What is there in the future?

Staying ahead of the game to be able to stay in it: Top trends to follow.

“The future is already here; it's just unevenly distributed.” ~ William Gibson

I am always saying that Covid19 has just accelerated the transformation in areas like digital transformation, new ways of working and different areas of business. In view of different global, technological, workplace and workforce trends, the total narrative will change. If you want to distinguish between high performing organizations and average organizations following are the focus areas, high performing organizations have. It is just not for their corporate presentations, but they have strategic intent which is very much weaved in their corporate strategy.

I have spoken with different leaders/CHROs during pandemic, participated in different webinars and studied different research done by top consultants like McKinsey, PwC etc. and I have interesting findings. Following are those imperatives & trends if followed, chances of being successful is more.  

“People First” Focused Strategy

Speaking about “People First” strategy is very good. Most of the organizations are already speaking about it, but very few organizations are working on this. It is very sad that organizations are laying off employees who are working with them for long. However high performing organizations are now consolidating on talent strategy. They have already incorporated 3P (People, Planet and Profit) elements in the strategy.

People: I have read and listened to a lot of CEOs quoting that people are their asset. The statements of those CEOs like, “We can’t be successful in the society which fails”. Or “Business can't succeed in a failing society” are popular in the media. However, very few organizations have pragmatic policies on this and integrated with their purpose and mission statement. Organizations which have integrated are doing great today. Taking care of people who are working with you and people around you in society is novel thought. It is not just about employees but society at large.

Sustainability & Planet

Sustainability is a long term. It is avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. Lot of organizations are working to reduce their carbon footprint and trying to maintain the ecological balance by manufacturing clean products and focusing on 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). It is very important to understand which planet we want to transfer to new generations.

Profit with ethical standards 

We are grown listening that earning profit is bad. So-called leftist ideology and trade unions associated the business as a bad evil and conditioned the mind of people negatively like capitalism is there to exploit employees and society. But they totally failed to understand that you can’t survive on their principle and hence big communist countries themselves are capitalist mind exploiting the society.

High performing organizations have views that ethical profitability is far more than merely operating within the boundaries of the law. The true test of ethical profitability is whether or not the company is a positive example to its employees, to its customers and even to other companies. Such companies practice the truest form of leadership-by-example.     

Digital Transformation to Digital Integration

We have discussed a lot about digital transformation. We all know that Covid19 has accelerated the digital agenda in organizations. High performing organizations are not now speaking about the transformation but digital integration. It is about creating a habit of using and integrating digital platforms in our day to day life. You need to develop people on how to use those, how to present, how to sell and how to collaborate. It is about different behaviours than digital technology itself.   

Gen Z Will Take Over, (born between 1997 to 2016)

Organizations always struggle when there is an addition of the next generation in the workforce. Youth born between 1997 to 2000 are ready to join the workforce. We have seen a lot of challenges of generation X while managing the millennial generation. All generations are different and unique. Their style is different, and their ambition is different. Organizations have to work on inclusion and diversity and making the life easy of all generations. It includes training them on managing people, bringing the diverse view in talent management and talent development initiatives. Your talent management process which you used to work 10 years back will not work today. You need an action -based talent management system instead of just mapping the people in the talent grid and then forgetting them. Organizations also have to change their views on the definition of talent.   

The Gig Economy is the New Economy

We have seen gig workers in e-commerce, food delivery, travel aggregators like Amazon, Swiggy, Uber, Ola etc. Indian industry has been working with contract labour for the last 2 decades. The gig economy is now prominent in blue collar jobs. After covid19, it will still be popular. However, I am expecting this in white collar jobs also. The Younger generation will be more interested to find the joy and more income from different jobs with different companies with different skills. Free lancers, consultants and retainers will be more. Organizations have to frame policies on how to manage and engage those workforces. There will be social security and information security issues which have to be handled carefully in future.  

Innovation in Business Models

Business needs to be more innovative. They need to reinvent themselves and different business models driven by the technology. Companies also have to think about what those new models are. We have some examples improving the business with the help of technology. Disruptive innovations are changing the rule of the game and you really need to think differently if you want to be in this game.

Customer experience is in the focus,

It is not just selling your product or service. It is more about the customer experience. In the market where your product becomes a commodity over a period of time, you don’t have an option to differentiate it with the value and solution selling. Your customers will come back only when they are happy, satisfied and delighted with your services. It is not about the price and product itself but how it is sold, delivered and serviced further without any problems to the customer.  

Instant Reviews

Online reviews are a double-edged sword. Small mistakes can cost huge loss in reputation and revenue. We have a lot of examples in recent years. If customers are treated with respect and service well, they will be your brand ambassadors. Company CEOs and celebrity brand ambassadors need to be very cautious on what they communicate, write and speak on social and public forums. Instant reviews about your product and services will decide the future of your business.    

Meaningful career and not only jobs

Meaningful career is where you connect with the purpose of the organization and your job. You feel satisfied and happy by doing that in a stress-free, enriched, and ethical way. To do this you understand your interest values and skills. You identify your preferred style and find the community to help you to grow in the organization or outside the organisation. In short, a meaningful career is one where we feel an authentic connection between the work we do and a broader life purpose beyond the self.  Millennials and Z generation is more motivated by the purpose of the organization, career development, empowerment, and openness. They will continue and will be more demanding in this.

Few organizations have already started prioritising talent management agenda. Lot of organizations have to follow it to be competitive in the market.       

From skills to Human skills, Innovations in creating those skills.

To do all above we need talent. With the technology changes and new way of working, employees will have to work on human skills instead of just technical and functional skills. With AI, ML, Sensors, IoT, Additive Printing etc people will need skills where they will manage the automation speedily but also people around them.

Organizations will become more flatter; Organizations will move to project/product-based work groups without any formal reporting lines. Employees will have to work in a web and matrix environment where networking and influencing, collaborating on a virtual platform will be crucial. To do this every employee will have to learn fast. Hence if you want to stay in the course develop your people on human skills along with functional skills.   

A wise person said that only one thing is constant in this world is change. There are external forces which are forcing us to change. There are some indications we are already getting, and we need to take a clue from that.

Finally, I would like to quote Darwin, (researchers say that Darwin never said it) “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle,  Vitality in Human Resource, Adding human dimensions in HR processes

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Future of work: High impact individual contributor roles

Every person after working an individual contributor expects that he should have a team to manage. Heading and managing a team is a dream of every professional. long back most of the organizations had created heavy hierarchical structures to accommodate that desire of employees. Organizations had big structures, chain of commands and different titles & designations. After spending a few years in particular titles (not roles), organizations used to promote employees to the next level. Jr, Sr and Dy was always prefixed to the title to satisfy the egos of employees. General Managers were managers without having any general management exposure. This structure created invisible ranks in the mind of employees. People used to get elevated to higher titles without much changing their roles. However, this structure created a lot of bureaucracy within the organizations. Big organizations had become like elephants. It created the hierarchical culture with slow decision making. In such structures Power flows vertically and upward, and employees are departmentalized. Multiple layers within the organizations create a lot of business & socio-political issues.

Today a lot of organizations are going away from the formal structures. It is very important to decide the span of control and layers within the organizations to increase the efficiency and effectiveness.   

Modern organizations are flat with few levels. Few organizations work in matrix structures and few in web structures. Few organizations are going towards project-based organizations and using different methodologies like agile, scrum, etc. Such organizations only need good talent and not the ego associated with titles.  That’s why some organizations are going away from Titles. Employees are instructed to write their name and department on the visiting cards. Everybody within the organization is treated important and they are empowered so that they fulfill their responsibilities. Such culture requires a high level of trust and employees need to be competent to work in such an environment. People are sensitized towards common purpose.

Working in such organizations demands different skill sets. There are very few people managers and team managers roles. Even people managers are expected to spend more time on development dialogues and not just supervising employee and micromanaging team members.   

  

This has resulted in creating a lot of individual contributor roles as per the expertise and competence. There are a lot of Individual contributor roles which have the major impact on the business. Employees in such roles are expected to network and influence and get the job done.  Such roles are also highly paid. With organizations transforming into more agile organizations, it is important that there are few layers and more connections without any barriers.

I have seen a lot of individual contributor roles which are strategic and very impactful. Those roles are HRBP, Marketing Manager, Programmer, Developer, Communication Expert, Business Controller, Talent Manager, People Development Manager, Business Manager, Product Manager, Application Manager, Data Scientist and even Sales Manager, Treasury Manager, Risk Manager, Auditor and so on.

Employees are expected to demonstrate all behaviours like a leader; such as developing strategy, making tactical plans, presenting and communicating ideas, setting priorities for the function or the market, coaching others, leading without the title, managing cross functional groups, influencing others and so on.  

Hence whenever you get the opportunity with a good role & high salary, don’t look at the reportee numbers. Just look what value that role adds in the organization. Further these roles need high level behavioural skills as they work with different people with complex environments with a lot of ambiguity. In fact, you learn solid leadership skills and acumen in individual contributor roles. It is easy to get the job done when somebody is in your hierarchy but very difficult when nobody is reporting you and still you are held responsible for the results.   

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource