How HR transformation is a key to unlocking that?

Think of workspaces, and gone are the days when you see employees sitting at their desks every day of the week. The today and future of workspaces is ‘here and now! The post-pandemic era has compelled organisations and businesses to rebrand their work cultures, change their strategies, and focus on their workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a digital transformation in the industry, with people at the heart of it and HR as the primary driving force.

Changing the future of work and bringing about digital transformation requires active participation and leadership from the HR function. Let’s look at what the future of work looks like and how HR transformation can help unlock that!

What Does the Future of Work Look Like?

When we talk of work, we are looking at three different fronts:

• The future of work
• The future of workplaces
• The future of workforce

The Gartner glossary defines the future of work as the changes that are expected in how work and workplaces will be in the coming decade, influenced by technological, generational and social shifts.

Here are some characteristics of how the future of work may look like:

• Hybrid workplaces
• Shifting of focus to impact-driven work
• Virtual meetings to replace in-person meets
• More robust policies for remote work
• Promotion of flexible working hours
• Recognition and reward for skills
• Technology-driven workspaces
• Engaged and empowered workers aligned with new digital skills
• Collaboration between humans and technology
• Connected and secured work environments that are independent of place and time

The pandemic has brought about several changes in workplaces, including both challenges as well as opportunities. With the growing trend of hybrid culture, the senior leadership of many organisations fear culture dilution.

How Can HR Transformation Unleash the Future of Work?

To help organisations and employees adapt to the future of work, HR can act on the following drivers:

• Employee experience

Future workplaces have people at the core, making HR functions indispensable to the organisation’s work. Better employee engagement and improved employee experience continue to be key success factors for organisations to succeed in the future. HR transformation can lead the way by creating an employee experience strategy by listening, understanding and acting on the workforce’s feedback. This positive feedback loop within the workforce creates environments where people thrive.

• Digital HR transformation

To elevate employee engagement and experience, technology is critical. Organisations looking to transform their workplaces to align with the future must have a digitally transformed HR. The digitisation process must meet the demands of the employees (the end-user) and continuously leverage technology in the employee lifecycle to transform the business.

Having a dedicated digital HR team that is working actively to explore emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, machine learning and others. Digital HR transformation is all-encompassing and must be able to generate data and insights continuously to make amendments based on employee preferences.

• Cultural transformation

As we saw earlier, the future of work is people-focused and people-centric. This applies to every transformation in an organisation. According to a report by an American consulting group, there is a 70% higher success rate when employees are at the centre of the transformation than when they are not.

The employees must be brought on board the vision for the transformation and how it will help their careers. The workforce must be connected to the transformation to enable the process to become a successful movement. To enable these processes, HR must play an active role in adapting the company culture. This stimulates employees to trust the organisation, boosts their productivity, and motivates them to join the transformation process.

Using digital HR transformation with future technology, companies can aim to align, engage and train their workforce for the future f  work.

• Technological investment

While everyone knows that investment in technology is essential for the future of workplaces, only HR transformation experts understand the importance of investing in technology that is suitable for the organisation and aligns with its culture.

These experts help organisations optimise processes and systems by using cloud solutions from Workday, SAP or others and use data analytics to get structural insights into KPIs that help sharpen processes.

Key Takeaway!

Most organisations and their leadership teams are constantly trying to ready their teams and workforce to adapt to the future of work. With digital transformation being the most important goal in companies today, it is essential to understand that people are the main drivers for a successful digital transformation. At the same time, getting ready for the future of work is also not possible without the complete support of HR and, most often, begins with a digital HR transformation.

If you are looking to get your organisation for the future of work, we at Kognoz Consulting

• Help you get to speed as the future of work is here!
• Help you take the essential significant steps for your digital HR transformation
• Help you take responsibility for your people and train them to become adaptable by learning, upskilling and retraining
• Enable your organisation to become automation-ready
• Guide you to create a clear vision of the future for your people
• Help train leadership for the future of work and make it a sustainable workplace

References:

• https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/glossary/future-of-work
• https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/four-phases-and-three-journeys-of-successful-transformation