think tank Autonomy, which analysed the results.

Not so fast, says Jon Boys, economist at the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). “If you ask people about their work patterns, 50 per cent want to do more hours,” he says. Boys argues that the Icelandic study was highly selective and looked only at the public sector, while Autonomy pursued a loaded political agenda in line with trade union calls for improved conditions and higher pay. Promoting a mandatory four-day working week would cause problems, he believes.

“Our big worry is that, if you try to compress people’s hours, you’ll end up with higher work

intensity,” says Boys. “It’s not good for job quality, which is the CIPD’s mission: better work and better working lives.”

Boys favours flexible working, to maximise alignment of employee and employer preferences.

Shorter hours can be part of this mix, especially if it helps employers attract and recruit women, older workers or people with disabilities: “Employers should do as much as they can to reach out to non-traditional groups,” he says.

CEO Anthony Goodwin at recruitment consultancy Antal International, with 800 employees in 38 countries, agrees that flexibility is key. “I’m a big believer in flexible working, but I’m against a mandatory four-day week,” he says from his headquarters in central London, where most of his employees have returned to fulltime office work. “I believe the working week is helpful to mental health, it’s a platform upon which people can structure their own lives, it’s comforting, it’s secure and it’s a release. Much as we love our families, it’s good to get away from them.”

With eight children, Goodwin has more to get away from than most, and admits that his own working schedule is highly flexible – he can work a four-day week if he chooses. Like most entrepreneurs, Goodwin’s fortunes are tied to his results, rather than to specific hours.

That approach could extend more widely, he believes. “In our business, it’s about action, activity and results, rather than time spent. Would I be comfortable if someone made four placements a month, working two days a week, compared with someone making two placements a month, working five days? Yes, I would accept that.”

Disadvantages of a four-day week could include lack of cohesion in office teams and a struggle to

“I’m a believer in flexible working but I’m against a mandatory four-day week”

History of the four-day week A shorter working week is an idea that has been floated for centuries Trade unionists succeeded in reducing the working week from six days to five in the late 19th century, with textile manufacturer and social reformer Robert Owen urging: “Eight hour’s labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest.”

In 1928 economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour working week would be the norm within a century. maintain productivity, fears Goodwin. While the pandemic has prompted remote working, he is a strong advocate of the five-day office week and thinks the momentum is shifting.

“There are now more high cranes on the London skyline than I’ve seen for a very long time,” he notes, anticipating a burst of new buildings.

What’s true for central London may not apply further afield.

Besides Iceland, the Spanish government has introduced a 32-hour working week pilot

During the Great Depression, the US Congress debated a 30-hour week in response to unemployment, but the measure failed after critics decried it as “communist”.

In subsequent decades, pressure for shorter working hours has programme, subsidising up to 6,000 workers’ wages; Japan is considering a four-day week after a Microsoft pilot showed increased productivity from shorter hours; and New Zealand-based finance firm Perpetual Guardian implemented a four-day week, with positive results.

In the rapidly-modernising central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, a Labor Code signed by President Nazarbayev in 2015 gives Kazakhstanis the right to flexible working hours, including a four-day week. “We’ve had

remained from trade unionists, who argue that the productivity benefits of technology should be shared by workers.

In 2018 the UK Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party announced the four-day working week as a campaign commitment.

discussions about introducing a four-day week for some time, w it h people bot h for a nd against,” says the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation.

Such is the growing clamour for shorter working hours that, emboldened by the possibilities of remote working, employers may accept it as a new reality.

For now, business owners struggling to deal with the effects of the pandemic and Brexit, facing rising costs and falling income, may baulk at something that threatens their margins.

November 2021

AN INDEPENDENT REPORT FROM LYONSDOWN, DISTRIBUTED WITH THE GUARDIAN

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PROMOTIONAL CONTENT

The future of work is projects More businesses are switching on to the power of projects to drive and deliver social and economic benefits.

Applying project-led approaches to businessas-usual activity is helping organisations succeed

T

HE PROJECT profession adds £156.5bn of gross value to the UK economy each year, analysis by Association for Project Management (APM) and PwC Research has found – more than construction, financial services, accommodation and food, and entertainment and recreation. In the past few months, it has also been reported that a project management shortage could cost the global economy $345 billion by 2030, with Europe among the most heavily impacted areas.

The economic value of projects is clear, yet many businesses have historically failed to give their project experts sufficient voice at a strategic level. This is more important than ever at a time when all organisations face common challenges of unprecedented scale. The climate emergency, the global pandemic and the post-Brexit operating environment have created a perfect storm for businesses when it comes to planning their medium and long-term strategies.

Against this complex and shifting backdrop, the rise in the “projectification” of work – applying project management methods and practices to routine tasks – is emerging as a path to social and economic success. Project management methods are being adopted more widely in business.

There’s also growing awareness at management and leadership level of the “accidental project manager”: professionals who aren’t officially tasked with managing projects but who do so without necessarily realising it.

Approaches and methods that have long been used only by project specialists are proving their value and finding widespread adoption across numerous sectors. The future of work is projects.

In some ways, this should come as little surprise. Project management is, after all, about delivering in the face of change, or delivering change itself. This is no longer a n ic he r e qu i r e me nt a nd mor e business leaders are acknowledging the value of applying project-led approaches more broadly. Understanding of what constitutes a project is also changing. More employees in a wide variety of business

Professor Adam Boddison (below) is chief executive of Association for Project Management, the chartered body for the project profession. He is a published author and visiting professor at the University of Wolverhampton

functions are evaluating their work in terms of projects rather than “tasks”, with outputs, outc ome s or b e n e f it s de l i ve r e d in line with agreed acceptance criteria, timescales and budgets.

Leaders who are considering a more project-led approach, or who are in the early stages of implementing one, should bear the following in mind:

fast-changing environment. This view is reflected in the views of the project profession itself. APM’s latest Salary and Market Trends Survey asked respondents what they felt was the most important validation of their work. The results showed that having a voice at the table when it comes to defining their organisation’s strategy is most valued.

• Allow projects the time they need. Establish a framework that will ensure employees take the time to gather and analyse business requirements of any project they’re working on. The key benefits and drivers must be understood, along with the delivery methods. This can be challenging in environments where projects are likely to have tight deadlines, so it’s important to ensure that managers don’t apply excessive pressure to embark on the project without a clear idea of the requirements, the business objectives and the benefits. Without these, any project risks wasting time and effort.

• Have control of your controls. In larger organisations, collecting actual costs and collating them in a format to allow comparison with project budgets may be handled by a dedicated team. In small and medium enterprises, the person leading the project might have to become involved in this process, so training may be required to help them minimise costs from outset and identify areas of overspend.

• Incorporate project management and delivery at board level. As organisations grow their portfolios of projects, there should be a seat at the top table for those responsible for delivering them. This may take the form of a chief project officer (CPO). Bringing more project management experience into the boardroom will ensure that projects form a critical part of strategic development – essential in today’s

As projects move the business closer from present state to desired future state, upskilling staff and consolidating project knowledge will be vital. There are opportunities for employers to incorporate successful project delivery as an integral part of business strategy and invest in structures, training and qualifications for project specialists and accidental project managers alike.

Larger organisations may wish to consider establishing a dedicated project, programme or portfolio management office (PMO).

PMOs contribute directly to performance improvements in productivity, customer

satisfaction, projects under budget and ahead of schedule, and cost savings.

High-performing companies have more capable PMOs and those who can afford to invest in their growth and development should do so. In smaller organisations where resources may be limited, it may not be feasible to establish a PMO. Instead, SME leaders should promote training that focuses on risk management, change management, time management, and communication and interpersonal skills.

As the chartered body for the project profession, APM recognises the need to support the skills that go beyond project management process alone and are fundamental to success. My advice to business leaders and employers is to establish an approach to learning and development that creates a progressive structure for project experts to enhance their competency and, ultimately, their outcomes. A formalised approach to learning will establish a common language, embed best practice across business functions and set a consistent benchmark for defining project success.

In a changing and challenging world, the project profession has never been more important. While the environment for delivery is complex, it’s clear that projects represent the future of work.

INDUSTRY VIEW

APM offers a range of qualifications and training to support the future of your business. Visit bit.ly/apmquals