Posts

STEM, Advanced Industries, and The Future of Employment. – Part 1

/ /by

The marketing SVP I was sitting next to leaned close and whispered “what’s stem?”

He seemed a little hesitant to admit that he didn’t know what the term meant to the rest of the table, but as everyone was busy arguing about AI and robots replacing all of our jobs someday soon, he saw an opening and took a chance. The term had bounced back and forth across the table a few times: Stem this and stem that. Was it a biotech thing? Genetic-engineering jobs? (Because stem cells, I expect.) Some kind of government tech education program?

“S.T.E.M.,” I said. “Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.”

“Ohhhhh,” he replied with a grin. “Tech jobs.”

Right. Tech jobs. Sort of. Not just tech jobs, but definitely the kinds of jobs most prized by companies right now, at least at scale.

A little background: I had just spent a chunk of my time on my flight to DFW reading up on global macroeconomic trends, and particularly how they relate to shifts in job creation around the world. (I have real hobbies, I promise, but I’m also kind of curious about a lot of tech-related topics. It kind of comes with the job.) So anyway, there I was, wondering if my newly STEM-enlightened neighbor would feel super psyched about scoring an impromptu mini-course in how STEM jobs impacted employment trends, and what we might infer about the US job market between now and 2025 given the shift to post industrialized… um… Yeah, no. He seemed like a nice enough guy, so we segued to HBO’s Westworld instead, and specifically how much of the hosts’ processes would have to be handled in the cloud, because that seemed less nerdy somehow.

Know your audience, they say.

Still though, this whole national job creation thing (which was a major piece of the presidential election discussion), and STEM, and IoT, and AI, and manufacturing vs tech… The convergence of these interconnected topics is filled with really interesting insights and catalysts for big ideas; so while my single-serving Marketing exec friend might not have been all that interested in employment data, or how STEM fields might play a part in creating a lot of new jobs in our increasingly digital economy, I find the topic particularly relevant to the world of digital transformation that we dig into here a little deeper every day.

Let me frame it in a way that will make the most sense. A lot of what we talk about here touches on the future of work: the impact of the cloud, big data, cognitive computing, the digital workforce, AI, VR, the IoT (and the IIoT), advanced analytics, 3D Printing, mobility, etc. – the tools and processes and methodologies – and how they are already shaping how companies will operate as our world transitions from yesterday’s operational models to new business models run party on ubiquitous, ambient, intelligent technologies. In other words, we usually focus on outlining and explaining various key aspects of the operational building blocks of Digital Transformation.

The topic that we are introducing today is a macro version of that. Instead of the future of work, its focus is the future of employment. Specifically: what type of impact will advanced industries and STEM jobs ultimately have on the job market? Will they help create more jobs than they eliminate? Will they help drive more economic value than other industries and job categories? Will they trigger an upheaval of the job market, and consequently force a reboot of how we approach education, both K-12 and job training? What will be the impact of these changes on the business world? How might companies, large and small, not only protect themselves from this wave of disruption, but take advantage of it to gain a strategic advantage in their respective markets?

These are the types of questions that we will try to answer in this series. For now though, let’s establish a set of baselines we will come back to in future discussions.

A Quick Introduction to Advanced Industries

The best place to start, as always, is at the beginning, and the beginning, in this instance, isn’t actually Digital Transformation, it’s Advanced Industries. The term refers to roughly fifty industries heavily centered around STEM and R&D. Among these industries are familiar ones like wireless telecommunications, computer systems design, automotive, healthcare, aerospace, biotech, household appliances, and so on.

  • 35 of these industries fall into the manufacturing sector. (This is important, so make a mental note of it.)
  • 12 qualify as Service industries (software publishers, wireless carriers, medical and diagnostic labs, etc.).
  • 3 fall into the Energy sector. They are: electric power generation, mining, and oil and gas extraction.

That’s right: 35 out of the 50 Advanced Industries are in the manufacturing sector. That’s more than two thirds. As we note the impact that the erosion of manufacturing jobs has had on the American middle class and the economic stress it has wreaked on blue collar workers, that’s an insight that caught my attention. So here it is: Insight number one – Over two thirds of Advanced Industries are in the Manufacturing sector.

Next, I wanted to find out how that translated into net jobs. The most recent numbers I had on hand were from 2013, but they broke down like this (rounded up or down for simplicity):

  • Advanced Industries – Services (12/50): 6.2 million jobs.
  • Advanced Industries – Manufacturing (35/50): 5.5 million jobs.
  • Advanced Industries – Energy (3/50): 700,000 jobs.

Two quick observations. The first: That’s all? (It didn’t seem like a lot.) The second: The ratio of jobs per industry category (Services vs. Manufacturing) looks pretty uneven. How can 12 industries produce more jobs than 35?

I know why. It’s a reaction, not an actual question. Rather than go off into a windy tangent on the ratio of manufacturing to services jobs, let me paint a quick picture about the evolution of the manufacturing space in recent years with two eye-opening factoids:

  1. Back in 1980, it took 25 jobs to generate $1M in manufacturing output. Today, it only takes 5 jobs to do that.
  2. A spot-welder costs an average of $25 per hour. A spot-welding robot only costs an average of $8 per hour.

It doesn’t take an economist to figure out where this is going. This leads us to insight number two: If you currently work in advanced industry manufacturing, and you already know that a robot can do your job at least as well as you can (if not better or faster), you may want to consider engineering a transition to a related advanced industry services field.

Naturally, my next question hovered around job growth and trends in advanced industries: Overall, are those jobs growing, shrinking, or staying flat? Is there an opportunity here for job growth on a mass scale that the general public may not be aware of? Let’s look at the numbers:

  • Advanced Industry Jobs (US) in 1980: 11.3 million
  • Advanced Industry Jobs (US) in 2000: 11.3 million
  • Advanced Industry Jobs (US) in 2013: 12.3 million
  • Advanced Industry Jobs (US) in 2015: 12.9 million

That’s a significant uptick since 2000, but unfortunately it isn’t exactly keeping up with overall employment numbers, or driving significant job growth:

  • Total employment (US) in 1980: 97.5 million
  • Total employment (US) in 2000: 135.6 million
  • Total employment (US) in 2013: 141.8 million
  • Total employment (US) in 2015: 143.1 million

To put this in perspective, advanced industry’s share of US jobs has shrunk, not grown, since 1980:

  • Advanced Industries’ share of employment (US) in 1980: 11.6%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of employment (US) in 2000: 8.3%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of employment (US) in 2013: 8.7%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of employment (US) in 2015: 9.0%

What’s interesting though, is that for the same time period, advanced industries’ share of output has been steadily growing:

  • Advanced Industries’ share of economic output (US) in 1980: 14.3%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of economic output (US) in 2000: 16.8%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of economic output (US) in 2013: 17.7%
  • Advanced Industries’ share of economic output (US) in 2015: 17.2%

Industry chart

According to The Brookings Institution, advanced industries have increased their productivity by roughly 2.7%/year since 1980, while the rest of the economy has increased its average productivity by an average of 1.4%/year. Following a similar trend line, advanced industries jobs now average $214,000 per worker worth of output compared with $108,000 for the average worker outside of advanced industries. And finally, while earnings for an advanced industries worker averaged $95K in 2015, workers in other sectors only averaged $53K/year. When we graph that data, we get this:

year on year growth chart

Also worthy of note: while advanced industries only account for less than 10% of US jobs, they are responsible for generating a whopping 60% of US exports, and their combined output accounted for a massive 17.2% of US GDP in 2015.

job share

Now let’s break things down to a more granular level: Advanced industries are made up of 50 different industry subsets. Are some of these subsets performing better than others in terms of job creation and overall growth? Have some been struggling? Let’s take a look:

50 different industry subsets

Insight number three: Nearly 80% of new advanced industries jobs between 2013 and 2015  – roughly 480,000 new jobs – were created in services industries, not manufacturing.

Insight number four: Nearly two thirds of that growth – roughly 307,000 new jobs – were created in four specific industry categories:

  • Computer systems design
  • Web search and internet publishing
  • Software products
  • Data processing and hosting

Do those four industry categories sound familiar? If you spend any time at all browsing through our insights and reports, they should. They are the sectors driving Digital Transformation.

Shifting back to blue collar jobs for a moment, advanced manufacturing industries didn’t do nearly as well between 2013 and 2015, but they still managed to contribute roughly 132,200 new jobs (about 20% of the overall advanced industry job growth). It could be better, but it could also be a lot worse. Here is the most interesting part: If you have been following the auto industry’s shift to electric vehicles and advanced navigation/self-driving systems in the last couple of years, you may not be surprised to learn that nearly 70% of those new manufacturing jobs (roughly 95,000) came from that sector.

Here’s a breakdown of how the entire ecosystem looks like:

ecosystem breakdown chart

Some Parting Observations

That’s probably enough data for one sitting. Now, let’s spend a few minutes thinking about all of this. What can we infer from the data we just looked at?

  1. On the whole, Advanced Industries appear to generate roughly twice as much economic value per worker as non-advanced industries.
  2. The highest proportion of new jobs in advanced industries can be found in digital services (what people generally refer to as “tech” jobs).
  3. Automobile manufacturing is showing the highest job growth of all advanced manufacturing sectors.
  4. While digital transformation and technological disruption are driving the growth of advanced industries, advanced industries, in turn, are both shaping the Digital Transformation landscape and controlling the speed of technological disruption.
  5. Speaking of technological disruption, advanced industries don’t operate in a vacuum. They impact millions of businesses by creating products and services that boost down-channel capacity, productivity, and profitability. (The impact of Digital Transformation.) There is an economic multiplier effect at work here that we will return to in a moment.
  6. On the opposite side of that business ecosystem is a complex supply chain that allows advanced industries to operate. Another multiplier effect can be observed there.

The first of these multiplier effects is far more difficult to measure than the second, so let’s start with the second: the supply chain. It is estimated that 2.2 jobs are created in support off every advanced industry job. (0.8 locally, and 1.4 outside of the region.) That means that we can add an additional 28.4 million support jobs to the 12.9 million advanced industry jobs in the US – for a total of 41.3 million jobs. Based on the 143.1 million figure we used earlier, that accounts for 29% of all jobs.

The second of these multiplier effects will require its own article, but until then, consider this: The application of new information and communication technologies (or ICT for short) has been demonstrably responsible for more than 1/3 of all labor productivity growth between 2002 and 2012 in non-advanced industries (like retail, business services, hospitality, etc.). As ICT become increasingly vital to every vertical and business discipline through the diffusion of Digital Transformation, the the compounded impact of the advanced industry sector’s innovation on the overall capacity, productivity, and profitability of US businesses will continue to increase.

Translation: A handful of key advanced industries are currently at the center of a tectonic shift of new job creation in the US – a first wave, if you will, whose ripples could feed industries around it if those industries are prepared to take advantage of them.

We’ll pick up where we left off in Part 2. For now, take this all in, let these numbers settle, and perhaps even take a moment to marvel at the dynamic connective tissue between the macroeconomic forces shaping the future of employment and the technological ones shaping the future of work.

Cheers,

Olivier

A version of this was first posted on Futurum.xyz

 

What Technology Can Teach Us About The Employees Of The Future

/ /by

What if you could hire Google as an employee—or even your Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)? Though artificial intelligence (AI) is in its early phases, the real allure is not that it could, someday, be just like a human being, but that it could be more than a human. After all, even the smartest person in your company doesn’t have the wealth of information that Google does, all available in a microsecond.

While humankind will likely never reach the speed or accuracy of AI in performing certain tasks, employees of the future will need to function in similar ways. They will need to pull from a broad range of knowledge to find the right answers, deliver results quickly, offer a variety of solutions to a single problem, be adaptable, consider the whole market or subject before offering a suggestion, and be consistent in their performance.

Is this too much to ask? Not if they rely on technology to help. And in many ways, the capabilities of today’s technology provide a glimpse of the traits required in tomorrow’s best leaders and employees.

Technology: The Ultimate In Agility

The capabilities of today’s emerging technologies offer organizations a model of the traits employees of the future will need to succeed—and agility sits at the top of the list. No one expects human employees to have the same speed as AI algorithms. But when employees have the agility that enables them to adapt quickly to new advancements, they can leverage new technology to their own benefit, as well as their employer’s.

Artificial Intelligence and Changing Expectations

Often when we talk about the benefits AI offers businesses, employees start to, quite understandably, become concerned about their job security. AI does have a lot of value for businesses, but the robots aren’t coming to take everyone’s job. AI is, however, changing the expectations of employers and the capabilities that organizations will look for in their employees and leaders.

For example, if you’ve ever used Apple’s Siri to pull up a list of recommendations for a restaurant or coffee shop near you, you’ve taken advantage of AI’s ability to quickly deliver a variety of answers to a query.

Human employees of the future will need to be able to do much the same thing in response to customer or employer requests. Even—especially—when requests get more complex than just the best place to get a latte and doughnut, employees of the future will need to sift quickly through relevant information from a variety of sources to present a number of different possible solutions. After all, we have Google, Siri, and Alexa for the simple stuff; human employees will need to fill in where technology falls short, combining their own intuition and experience with the vast database of knowledge available to find answers.

Keeping Pace With Technology

In an increasingly technological global economy, human employees and business leaders must keep pace with advancing technology. But this has gone without saying for quite some time. More importantly, mid-to-late 21st century employees will need to adapt quickly to new developments, recognize potential digital disruptions before they take place, and adopt technology trends with lightning speed. Anyone who is not an early adopter need not apply for the most competitive positions. Even finding the best jobs will require using the latest technology, and those who prove to be on the bleeding edge of social media, search, communications, collaboration, and productivity tools will catch the attention of prospective employers.

Human Employees Vs. Digital Assistants

Digital assistants have already changed the way business leaders and employees interact with AI technology. Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, the AI residing in the Echo device, are probably the most well-known examples, but there are others as well. While digital assistants don’t seem likely to replace human employees completely, human employees of the future will need to find synergy with digital assistants to maximize their productivity.

What Will Employees Need And Want?

In considering what businesses will look for in the employee of the future, we should also think about what will attract the most qualified employees to businesses. Millennials will make up a significant chunk of the workforce for some time, and the generation coming behind them, generation Z, is already even more technologically tuned in. Organizations need to be prepared to meet the needs and expectations of this new generation of workers to continue to attract top talent.

Like the millennials before them, these employees will want flexibility from their employers to learn—and work—on the go. They expect that training and development will be tailored to their needs and learning styles. This generation of people, who grew up learning in computer labs, taking tests on computers, and researching on their tablets, will want an experience tailored to their needs and their physical locations—wherever they might be.

They’re also social learners, and will want to collaborate in the work place to forge connections, share ideas, and grow both personally and professionally. Fortunately, the workplace of the future will be uniquely suited to meet these needs, with AI technology guiding the way.

A version of this was first posted on Forbes.com

 

Why Companies Are Suddenly Investing Billions On Their Workplaces

/ /by

What’s to become of the traditional work office?

Is it possible that communications tools like Skype, Zoom.us and Google Hangouts will have the effect of making communal office spaces obsolete?

Is the day coming when organizations will redeploy workers to home offices – where they’ll have no commute, and the freedom to work all day in play clothes?

A few years ago, researchers at iconic furniture maker, Herman Miller, began a deep-dive into the future of the global workplace driven by the desire to answer questions like these. Clearly, technology already makes it possible for many people to work away from conventional offices. The question is whether that’s ultimately the best thing for workers, not to mention the companies that employ them.

As part of the study, a team reviewed academic literature on psychology, anthropology, sociology and behavioral sciences – looking as far back as the B.C. era when human beings first began documenting ideas about work.

The research conclusions were then presented at the Dive! Innovation Conference held this summer in Rennes, France, which I attended. The following is a summary of the firm’s most compelling discoveries as shared by Mark Catchlove, Herman Miller’s Director of Knowledge and Insight. His overriding conclusion is that many of us will indeed end up working remotely, just not all the time.

  • People Have Six Fundamental Needs They Seek To Meet Through Work

A consistent finding from over a half-century of the company’s research is that human beings are inherently diverse. But what emerges from the new study is an understanding that across all cultures, genders, generations and organizations, people have basic needs in their experience of work that must be met in order for them to thrive and be optimally productive. While an organization’s leadership practices and culture play essential roles in determining whether these needs are supported, where and how people work is also a key contributor:

  1. Sense Of Achievement: We strive for excellence and to feel a sense of mastery in our accomplishments.
  2. Autonomy: We seek freedom in our actions and decisions – and desire to no longer work in one place eight hours a day.
  3. Belonging: We are tribal, social beings who require meaningful connection with other people. Given the importance of work in our lives, we seek strong bonds with colleagues.
  4. Sense Of Purpose: We want to make a meaningful difference and to know our work matters.
  5. Sense Of Security: We desire health and physical safety, but also “social security,” the need to feel connected to a team.
  6. Status: We seek to be respected and appreciated for our work, and to have a working environment that inherently esteems us.

Because these needs are so deep and universal in people – and so essential to human productivity – Herman Miller now believes supporting them must become the cornerstone of all future workplace design.

  • People Only Thrive When They Have Connection And Community

Gallup research shows that the ability to work remotely at least some of the time has become one of the greatest drivers of employee engagement.

But Catchlove says too much alone time backfires. New research by Gretchen Spreitzer at the University of Michigan shows that continual isolation inevitably makes people feel lonely and “socially adrift.”

“The human need for belonging is so profound that we must always provide employees with a secure base,” Catchlove says. “Most companies will continue to have offices just so people can routinely reconnect and collaborate with co-workers.”

But Herman Miller also advises that traditional workplaces be given an extreme makeover. Says Catchlove, “people must be given greater choice on where they work including more than one option within their own office. Less and less, you won’t see people sitting in the same place for eight hours as firms provide workers with a collection of settings in which to move around.”

Ironically, researchers found that a significant number of people don’t have adequate space to work from home. So while co-working spaces will become more prevalent in the future, it will always be expected that employees return to the nest for consistent rejuvenation.

  • Technology Firms Are Doubling Down On Traditional Workspaces

If there’s any doubt that large office campuses will continue to be where most of us work, we only need to look to Silicon Valley. Apple is spending $5 billion to build its new flying saucer-shaped headquarters. Amazon is putting up tree-filled spheres so employees can hold meetings in forests – and Google will soon build a massive futuristic complex featuring translucent canopies allowing air, light and nature to influence the workspace.

To Holly Honig, who led Herman Miller’s research team, these massive investments are simply a reflection of highly informed leadership.

“Businesses today face unprecedented challenges recognizing the speed of change, disruptive technologies and the need for sustainable growth. At the same time, a few enlightened organizations know what we do – that people create ideas and drive their execution. So when workers are highly engaged – when those six human needs are answered – their firms are propelled into prosperity.”

  •  Create Spaces That Show You Love Your People

Under traditional leadership theory, companies that “squeeze” employees can expect to have the greatest financial performance. But with a preponderance of data now proving just the opposite, organizations have begun investing much more heavily in workspaces to intentionally convey to workers that they are valued and worth every penny. (Herman Miller has sold 7 million of its uber-pricey Aeron chairs, for example).

“When we look at company P & L’s,” says Catchlove, “seventy percent of their investment is already in people. Recruitment is expensive. Training is expensive. So leaders are slowly being persuaded that looking out for their workers is really smart business. Our argument to company leaders is that the wisest thing they can do is to love and care for their biggest investment by far.”

Herman Miller’s study also confirmed what most of us already know intuitively: that workplace design and furnishings have an enormous impact on the human spirit and contribute greatly to how people feel in their jobs.

“We know that people are looking at different lenses at their total experience of work,” says Catchlove, “and their physical environment is a big piece of that.”

A version of this was first posted on Huffington Post.

Photo Credit: julesbailleul Flickr via Compfight cc

#WorkTrends Recap: The New Digital Workplace: Four Key Trends

/ /by

As technology advances and changes our workplaces, many pundits speculate on the trends that we need to be mindful of.

Companies are developing global footprints and with that employ people based in different countries with varying cultural nuances, the need for better digital tools and accessibility to remain connected continues to rise.

This week on #WorkTrends, host Meghan M. Biro was joined by Igloo Software VP of Product Strategy Stephen Rahal to discuss the four key trends every company needs to know today to better prepare for the future workplace.

Stephen shared about how companies can make the most of technology advancements to create an inclusive workplace even though employees might be spread across the globe.

Here are some other key points that he shared:

  • Technology acts as an enabler for Collaboration
  • Bringing people, apps, data, information, and processes together to drive business results is the key to success
  • Leaders must be willing to get their hands dirty

Did you miss the show? You can listen to the #WorkTrends podcast on our BlogTalk Radio channel here: http://bit.ly/2j30a7W

You can also check out the highlights of the conversation from our Storify here:

Didn’t make it to this week’s #WorkTrends show? Don’t worry, you can tune in and participate in the podcast and chat with us every Wednesday from 1-2pm ET (10-11am PT). On Jan 25, I will be joined by Kurgo CEO Gordie Spater to discuss the benefits of a pet-friendly workplace.

Remember, the TalentCulture #WorkTrends conversation continues every day across several social media channels. Stay up-to-date by following our #WorkTrends Twitter stream; pop into our LinkedIn group to interact with other members; or check out our Google+ community. Engage with us any time on our social networks, or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

Photo Credit: caprightmarketing Flickr via Compfight cc

#WorkTrends Preview: The New Digital Workplace: Four Key Trends

/ /by

Many pundits in the HR and tech space are speculating on trends we need to be mindful of. Many anticipate the workplace as we know it today will be a great predictor of what’s to come.

As more and more companies develop a global footprint and with that employ people based in different countries with varying cultural nuances, the need for better digital tools and accessibility to remain connected continues to rise.

Join this week’s special guest Igloo Software VP of Product Strategy, Stephen Rahal and host Meghan M. Biro as they discuss the four key trends every company needs to know today to better prepare for the future workplace.

The New Digital Workplace: Four Key Trends

#WorkTrends Logo Design

Join Stephen and me on our LIVE online podcast Wednesday, Jan 18 — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT.

Immediately following the podcast, the team invites the TalentCulture community over to the #WorkTrends Twitter stream to continue the discussion. We encourage everyone with a Twitter account to participate as we gather for a live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: How can digital create an inclusive workplace for remote workers? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q2: How can companies be better at attracting desired talent?  #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q3: How can the Intranet create a collaborative culture? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Don’t want to wait until next Wednesday to join the conversation? You don’t have to. I invite you to check out the #WorkTrends Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and our TalentCulture G+ community. Share your questions, ideas and opinions with our awesome community any time. See you there!

Join Our Social Community & Stay Up-to-Date!

Passive-Recruiting
Photo Credit: The Daring Librarian Flickr via Compfight cc

Is Job Hopping Inevitable?

/ /by

As long time readers know, I tend to be pretty opinionated.  Recently, I’ve gotten sucked into a conversation thread on LinkedIn about job hopping.  It’s semi interesting–much of it is people rationalizing why they move from job to job to job.

Much of the job hopping phenomenon has been attributed, incorrectly I think, to millennial.  “That’s the way they are, we just have to accept it.”

First, job hopping isn’t primarily limited to millennials, I see people in every age group doing it.

Second, I think it’s unacceptable to resign ourselves to thinking of this as the future of the workplace.  Leaders that do are probably not doing their jobs.

Let’s look at the business impact of job hopping.  The true business costs aren’t just the recruiting and onboarding costs for replacing people.  The true business costs is $100’s of thousands to millions in lost productivity (individual, managerial, organizational) and lost opportunity.

While the argument can be extended to any role. I’ll focus on sales.  We all see the data that in complex B2B sales organizations, the average onboarding time is 10 months.  In our experience, we see onboarding times that are sometimes longer than a year.  Remember this is the time to get people up to a “run rate” of full productivity.  During this time, there are huge opportunity costs, whether it is territory that’s not covered, inexperienced people losing deals that might have otherwise been won.  For a discussion of this, look at my article, The High Cost Of A Salesperson.

Now add another data point.  Average sales tenure in the job with the same company is 22 months.

Think about what this means.  We’ve spent 10 months getting them ramped up to be productive, then they leave 12 months later.  Unless we are recovering the expected productivity of the full 22 months, in those 12 months, this is a huge money losing practice!

Stated differently, in months 11-22, they have to be significantly over performing for us to break even on them.

But we already know the answer to this.  Huge numbers of sales people are not achieving their goals and companies aren’t meeting their numbers.

There’s more that one can look at in assessing the business impact of job hopping, but I’ll stop here.  By it self, this simple business analysis of accepting job hopping as inevitable shows an absolutely unacceptable picture.

If we want to do something to improve business results, we have to focus on retaining our people.  We have to rid ourselves of the belief that job hopping is inevitable.

How do we start to address this issue?

Again, there’s a lot of research that tell us the reasons and gives us clues for what we have to do about it.

People, of all ages, voluntarily leave jobs for a variety of reasons, including:

A bad direct manager.

They see no opportunities for learning, growth, and development both professionally and personally.

They don’t feel that management values or cares for them as human beings.

Consequently, they don’t feel their ideas are valued or listened to.

People want to contribute to the company and have that opportunity to contribute.

They want to be part of something that’s exciting and growing.

They want to work for an organization that contributes to society or the world, in some way.

They want to work with people who trust them and who they can trust.

They want to feel a value part of something, not just a commodity that can be replaced.

There are a lot more, but I’ll stop here.

There’s no inherent reason companies can’t do these things–in fact the great one’s do, but of course they don’t have a job hopping problem.  But if you are reading between the lines, you are starting to see the root of the problem may be a leadership issue.

There’s another layer to this problem, and this may be more specific to millennial.  They all grew up in the late 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s.  During that time, companies were downsizing/rightsizing/restructuring, they saw their parents being laid off.  They saw their parents and jobs being commoditized, hired when demand is up, laid off when demand is down.

They saw parents who were loyal to their companies, often wanting to work for one or a very small number of companies over a career being abandoned by those companies.

Where prior generations saw loyalty to a company as a virtue, their children saw the companies not being loyal to their parents.  As a consequence, loyalty to an employer is not part of their value system.

Frankly, company leadership has, for the most part, earned this lack of loyalty.

I’m not naive.  There are business ups and downs, there are cycles that are unpredictable.  This is not new, it’s always been a part of business and companies have to right size.  But good companies recognize this and try to keep these to a minimum.

Others, view people like commodities.  When we need more inventory, we get more, when demand is down, we get rid of inventory.  They treat people the same way.

On top of this, organizations get sloppy at people management.  It’s tough managing performance issues.  It takes time and commitment on the part of everyone.  Rather than managing these issues, too many managers take the cowardly way out, simply laying off people because it’s easier than doing the right thing.

People aren’t dumb, they get this, they see how they are being treated, so they start looking out for themselves–which has further devastating consequences to overall company performance.  They keep looking for better opportunities–which they should.

Which gets us to where we are today.  Where everyone believes job hopping is simply the new workplace dynamic.

The root problem is a leadership problem and until top management recognizes this and starts truly valuing its people, the situation won’t change.  Until top leaders understand the devastating business consequences of this and decide (or have their boards decide) to take action, the situation won’t change.

The good news is there are lot of companies and inspire management teams that get this.  They are both the top performing companies in their segment, they are at the top of the most admired lists, and they are the companies that have no talent attracting and retaining top performers.

Job hopping is not inevitable.  It’s devastating for companies, and I believe, from an individual point of view, it’s probably not the best way to build a career.

Am I missing something?

For a free peek at Sales Manager Survival Guide, click the picture or link.  You’ll get the Table of Contents, Foreword, and 2 free Chapters.  Free Sample

A version of this was first posted on Partners in Excellence blog.

Photo Credit: zoomtony Flickr via Compfight cc

Why Empathy is Key to 21st Century Business and Why You Should Care

/ /by

The top three currencies for the 21st century are trust, relationships, and community. You may have been conditioned to believe they are efficiency, productivity, and constant growth because those are the metrics most organizations focus on. This is because, in essence, we are not taught about how to connect to our deeper feelings in business. We are expected to cut them off from our business environments in the pursuit of being seen as a professional and achieving set markers of “success.”

It is widely accepted that it is uncool and unwise to bring our emotions to work. We have been told that we need to divide ourselves and split into our “professional self” and our “personal self” in order to be successful. We are tasked with attaining the mythical work-life balance and being superheros who are able to accomplish the impossible. But why, and at what cost?

While we have one of the biggest opportunities in the history of work, for example, to bring the five generations currently working side by side together in unity, it is being drummed into our psyche to further divide and segment ourselves by pitting one generation, like the Millennials, against another, like the Boomers. What this does is create further divisions, instead of finding ways to align and integrate around a shared purpose of the business. Imagine what could happen if we brought people together around key projects, regardless of what generational box they belonged to, and had them learn from each other and co-create innovative approaches that would help the organization thrive? Many European countries are starting programs that connect the generations in community instead of isolating senior citizens from the rest of society. We need to bring this wisdom to business.

And the divisions go further when one department, such as marketing, needs to fight another department, like sales, for budget and headcount instead of finding ways to align and integrate around the shared purpose of the business. Imagine what could happen if sales and marketing had a joint purpose and did not need to battle each other. The opportunities and gains would be significant.

The Myth of Best Practices

In the pursuit of efficiency, productivity, and constant growth, we have become addicted to the “quick fix,” always in search of the magic bullet or the secret sauce that someone else can bring into our organization and solve all our problems. There is a hunger to discover someone else’s best practices and bring them in so we can move faster and better. Our opportunity is to trust ourselves to dig deeper and do the work to fund the solutions that work best for us and for the organization.

But what if speed is sometimes our enemy in business? Sure, being agile is important, and we have seen many programs and even movements to help us become lean, but what if we stepped back for one minute and realized that in the pursuit of these programs, we have cut ourselves off from our core? In tracking our efficiency, productivity, and constant growth, we have too often lost sight of why we are here in the first place. And we need to integrate programs into our business flow more than leading with them and making them the new mantra or flavor of the month initiative, but that’s another story.

Why Empathy Matters More Than Ever in Business

As more people of all ages seek more meaning and purpose in their lives beyond mere materialistic gain, it will have a deep impact on the future of work and business.

Leaders will need to revisit how they lead and adopt a 21st century mindset. Here is a suggested outline for the key steps to consider when it comes to making these transitions and integrating empathy into the fabric of your organization in a deep and meaningful way.

  1. What is your biggest opportunity?

We have been conditioned to believe in business that we need to constantly fix problems, but that is a 20th century mindset that keeps us in the trap of focusing on what is broken. It forces us to be reactive and find fixes for problems. It limits our ability to perceive and pursue opportunities. How often do you or your organization invest time in examining your biggest opportunity? And not from the mindset of beating your competition, but from the mindset of asking what you can create that will set you apart in the world and draw the people who want or need to what you have to your business.

When was the last time you went out and listened to the people who matter in your business — employees, customers, partners, vendors, community members — and found out what is in their hearts and minds? Can you put yourself in their shoes and create an experience they would value? When I was an innovator-in-residence a few years ago with a large pharmaceutical company, we found that 95% of the people who designed solutions for patients never talked to a patient. Can you imagine how much shifted once they became more empathetic to the needs of the people they were designing for and started to understand their specific needs?

What are your biggest opportunities? Who do you need to start listening to? How could listening with empathy help you have breakthroughs by co-creating with these people instead of creating for them?

  1. Where are your points of integration?

It is insane that in the 21st century we have such deep divides in most organizations. We too often like to lump employees into a category called “internal stakeholders” and customers into one we label “external stakeholders.” And then we create programs for these segments, sometimes conducting surveys and pretending we have listened to the needs of its participants until we decide it’s time to conduct the next survey. During my corporate career, I witnessed countless communication and change management plans that did this, efficiently, over and over. We would set up teams to come up with fixes, but not much ever got implemented and the same issues came up year after year. Low engagement scores would get some initial attention, but most management teams did not have the skills or abilities to shift the fundamental behavior that was causing these issues in the first place.

When we have greater empathy across an organization, we can see an increase in the conversations and dialogue taking place between people. We can use approaches like Working Out Loud, where we openly share our work with others and are not secretive about what we are working on. Leaders don’t need to wait for the annual survey to find out what is on the minds of their people and customers.

We engage in this ancient practice of empathy when we care about others and their needs in a more humane way. It happens when we realize we are not too busy to take the time to listen to and exchange ideas with others. We can break down the walls of these superficial segments to bring people together around our shared purpose. Leaders can then start understanding that to be effective, words must be aligned with action. It doesn’t matter much what you say when what you do contradicts your words. How can you integrate your words with your actions?

  1. What questions do you need to ask to bring your team back together?

The 20th century leader was taught in business school to be the smartest person in the room. Our current systems teach us that to succeed we need to be the best. That is how we are currently rewarded and recognized for our contributions at work, and our conditioning is based on survival of the fittest. We spend endless hours rooting for our sports team, for example, to beat the competition and we do the same at work. In this mindset, we must win market share away from our competition, and often from our very own team mates, and success is attained by being the top performer and making it to the top of the coveted lists that garner us even more recognition. No one wants to be seen as a loser, so we keep fighting our way to the perceived top.

But the 21st century leader recognizes the increasing limitations of this system. What if we realized that these are win-lose scenarios, and that no matter how many team building events we attend, we are still expected to take someone else down to succeed? We build our teams in silos and then wonder why we can’t work effectively cross-functionally. How could we when we don’t bring our teams together and integrate?

Whenever I work with teams on building shared purpose, I get to witness firsthand how we can create a new path forward for business. And in the heart of it all is empathy, because it takes us seeing and listening to each other, and ourselves, to tap into the deeper meaning that connects us and gives us the desire to co-create.

It’s time to hit the reset button

We are ingrained into a culture of sameness in business where we are told how to structure our organizations, and even how to reinvent them. There are experts waiting to come in and do the work for us. It seems easier to put up more decorations on an already sinking ship than address the fundamental issues that need to be revealed. Doing another re-organization seems much easier than diving into the deeper purpose of the organization and realigning the structure around it, but ultimately getting clear on the purpose is what is needed for lasting change. Before we re-invent an organization, we need to know why we are doing it.

In a world where office furniture is listed as an asset and people are listed as a liability on a financial statement, we have lost common sense in remembering why we are in business in the first place. In other words, what is the purpose of our business? We are so stuck in the mantras of our brand that we have forgotten that customer service is a real act that a business must create. Did we start believing our own advertising, or are we just too scared to talk to our customers and find out what works for them and what doesn’t?

Empathy is not simply another step in a five-step process. It is fundamental to business and our communities. If we don’t realize that empathy is key to our future and that we must integrate it instead of seeing it as a step in a process, we will give in to the prevailing culture of fear, which does not serve us.

What we need to focus on is how we can contribute and write new stories for business, where people care deeply about the work they do and how they can contribute to a greater good beyond a promotion and a paycheck. When you start to break down your blind beliefs and limiting fears, you will start to uncover who you are and find others who share in your purpose.

Where do we start?

Here is the secret most people won’t tell you: the very first step we need to take when it comes to empathy is learning how to have empathy for yourself. If we can’t practice it within ourselves, how in the world can we expect to feel empathy for another being?

Business today follows the same basic patterns as society. There is a push for us to fit into a prefabricated system and not use our voice to express how we want it to look and what we stand for. We have been conditioned to win at all costs and we are starting to question why we cannot create win-win situations instead.

What happens when we realize we can choose to embark on the most important journey of our lives? What happens when we learn to tap into empathy and start listening closely to ourselves in every aspect of our lives? What happens when we start asking new questions and listening deeply to what is in our hearts and minds?

We can make business a driver of a saner and healthier world for all of us on this planet by making different choices that focus on trust, relationships, and community. It’s time to start the journey and find others on the path to regaining our collective sanity.

A version of this was first posted on Linkedin.com

Photo Credit: Bambola 2012 Flickr via Compfight cc

Why Social Media Is Shaping The Future Of Work

/ /by

Lists of social media disasters are like new versions of worst-dressed lists. And there’s no such thing as not being on social media. If you’re not actively pursuing your brand on social, someone else is, and probably not the way you want to be. And being the butt of a joke you never intended to make has staying power: things do not disappear on the Internet. The bottom line is that you’re a brand whether you have no control over it (bad) or you control it (good).

This isn’t just about consumers, either: it’s about your workforce. Social media has helped erase the wall between consumer and job candidate. Most candidates are well aware of a company via its messaging on social well before they consider applying for a job. So a messaging miss is a missed potential candidate, too.

So here’s a simple playbook for people and brands of all sizes to start with. First, the two most important rules: Be social. Try not to mess it up.

Here are 5 tips:

1) No canned ham please.

Impersonal content plastered onto your social media presence is like serving spam at brunch, only without the “aren’t we so Mad Men” irony. We have an 8-second attention span and that’s shorter than a goldfish’s. And we like things that are relevant to us and grab at our impatient hearts. So personalize it or it won’t count. Moreover, once you’re branded as spammy, that window of influence shuts. Potential candidate-wise, if you’re trying to pull one over on the world, you could also smokescreen employees.

2) It’s not just about Facebook.

Some people say Facebook is so 2011. Why? To share content the way we used to in 2011, we have to pay for it now. Which is, um, advertising, a.k.a. spam. Sponsored content is faux-real, as opposed to for real. It’s still relevant, but consider other platforms, such as Snapchat (100 million + reported users), Instagram (420 million), Flipboard (70 million and rising), and Whatsapp (1 billion). And of course, talent portals like LinkedIn.

3) Don’t ignore your target.

What’s your market? If it’s grownup grownups (ages 55-64) then you’d best be on Twitter, where that’s the fastest growing new age group. If it’s teens, you’d better be on Instagram. If you want to recruit Gen Y and Gen Z candidates, don’t try to do it through traditional methods. Assume you are going to reach them via smartphone and social, and message accordingly.

4) Think first.

Remember what I said about irony? Same with cleverness: along with our quick attention span is a well-honed bullshit reflex. The wall of social media shame is filled with examples of facepalm social media moves that backfired. Especially true with tweeting, such as LG’s smartphone campaign, which mocked the iPhone via tweets sent from an iPhone. Trying so hard that you fail is not a draw from potential employees. D’Oh. 

5) It’s not just about ROI.

I’ve gone over this before, but social is the future. We’re expected to have 2.5 billion social media users worldwide by 2018. And right now, 90% of adults age 18 – 29 are using social media. A solid one third of all Millennials say it’s their preferred channel for communicating with businesses. Their habits are not going to change. What’s trending now is going to be normal later. And this is where your workforce comes from. Even if you can’t quantify, dollar for dollar, or even hire for hire, what the value of social is, at some point very soon, that’s all going to be a non-issue.

Social media allows us to be more agile. Immediate. Fluid. Transparent. Honest. Candid. Also, unfiltered, thoughtless, blockheaded. But more than anything, social is the way we exist. It’s far more than just sending a tweet or posting an announcement. It’s an entire currency of thought, and it’s the future of work. #Goodluck and keep me posted please.

A version of Forbes.

Inspiring Pioneers: Are You Ready for Our Journey?

/ /by

I have been on the biggest adventure of my life even though I feel like our lives are a series of adventures, where we have the opportunity to blaze new paths or sit back and watch someone else’s adventure. It is always a choice, no matter what anyone tells us. We can either tell ourselves a story about why we can’t do something or we can look at an opportunity and say, “giddy up, let’s go.”

Some people will tell you that it takes courage to uncover what is deep in your heart and while there is truth in that belief, it also takes curiosity and a childlike desire to play to explore what is calling us. Somehow, for too many of us, we are told there is danger everywhere and why we can’t do certain things. I have come to realize that too often this is simply a reflection of someone else’s fear of leaving the falsely perceived safety of the status quo. Imagine what would happen if every time you tell yourself that you can’t do something, you would ask yourself, why not?

It happened to me. I was invited by a dear friend a few years ago on a trip I never imagined I would make. I was busy working at the time and the thought of trekking through the Amazon Rainforest at the time was not high on my list. But as I learned the trip was about maternal health and I asked myself the same question I am suggesting we each ask ourselves, “why not?” I realized that I cannot not take this journey. And I did. It forever changed my life and put me on a course that I hope can help millions of people around the world open up to life’s possibilities.

When I set out on my adventure to the Amazon rainforest, I was writing a different book than the one being published this Fall by Param Media. It was geared more toward the individual than business. After leaving many of my fears, doubts, and worries behind in the lungs of the rainforest, I emerged to write a book about why we need to create a saner and healthier world for all of us and why business is our best bet as after all, organizations are made up of people. This is the first time in our history that society and business are fusing and the biggest change we need is one of mindset. We each need to realize that the future is up to us to step up and re-invent business. Along the road, over 30 amazing pioneers joined me by openly sharing their stories with grace, vulnerability and courage. What I love is that you will get to experience their stories firsthand, like I did, and learn from each of these incredible 21st century leaders.

The book suggests 7 signposts for the 21st century and provides amazing stories of conscious 21st century leaders who are on this new path, pioneering new thinking for a healthier world.

Wholeness and integration our anchors to our collective journey in the world. It is time for us to find each other and come together around a higher purpose. We need to live in a world where our work is more than a job that dictates our standard of living. It’s time for us to bring our teams back together with purpose and wholeness in mind.

Now that the book is in its last stages of publication, I am emerging from long days and sleepless nights of writing and editing. I can write a whole book about that journey as I followed no one’s guidance on how to write a book. I wanted to experience it for myself and found so many people on this path who forever changed my life. I am looking forward to more conversations with more 21st century leaders as we blaze this road together. Please reach out and connect.

The best is yet to come.

Ayelet

San Francisco, September 2016

You can pre-order the book on Amazon.com

This post was first published on LinkedIn.

How Does STEM Bring the Real World to the Classroom?

/ /by

In education, a gap remains between what students are learning, and what business and industry need their employees to know and be able to do. The U.S. Department of Labor has identified multiple factors as to why a skills gap exists, some of which can be addressed prior to students graduating high school, such as ensuring that students know where shortages exist and providing guidance as to how to prepare for these in-demand jobs. CareerOneStop cites a shortage of graduates for “in-demand jobs in healthcare, engineering, computer science, and advanced manufacturing,” all of which are STEM related fields.  According to the 2016 STEM Index, in 2014-2015, there were 230,246 additional STEM jobs, but only 30,835 additional STEM graduates. Creating a STEM foundation prior to high school graduation is pivotal for ensuring an increase in individuals pursuing STEM-related postsecondary degrees and careers.

I recently had the opportunity to visit businesses through an event called Lesson2Life in Phoenix, Arizona and meet with employers to find out ways to better equip students to enter the workforce. A reoccurring theme that was expressed over and over again was the need for students to have a strong understanding of STEM areas.  Schools such as Western School of Science and Technology are addressing this need by focusing on STEM areas and preparing students for engineering and computer science jobs. Nonprofit organizations such as the CREATE Center provide a low-cost location for educators and students to engage in a massive MakerSpace in order learn about and experience STEM first-hand as they use state-of-the-art tools such as 3-D printers, laser cutters, and other technology tools to collaborate and learn how to create our future world.

Last week, my co-worker shared how her daughter, Bella, had won 3rd place in a shark tank competition hosted by the local high school DECA and STEM student organizations. Elementary students were invited to create a product that solved a problem for this shark tank event. Students had the option of entering this classroom assignment into a Shark Tank competition. Bella, who is currently a 6th grader, decided to take her “Wafer Saver” invention to the next level, and not only won a $100 third place cash prize but also won an opportunity to meet with a patent attorney to learn more about entrepreneurship and product creation.

This is what STEM education is all about. Promoting a new product involves science, calculations, engineering, and technology—all of the STEM areas plus marketing and soft skills in one project! STEM education infiltrates every subject and career area. What career field doesn’t require at least one STEM area in order to be successful? Most require multiple areas if not all. STEM education is key to closing the skills gap.

Derek Ozkal, program officer in Research and Policy for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, shares that, “In the American workforce, a tremendous amount of human potential is underutilized.” He points out that teachers have no way of knowing the type of work students will be doing in five years due to rapid technological changes and points out that titles like “Big Data Architect” and “Android Developer” weren’t around five years ago, how can we possibly know what the next five years will hold?

With the uncertainty about future career opportunities, learning STEM fundamentals and critical thinking will help to ensure a workforce that is able to tackle the needs of our society and ensure a sound economy. STEM pervades every career area. The role of educators is no longer to prepare for kids for jobs or to predict the jobs of the future.  Teachers are instead equipping students to invent the future workplace. Or, as, Meghan M. Biro puts it in her article, “5 Powerful Career Drivers For The Future Workforce, “We’re not talking who-moved-my-cheese here: we’re talking being the maker of cheese.”

photo credit: Wellington College Love STEM via photopin (license)

Why We Need a Conversation Before Fearing Jobs Being Lost to Automation and Robots

/ /by

Before we can address the question of what jobs will be created for humans as automation takes over current roles, we need to focus on a question that most people are not asking. We have so many people talking about the future of work and yet, work has evolved so much over the last few decades that we no longer have an understanding of what work is. Is it having a job? Is it getting a paycheque? Is it contributing to society? What work will look like is an important question we need to ask before we focus on skills and jobs. What kind of world do we want to live in, anyway?

What if purpose mattered?

In the current western world, we like to segment everything into neat little boxes, and in that process, meaning is lost. While businesses come out of peoples’ passions to create something in the world that others would find valuable, we’ve turned people into consumers that need to be sold and marketed.

From an organizational perspective, too often we lead with structure instead of purpose. For example, most organizations claim to hire the best and the brightest, and yet most of their efforts focus on transactions like recruiting and onboarding instead of shepherding people throughout their time with the organization by providing them with ongoing information sharing and the ability to feel like they are valued every day.

What if we asked new questions and created conversations?

In this business journey, we have lost our way. The first question we need to focus on is how work fits into our changing lives. Work is not separate from life, nor is it more important, although many people define themselves by what they do (i.e. their title and organization affiliation). At a recent talk, I was asked how we could help people on the verge of retiring who feel that they will no longer be able to share with people who they are. The answer is simple: This is an opportunity for us to take our voice back and see life as an adventure, of which work is only a small part. What if we created sessions where people can talk openly about who they are in the world and why they are here that focuses on making a life instead of making a living?

What if fear of automation and technology is not new?

The automation of the auto industry brought job losses. But some of these are “jobs” that are better off without human involvement, like elevator operators or factory work. They illustrate the need for us to ask ourselves new questions, like whether it would be more valuable to society and our world if we had more people feeling like the work they do is valuable and makes an impact.

One of the biggest changes we face today is the need to let go of fear and focus on what we can create. When we create people-centric organizations, we start designing work differently. We stop putting band-aid solutions on antiquated systems that are cracking. We can either buy into our fear and rush into creating tips and tricks for people to “save” their ability to “work” or we can create forums where we have open conversations on what our world, society and lives look like and, as a result, what role work has in our healthy lives. These conversations are popping up now on the edges and not in the mainstream, where fear unfortunately continues to guide the conversation.

What if there is only H:H (Human to Human) instead of B:C (Business to Consumer)?

When we create thriving 21st century organizations that are people-centric, we will not worry about jobs. We will remember the purpose of our organizations: to create projects and initiatives to deliver them, and to bring in people to co-create with and thrive.

The skill that is needed here is a “what do we want to create on the planet?” mindset. We need intuition, imagination and creativity. We need people to understand that we are in the human-to-human experience and purpose-driven era, where business is a force  of good that does not threaten humanity or our planet with constant loss and fear.

This cannot happen in a world where furniture is an asset on a financial spreadsheet and people are deemed a liability.

What is the bigger focus?

The bigger question to ask is, when do we start valuing people more than shareholder value that requires constant layoffs and shuffling the deck chairs so the ship won’t sink?

In the words of Bryan Welch, CEO of B the Change Media from my upcoming book,

“We are on the verge of a revolution in business. Consumers are becoming more aware every day of the availability of information and their own power to understand the value systems that govern businesses and to demand that the businesses they patronize share their values. What’s about to happen is that people are going to start exercising that power. Businesses are going to need to do good in the world to earn the patronage of their customers. As this occurs, business will become the most powerful force for good that human society has ever seen.”

We’re facing both a choice and a huge opportunity for the future of humanity and our world. Are you ready for creating people-centered organizations where robots, technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are not part of the equation?

A version of this was first posted on itbusiness.ca

Photo Credit: @yojosemere Flickr via Compfight cc

5 Books That Predict The Future Of Workplace Leadership

/ /by

These authors aren’t fortune-tellers, but their works can shed light on the future of leaders and workplaces.

Our long-enduring resistance to bringing the heart into workplace management dates as far back as the industrial revolution.

Traditional leadership theory espouses that workers should be treated like any other input: squeeze as much out of them as possible and pay them as little as possible.

This idea originated at a time when work was far less complex and people were more easily replaceable. Under a scenario like this, managers were taught to ignore the human aspect of employees—or heart—and to be indifferent to their needs. Companies motivated performance with pay, often the only reward workers received.

But today’s workers have greatly evolved in what they need and want in exchange for their work. It’s simply a stunning fact that pay now ranks fifth in importance to people as a driver of their engagement, loyalty, and productivity all around the world.

While pay, of course, will always be an important component of one’s employment, 21st-century employees have a deep desire to thrive in their jobs. They have a hunger to do meaningful work, to feel connected to an organization they respect, to grow, contribute, and to know at the end of every week that their efforts were appreciated and valued.

These five paradigm-breaking books clearly illustrate that the best way to inspire and motivate the highest levels of engagement in this century’s workers is through their hearts.

MINDSET: THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS

By Carolyn Dweck

The traditional view in business is that people are born with a fixed amount of intelligence and talent; individual capabilities are firmly set in stone.

This idea, what Stanford University professor, Carolyn Dweck, calls a “fixed mindset,” influences workplace managers to leverage employees who quickly display natural ability—and to invest little time and resources seeking to develop all the others.

But when Benjamin Bloom, eminent educational researcher, studied 120 outstanding achievers in numerous fields—world-class athletes, mathematicians, concert pianists—he discovered few of them were remarkable as children. They only revealed their capabilities once their training began in earnest.

Predicated on this and other remarkable research, Dweck disproves the long-enduring paradigm of human limitation. She writes that a person’s potential is “unknown and unknowable,” and regardless of talent, aptitude and IQ, people can greatly expand their abilities through effort, thoughtful coaching, and experience.

ELEVEN RINGS

By Phil Jackson

Widely considered the greatest coach in NBA history, Phil Jackson won a record 11 championships—six with the Chicago Bulls and five with the Los Angeles Lakers—and led his teams to victory in over 70% of the games they played.

Knowing that many players had a tendency to get down when they weren’t scoring well—or when their team had fallen far behind—Jackson taught his teams mindfulness techniques and the importance of staying focused in the present moment.

Seeking to build a high degree of trust, he met with players individually and intentionally learned about their backgrounds and motivations. “I cared for them as a person,” he writes, “not just a basketball factotum.”

Highly influenced by a lifelong study of Zen Buddhism, native American practices, and classical Chinese philosophy—to name only a few of his ancient wisdom sources—he placed extraordinary emphasis on selfless teamwork and collaboration. He taught players that winning in any aspect of life is inextricably linked to personal character and inner strength. To this end, he openly sought to influence and motivate them spiritually.

“I can’t pretend to be an expert in leadership theory,” Jackson writes. “But what I do know is that the art of transforming a group of young, ambitious individuals into an integrated championship team is not a mechanistic (X’s and O’s) process.

“It’s a mysterious juggling act that requires not only a thorough knowledge of the time honored laws of the game, but also an open heart, a clear mind and a deep curiosity about the ways of the human spirit.”

CREATIVE CONFIDENCE: UNLEASHING THE CREATIVE POTENTIAL WITHIN ALL OF US

By Tom Kelley and David Kelley

We don’t always think of creativity as being essential to leadership success, yet a recent IBM survey of more than 1,500 CEOs reports that its become the single most important competency in organizations today.

And few people know more about the creative process—the ability to produce something new in the world—than the two Kelley brothers.

David is a founder of Ideo, arguably the most influential design and innovation firm in the world, and head of Stanford University’s design school (“d.school”). Tom is general manager of Ideo, the company that invented Apple’s first mouse and the Pringle potato chip, and has received 346 design awards since the firm was founded in 1991.

In a book that was written after David was diagnosed with terminal cancer and then miraculously recovered, the siblings were motivated to share their greatest insights into “design thinking.” Approaching their work from an intensely human perspective is the cornerstone of their uncommon process.

“We’re not suggesting that anyone base a career or run an organization solely on feeling, intuition, and inspiration,” the authors say. “But an over-reliance on the rational and analytical can be just as risky.”

THE ATHENA DOCTRINE: HOW WOMEN AND THE MEN WHO THINK LIKE THEM WILL RULE THE FUTURE

By Michael D’Antonio & John Gerzema

The financial crisis that began in 2007 has had long-enduring impacts on most of our lives. As sobering examples, nearly 10 million people remain unemployed in the U.S. today, and one in five homeowners owe more on their homes than they’re worth.

According to best-selling author John Gerzema, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D’Antonio, reflection on what caused this catastrophe has influenced our entire society to reassess what qualities are essential to leadership roles going forward.

The authors surveyed 64,000 people in 13 countries and discovered that “nearly two-thirds of people around the globe—including the majority of men—now feel the world would be a better place if men thought more like women (this is regardless of age, income, or nation).”

Of all the people surveyed, 81% said that, man or woman, you need both masculine and feminine traits to thrive in today’s world. “From this point of view,” say the authors, “an embrace of feminine qualities can be thought of as a competitive advantage, not unlike a breakthrough technology or major market insight.”

ONWARD: HOW STARBUCKS FOUGHT FOR ITS LIFE WITHOUT LOSING ITS SOUL

By Howard Schultz

At the height of the Great Recession, institutional investors hounded Starbucks founder and CEO, Howard Schultz, to eliminate health care benefits for all its full- and part-time workers. With a stock price at an all-time low and the coffee purveyor facing a truly ambiguous future, the move would save the company $250 million in annual expenses.

Instead, unlike many of his business peers, Schultz took the road less traveled.

He began his deliberations by asking himself what kind of company he’d be left with once employees no longer received a benefit that had consistently driven high engagement and loyalty. And a formative childhood experience also proved to hold great sway.

In a book that uses the word “heart” 33 times, Schultz explains why he ultimately decided to bet on his people as being the best means to enduring the financial crisis.

This post was first published on Fast Company.

Sustaining Us: How Organizations Are Evolving to Meet the Future Of Work

/ /by

Recently, GE explained how it will deeply revise performance reviews — an often untenable practice which has plagued organizations, both large and small for decades.  Heavy with the burden of process and time, yearly reviews have long been the bane of organizations and managers. When the facts were thoughtfully considered, the value of these reviews simply wasn’t justifying the invested resources.

Most importantly, performance appraisals weren’t offering employees what they needed to guide behavior and develop — as the process siphoned time from their managers. Yearly performance reviews were no longer sustaining us, or the organizations in which we work.

The average life span of a company has decreased dramatically over course of the last century. (Nearly 50% of the Fortune 500 pre-2000 have disappeared or have been the subject of a merger/acquisition.) Many become other companies, which only serves to add to the challenges that employees must face. Organizations that endure, face the dangers of aging — which can include complacency and looming obsolescence. Sustaining an organization is no small feat. Leaders must balance a variety of priorities including a strategic vision and meeting the tide of change.

While contemplating this, I’ve realized that we’ve short-changed one critical part of that discussion — sustaining “us”. Contributors. People. Human beings. Here in the US for example, we work longer, but likely not smarter. We haven’t fully mastered the feedback employees require to be successful. We struggle to provide meaningful career paths to amplify contributor strengths. We sometimes miss the mark concerning that managers require training and support to help team their members thrive. We ignore the importance of re-charging as human beings — leaving countless vacation days on the table.

Things just don’t add up. Something had to give.

And it’s been us.

However of late, there is positive movement. There are organizations getting it right, who hold a strong belief that people are their organization. They intend to evolve in a manner so structure and processes can work with people — not against them. Once petrified, I see a glimmer in leaders who see the value of addressing the organization’s core people practices. Many are making the connection (see this from Google) and rolling up their sleeves to make changes. We are now actively discussing what comprises a healthy, supportive environment. I’m hearing increased chatter about psychological safety and the employer-employee exchange agreement.

With thoughtful decisions and a concerted investment in people — the relationship between employers and employees can shift in a way that will not only affect satisfaction and engagement — but creativity, innovation and success.

I’m watching with great anticipation to see what unfolds.

What is happening in your organization? Share your perspective.

This post was first published on LinkedIn.

How the Future of Work Could Shift Company Cultures

/ /by

Your company’s culture might be changing at this very moment.

The future of work is shifting as more and more millennials enter the workforce. They have goals and motivations that are different from today’s current workers. Also, the increased advancement of technology continues to have a substantial impact on the evolution of workplaces.

All of these changes mean that a shift in company culture is inevitable. How work is viewed and treated will certainly alter as this new crop of college graduates enters the workforce. There are a few ways the future of work will change and what that means for company culture.

More Freelancers

You might never need to put a worker in a cubicle ever again.

Technology has made it possible for workers to do their jobs remotely from home. Twenty-three percent of employees worked remotely in 2015, which was up from 19% in 2013. Remote work is appealing to workers because they get to work from home, eliminate a stressful commute and be more flexible with hours.

Freelance workers mean company cultures will start to accommodate long-distance collaboration. This means video conferencing will become a vital form of communication. Platforms that allow multiple people to work at once like Google Docs will be a necessity to big corporations. Face-to-face interactions will become a rarity as the next generation takes over the workforce.

Less Hierarchy

Get ready, managers. The way you lead your employees is about to come into question.

The days of strict guidelines and intimidating demeanor are over. Future workers demand that their leaders be more honest and inspirational. The hierarchy lines that have been drawn will start to blend as leaders will inspire employees by example.

New workers want to be given a reason to work for a company. They want to inspire others while being inspired in the process. Managers will have to transform more into role models and change the culture to a positive, team-oriented environment.

Better Technology

New technology is constantly making it easier to track inventory, project future sales earnings and distribute products across a variety of industries. For example, the retail industry has evolved in many ways thanks to the internet. We now know that ecommerce sales even have a positive impact on brick-and-mortar stores, with 43% of online shoppers purchasing extra products when they claim their online purchases in-store.

Even better, more efficient and automated processes leave additional free time for non-robotic workers. With this time, workers can personalize each order and put in an extra effort that’ll set their company apart from others. A hand-written letter can go a long way toward retaining customers and showing them you care. The boost in technology will allow workers to add a personal touch to products.

Meaningful Work

Is the work your company does considered meaningful? Does it have a positive impact on the community? This is a shift your company might be forced to make.

30% of millennials believe the work they do has to be meaningful. This is much higher than the 12% of current managers who think meaningful work is important.

Millennials want to feel like they’re making a difference. They grew up with the internet and social media, where their voice can always be heard. With one click of a button, they can make someone’s day with a friendly comment or like. Millennials want to take this into the workforce and impact people’s lives.

Instant Feedback

You know that annual performance review that’s supposed to boost morale? It’s about to become obsolete.

The future of work demands managers give instant feedback. Instant messaging and social media have made quick feedback a normality in today’s culture. New workers will want to hear about their progress as it’s happening. They believe they will learn and improve much faster.

Managers will have to be aware of how their workers are performing at all times. Annual performance reviews will no longer be sufficient in the future.

Be Prepared

Your company’s culture is changing as you’re reading this right now. Be prepared for the future and accept the inevitable shift in culture.

Photo Credit: İstanbul İşletme Enstitüsü via Compfight cc

Talent Analytics: Predicting HR’s Way Out Of The Fog

/ /by

Here’s the average amount of time recruiters spend looking at a resume: 6.25 seconds. That’s how long it takes to evaluate, by brain, whether or not a candidate is the right fit for a job. And here’s another stat: this is the thirteenth month in a row when 200,000 plus jobs have been created.

So, theoretically, to fill 200,000 jobs would require 347 hours of brain time. That doesn’t count all the other candidates who didn’t make the cut. Or what happens after the hire.

The variations on success or failure in HR are always endless: we’re human, not robot, for one thing. But given our profoundly transformed world of work, the variables are now also epic. From multiple generations to global organizations to the enormous impact of Big Data, there’s no turning back. Our era has been called the Talent Age, the Social Age, the Mobile Age. What it’s not: the Pile Of Resumes Age.

Hence HR’s present headache. There’s a lot of talk about how we need to change the culture: become more people-centric, understand what the millennials and innovative talent wants (start by accepting that they are The Future of Work), figure out how to foster engagement and express recognition and make sure no one leaves. And then there’s all this data. Big Data can seem part ether, part mega-entity. As someone told me, it’s like a fog machine was left on and filled the conference room as we all sat there, stunned. And the word unstructured can strike fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned talent managers.

But it’s not a fog of data, it’s our own fog. We need to approach epic change in an epic way and be very clear about it. To really leverage human capital now, we need to turn to the data that is constantly forming, streaming, reforming. Passive and active candidates, onboarding, training, engagement, retention, attrition, performance, recognition: it can all be predicted with Big Data.

The key is that we are not just gazing into a crystal ball, we’re looking with clarity, knowing that the more information, the more time, the more data points, the more accuracy. But this is about modeling, and about forecasting:

  1. Turnover.Predicting the risk for the most turnover — in which functions, which units, which locations, and what positions, and modeling the scenarios in advance
  2. Churn / retention.Identifying where the highest risk of churn is going to be, and who is at risk for it. Determining what resources should be turned to them in terms of retention activities and / or training.
  1. Risk.Building realistic profiles of which candidates are risk for leaving prematurely, and when. Creating models of which candidates are likely to experience drop in their performance.
  1. Talent.Forecasting who, among new hires, are going to be the high achievers and high performers, and decide should they be shifted into fast track programs. 
  1. Futurecasting. Modeling the various changes that an organization may experience, from global to political, and what the impact of talent hiring, retention and engagement could be.

We need technology that can be used through mobile devices, is interconnected via the cloud so it’s consistent across the board, is intelligent enough to keep learning, is agile enough to refocus. We also need tech to be consistent enough to be a Watson to our Jeopardy. But that’s exactly what predictive analytics offers: the ability to take the past and make sense of it in terms of common factors and key relationships, and to use that information not just to model and predict the future, but to make sound and insightful recommendations.

It may seem like a glaring paradox, but in data lies the future of human resources and talent management. So yes, we do need to change the culture — to one that relies on data. And then we can see clearly.

A version of this was first posted on Forbes.

6 Ways Vision Will Inspire Your Employees And Culture

/ /by

Even as kids, we developed radar on leadership. Consider the classic schoolyard game, Follow the Leader. Everyone has to do exactly what the leader does, or they’re out. Growing up, I remember watching that game dissolve time after time. The leader would start doing scary climbs or huge leaps, and the followers felt put at risk. The leader would make seemingly pointless changes in direction, the followers got frustrated. Finally someone would yell, What are you doing? You’re a terrible leader! And set off a culture mutiny.

Since we left the playground for the workplace, what’s changed? Not much. Though these days, vision’s become a buzzword — to the point where She’s a leader with a real vision can simply mean Nice marketing strategy. But still: effective leadership, particularly at the juncture between the old ways of working and the new, requires far more than a charismatic, alpha personality, and far more than a good PR team.

Here’s how to hone its critical ingredient, Vision, To Stay On Pace With The Future of Work:

1) Vision Is Mission Plus Tech Strategy

True vision involves a clear mission that informs every strategic action and decision. Bring that into a talent management context for a moment. If a CEO’s vision includes attracting the best and the brightest minds to the organization on a global scale, a visionary talent strategy will include a platform that’s social and mobile, agile and timely, shaped with this clear target group in mind. If it doesn’t, the strategy isn’t supporting the vision.

2) Vision Should Come From Within

Consider our iconic leaders. They appear to be so filled with their vision that they’re incandescent with it; lit from within. Steve Jobs is a great example: he lived and breathed his vision; such a part of Apple’s mission that “Think Different” could have had a black turtleneck as a flag. Such distilled strength gives a brand coherency and momentum. But to transmit your vision to others and inspire them, you first have to be filled with it yourself.

3) Vision Is Creative

What makes a leader stand out is that their ability to conceive of an objective that may not even exist: stores serving nothing but fancy coffee, cars a working family can afford to buy, a system of storing data without physical form or shape, yet nearly infinite capacity and capabilities. Then, when it comes to problem solving, where one person sees a dead end, the leader sees a road ahead. Bolstered by an unshakeable faith in their own vision, leaders see obstacles as opportunities.

4) Vision Takes Tenacity

It takes tenacity to adhere to a vision and defend it against the prospect of failure. But leaders roll up their sleeves and the world throws in behind them. Consider the recent news that insurance giant Aetna and retail mammoth Walmart are both raising wages is bound to cause ripples in the pond, as businesses are forced to similarly act in order to keep pace and attract employees — that’s one of the byproducts of a firmer job market. But the cost of these decisions is immense: Walmart, for once, has 1.3 million U.S. workers. It’s not hard to imagine the resistance such a strategy could come up against within the organization, and how hard fought the battle to get it done.

5) Vision Takes Vision

No, it’s not a typo: vision requires a sense of the big picture and a laser-sharp view of the future. This kind of foresight takes practice, but it’s part of what keeps the train on the track. Leaders need to be able to look at past performances, whether successes or failures, and be able to use that to predict future outcomes. Further, a leader can envision more than one possible outcome, and still have it adhere to their stated objective.

6) Vision Requires Communication

None of this will go anywhere if a leader doesn’t also have the tools to convey that vision to the organization, and inspire them to get the job done. That may also be why marketing has taken such a hold on the term: marketing is about creating the most engaging expression of an idea. Implicit in our ability to convey our vision is that vital compact that leadership needs to have with employees: one of consideration, and inclusion, and respect. Together, we can do it, as the slogan goes. And that, drives employee engagement and helps talent attraction and retention across the board.

A version of this was first posted on Forbes.

The Future Of Work Has No Boundaries

/ /by

Among the many facets of this new way of working: a not-always smooth shift from officemates to virtually connected nomads who communicate and work via all sorts of virtual channels: social, mobile and video. A statistic that’s been reverberating since I first read it: by 2015, which is now, 1.3 billion of us worldwide will be working remotely. That’s about 40% of the global workforce. Another: HR technology alone is a market worth more than $15 billion. That’s a whole heap of screen time for your personal brand.

In this virtual, hyper-connected and hyper-competitive culture, body language is more critical than ever. There’s plenty of coaching to be had, and data — charts tracking testosterone and cortisol changes and the like. But I’m still hearing questions on the why side from leaders, employees and brands alike. We tend to follow direction and get to a task because we’re team players in a fast-moving workforce: we take care of the who-what-where-when first. But in simple mechanical terms, why a soft skill like body language is ever-critical is an interesting question. The bottom line: essentially, we’re all onscreen. We’re on Digital TV. And the tech has its own impact on how we appear.

A Tighter Visual Frame

Not only does body language translate via digital and video hookup, it’s intensified. Twitter Chats, video interviews, conferences, virtual meetings: what they all have in common in a tighter visual frame, with talking heads (and sometimes bodies) front and center, going mobile shrinks us down even more. This is the new normal: an increased and consolidated visual presence.

This different framing also means the data we transmit — via our physical positions, breathing, voice — is distilled, so it’s going to convey even more. We’re not just watching, we’re scrutinizing each other. We need to be more mindful of the impression we make, and think a bit like directors managing our actors — without losing sight of being authentic as a brand. And the more we all spending time on digital teams and in virtual workplaces, the more sophisticated we’re becoming at recognizing tells: those quirks that reveal when someone’s not engaged in the conversation or is less than enthusiastic.

What gets lost in digital translation are the accessory factors, which rounded out our experience in the analog past — something as simple as the scent of your perfume or the atmosphere of the interview space, which in the past might enhance, distract, or even dilute our impression of one another. That means every gesture, every expression, is a focal point. Be very self-aware.

A Different Sense Of Time

Digital time is faster, shorter, and moments are more isolated; they create their own context. That means a gesture isn’t tempered by other gestures. We get a moment to speak our minds and hearts, and then it’s onto the next face, the next brand in the screen. So be intentional. Be mindful of the direction and clarity of your idea. That’s a good exercise for all of us, but especially now, it’s key.

Given the brevity, that also means that what we say, and how we say it, are even more important. Social etiquette is a necessity. Being conscious of the particular norms or behaviors of a given social channel is just part of the job description now. And in general, that means not really throwing your emotions out there: just like all caps, things get very loud and conspicuous in a millisecond.

The truth is, we all still need each other. Human to human matters most. There’s no working in endless isolation for most of us, and between teams, departments, projects and discussions, we’re spending a whole lot of virtual time with each other. Technology, fortunately, is developing less static, less formal venues that allow us to be ourselves and interact in a more spontaneous way, such as online discussion groups, social media hangouts, brainstorming chats, and the like. But it’s still, well, different. And giving good face has never been more important. There’s a new emotional intelligence to it, and we’re getting there. See you on the digital screen, talent stars.

A version of this was first posted on Forbes.

Photo Credit: Mimadeo via Compfight cc

How HR Can Recruit for IT Departments of the Future

/ /by

I’ve written a lot about Millennials and the massive impact they are having on the future of work. The largest generation in today’s workforce, they are the generation perfectly matched to ride the wave of digital technology and mobility that came of age more or less at the same time they did, and they’ve helped turn traditional business practices on its ear.

One of the areas in which these two “change makers” are having the biggest impact when it comes to the future of business is in IT. IT departments, and the professionals that staff them follow old school stereotypes no longer. Gone are the days of IT being a mysterious “NASA’esque” area of your organization that most of your employees never entered, let alone collaborated with.

Today’s up and coming IT professionals consider themselves partnered with their peers in the enterprise, and are eager (and able) to participate in strategy planning and long-term corporate goal setting. They tend to work closer than ever these days with both sales and marketing teams, and understand—and make sure their teams know—how what they’re working on in the “backend” will impact what’s happening in the front end. The result? Excited, engaged teams, increased productivity, better products, happier customers and clients, and reduced turnover.

Hiring for IT Departments of the Future

Millennials are driving a majority of this change. These “digital natives” were practically born with a smartphone in their hands, and they live and breathe mobile devices, apps, and software. They are also the cohort who demand connection and collaboration in their work environments. That will not sit idly by and take orders from superiors, instead, they want to know the “why” behind tasks, projects, and business initiatives.

As an HR professional or anyone tasked with IT hiring, you need to be on top of these changing expectations when it comes to recruiting for the future of IT.

Seek out potential recruits who, though skilled in the technical areas as they should be, also score high when it comes to soft skills—things like excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills. Sharon Florentine, who writes for CIO.com, recently shared a quote from Kevin King, founder and CEO of the management consulting and assessment firm, Transformation Point. King says that there’s a direct relationship between soft skills and workers’ effectiveness, which translates to better overall business results.

“A higher degree of soft-skills competency brings improved effectiveness and improved organizational results, and that in turn drives greater employee engagement and retention… When people work more efficiently and effectively together, that means their organizations see better results and they’re more likely to stay,” says King. He adds, “You can have the best technology and processes in the world, but if your people aren’t able to communicate about them, if they aren’t effectively demonstrating teamwork, critical thinking and emotional intelligence, it doesn’t help your business succeed.”

What CIOs Need to Change

According to a recent Gartner study, the 2016 Gartner CIO Agenda Report, “talent has now been recognized globally as the single biggest issue standing in the way of CIOs achieving their objectives.” Where are the most significant talent gaps? Big data, analytics, information management, and knowledge/acumen. The worst part of this revelation? These are many of the same talent gaps CIOs cited four years ago!

Gartner goes on to explore a little of what today’s CIO’s and other IT professionals can do to start bridging those gaps. The key here is to think about talent as a platform— and be innovative. When you’re thinking about staffing, don’t be afraid to think outside the box, and try new ways of sourcing talent—like these:

  • Recruiting/rotating staff from outside IT
  • Working more closely with universities on internships, co-designed courses, etc.
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Considering customers, citizens, vendors, and partners as extensions (and digital accelerators) of the talent platform

Today’s CIOs, in many cases, are already seen as a corporation’s digital and/or innovation leaders. And most of those tech leaders also feel their power and influence is increasing as they become more cross-functional and collaborative across the enterprise. The successful IT departments of the future will maintain a focus on new technology, new software, and hardware, and the ‘hottest’ new skills. To build an IT department at this level, IT staffers will be required to be just as cross-functional, collaborative, and engaged as their CIOs are learning to be.

Empathetic, “big picture” thinkers, who are comfortable moving between the confines of the IT department to a client meeting to customer service or the corporate boardroom, are the types of IT professionals you will need to seek out when hiring and/or staffing for the IT departments of the future.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen such an evolution in your organization’s IT department? Do you find yourself collaborating and teaming up on projects more often these days with IT teams? Or are you seeing pushback from IT teams who aren’t ready (or able) to adapt to this new way of enterprise business? I would love to hear what you think.

Photo Credit: codiepie via Compfight cc

A version of this post was first published on Converge.xyz

It’s No Secret the Future of Work is Here: Now Let’s Support It

/ /by

Pain can lead us to the source of our troubles — and with that efferent signal we can begin to act in response. This is exactly how I view the unfolding shift within organizations today. Traditional organizational structure and processes are often unfit to support the work life needs of human beings (think Maslow’s notion of safety applied to work). We’ve seen staggering engagement lows reflecting this shortfall —  and the accompanying financial ramifications (See more on that here). In many organizations retention will become an increasing worry. We shouldn’t feign surprise. The tipping point is near — and it will be a rocky (yet exhilarating) ride.

Addressing the weaknesses of traditional organizations and crafting an effective response — has been a protracted process. However, this as a “work-life affirming” opportunity for many organizations. As organizations attempt to transform in response to a lack of psychological safety and needed shifts in the role of “manager” — we’ll see remarkable changes in the way organizations relate to their employees. At the horizon, organizations such as Adobe and Deloitte abandoning time-intense performance appraisal systems that offered little in return. Organizations such as Intuit are realizing that leadership training requires the use of guided experimentation in the field. 

This evolution will undoubtedly come down to brass tacks: What are organizations willing to do to transform how they support their employees and the work?

Here are a few thoughts:

  • Build an organizational “growth mindset”. Listening to the stories of organizations, doubt concerning the capability of the organization to grow or change is often detected. The work of Carol Dweck can be readily applied to the potential of people within organizations. This mindset can also be extended to beliefs concerning the organization as a whole. When contributors perceive the organization feels that talent is static and fixed, commitment wanes.
  • Acknowledge the employee-employer exchange agreement. Engagement remains a difficult metric to affect, as it effectively costs US organizations millions of dollars each year in lost productivity. We can apply new mindsets — such as addressing the psychological contract — to make headway.  When we commit to an organization, we expect (hope for) something meaningful in return — whether this is recognition, the opportunity to explore ideas or learning new things. However this is rarely discussed. The often unstated contract between employers and employees, is quickly becoming part of this equation. (See more on this in The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age). I predict this neglected dynamic will not “go gently into the good night”. In fact, it will begin to affect many organizations that remain unprepared.
  • Get the work done: Teaming. Recent research conducted by Deloitte, has discussed that the design of organizations is shifting. This in direct response to the demands of the work at hand. (According to the research less than 40% percent of all companies continue to be functionally organized). Issues going forward affecting this shift include: adequate communication platforms to bring together teams, internal documentation of employee skill/knowledge bases and the role of managers.
  • Bring elements of agile to work. Agile possesses certain strengths that can be utilized by many types of teams within an organizations. Two obvious strengths that strike me as critical: protecting the work and harnessing the perspective of customers/clients. The mindset shift is a mammoth commitment, but can allow even the most petrified organizations a new lease on life. (Read more about making the entire organization agile here.)

How has your organization responded to the evolution of work? Share your experiences.

A version of this was first posted on LinkedIn

Photo Credit: RollisFontenot via Compfight cc

How HR Can Recruit for IT Departments of the Future

/3 Comments/ /by

I’ve written a lot about Millennials and the massive impact they are having on the future of work. The largest generation in today’s workforce, they are the generation perfectly matched to ride the wave of digital technology and mobility that came of age more or less at the same time they did, and they’ve helped turn traditional business practices on its ear.

One of the areas in which these two “change makers” are having the biggest impact when it comes to the future of business is in IT. IT departments, and the professionals that staff them follow old school stereotypes no longer. Gone are the days of IT being a mysterious “NASA’esque” area of your organization that most of your employees never entered, let alone collaborated with.

Today’s up and coming IT professionals consider themselves partnered with their peers in the enterprise, and are eager (and able) to participate in strategy planning and long-term corporate goal setting. They tend to work closer than ever these days with both sales and marketing teams, and understand—and make sure their teams know—how what they’re working on in the “backend” will impact what’s happening in the front end. The result? Excited, engaged teams, increased productivity, better products, happier customers and clients, and reduced turnover.

Hiring for IT Departments of the Future

Millennials are driving a majority of this change. These “digital natives” were practically born with a smartphone in their hands, and they live and breathe mobile devices, apps, and software. They are also the cohort who demand connection and collaboration in their work environments. That will not sit idly by and take orders from superiors, instead, they want to know the “why” behind tasks, projects, and business initiatives.

As an HR professional or anyone tasked with IT hiring, you need to be on top of these changing expectations when it comes to recruiting for the future of IT.

Seek out potential recruits who, though skilled in the technical areas as they should be, also score high when it comes to soft skills—things like excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills. Sharon Florentine, who writes for CIO.com,recently shared a quote from Kevin King, founder and CEO of the management consulting and assessment firm, Transformation Point. King says that there’s a direct relationship between soft skills and workers’ effectiveness, which translates to better overall business results.

“A higher degree of soft-skills competency brings improved effectiveness and improved organizational results, and that in turn drives greater employee engagement and retention… When people work more efficiently and effectively together, that means their organizations see better results and they’re more likely to stay,” says King. He adds, “You can have the best technology and processes in the world, but if your people aren’t able to communicate about them, if they aren’t effectively demonstrating teamwork, critical thinking and emotional intelligence, it doesn’t help your business succeed.”

What CIOs Need to Change

According to a recent Gartner study, the 2016 Gartner CIO Agenda Report, “talent has now been recognized globally as the single biggest issue standing in the way of CIOs achieving their objectives.” Where are the most significant talent gaps? Big data, analytics, information management, and knowledge/acumen. The worst part of this revelation? These are many of the same talent gaps CIOs cited four years ago!

Gartner goes on to explore a little of what today’s CIO’s and other IT professionals can do to start bridging those gaps. The key here is to think about talent as a platform—and be innovative. When you’re thinking about staffing, don’t be afraid to think outside the box, and try new ways of sourcing talent—like these:

  • Recruiting/rotating staff from outside IT
  • Working more closely with universities on internships, co-designed courses, etc.
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Considering customers, citizens, vendors, and partners as extensions (and digital accelerators) of the talent platform

Today’s CIOs, in many cases, are already seen as a corporation’s digital and/or innovation leaders. And most of those tech leaders also feel their power and influence is increasing as they become more cross-functional and collaborative across the enterprise. The successful IT departments of the future will maintain a focus on new technology, new software, and hardware, and the ‘hottest’ new skills. To build an IT department at this level, IT staffers will be required to be just as cross-functional, collaborative, and engaged as their CIOs are learning to be.

Empathetic, “big picture” thinkers, who are comfortable moving between the confines of the IT department to a client meeting to customer service or the corporate boardroom, are the types of IT professionals you will need to seek out when hiring and/or staffing for the IT departments of the future.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen such an evolution in your organization’s IT department? Do you find yourself collaborating and teaming up on projects more often these days with IT teams? Or are you seeing pushback from IT teams who aren’t ready (or able) to adapt to this new way of enterprise business? I would love to hear what you think.

A version of this was first posted on Converge.com.

Photo Credit: codiepie via Compfight cc

The Future of Work: Awakening the Artist Within

/ /by

More people will pick themselves in the 21st century. Choice is abundant and there is simply a multitude of opportunities and possibilities. That is the exciting new path for people in the human-to-human purpose and experience driven era.

Many will no longer wait to be picked for that job, promotion or project. An increasing number of people will start picking themselves and setting their own path as they see life as a daring adventure, where work is just one element of it. LIFEworking will be a way of life.

We will start asking ourselves, what’s my enough? And realizing that we want to set our own path and follow our own journey; not someone else’s story.

Over the next 25 years, people will choose to join organizations with shared purpose that value people. Purpose will become much more important to people than mission statements that hang on corporate walls. Trust, relationships and community will be the currencies that matter more in a world where people will choose to focus on business for good.

This journey has already begun with a wide range of organizations moving in the direction of being powered by purpose. Today, people are becoming much more conscious of the food they consume as more organizations tell us that the food they produce is poison free. Today’s packaging inform the consumer that their food does not contain harmful ingredients.

In the future, more people will question whether working for a certain company will damage their health and wellbeing, as well as whether the company’s practices are good for society and the planet.

Research has shown that the companies that do good in the world return more profits to their shareholders than their counterparts — those who do harm. Staying competitive in today’s socially conscious climate means more than having good products and being profitable.

Not only are people more likely to buy from brands that share their social values, they are willing to spend more on their products, are nearly twice as loyal and employees are more than 50% more engaged and nearly 20% more productive. As Gina Manis-Anderson of Savii Group tells us, “Turns out doing good is good for business.”

Innovation should never be a department. In today’s world, many organizations focus on innovation and yet do not have the systems to allow for true innovation which include experimentation that often leads to the failure that is associated with it.

In the future of work, we will make choices that sustain us and we will not be constrained by internal systems like incentive plans that restrict our ability to experiment and fail. Innovation will be exciting as it will be in the fabric of how we work and collaborate. With shared purpose, people will bring innovation to their day-to-day practices and have the freedom to create.

The artist needs freedom to create. And we are all artists, makers, creators and doers in business.

A call to action. Imagine what could happen if we no longer needed to fight for our lives and we simply lived fully and co-created the world we want to live in where business is a force of good? In the 21st century human-to-human era, anything and everything is possible as we have everything we need to create a healthy and humane world.

Imagine the possibilities, and find the people who want to co-create in living colors. We are waiting for you to join our journey to business common sense. It’s a conscious choice.

A version of this post was first published on 2/2/16 on AyeletBaron.com

Image source: StockSnap.io

Mentorship and the Future of Work

/ /by

The American workplace is changing at a revolutionary pace and when it comes to the future of work, mentorship will no doubt play an important role.

Half of the full-time workforce is projected to be remote employees working from home either full or part time by 2020. In addition, the average American worker now spends only 4.5 years at one job–and that number is even less for Millennials.

Simply put, there’s a new future of work coming…one that looks significantly different than even a decade ago. Studies show that close to 80 percent of college students and recent grads rank people and culture fit as a top priority, and career potential as a close second.

In that environment, nurturing, inspiring, and developing employees will be even more critical, and mentorship is a key part of the equation. Companies that think carefully about how to foster and create mentorship opportunities will be more likely to retain the very best talent, while letting go of employees that aren’t self-directed and motivated.

Here are a few ways mentorship is changing, and how you can endeavor to modify the thinking within your organization to help embrace the shift:

Be Open About Negotiating How a Mentorship will be Set Up

In the more traditional workplace, a manager or boss would assess where a potential employee might go with their career and provide mentorship accordingly, with a direction that the manager set.

But as Millennial and Generation Z employees navigate career paths that look much different than they did 10 or 20 years ago, they need more options, and they want to be heavily involved. Encouraging them to define their own future skill set and providing them a variety of ways of getting professional development and feedback is critical.

Develop and Welcome a Workflow for Mentorship that Goes in Both Directions

Traditional conceptions of mentorship included the experienced boss and inexperienced employees, whom the boss groomed for promotion. Mentorship was one direction, and the mentee was expected to listen and absorb the mentor’s expertise and experience. As employees are becoming entrepreneurial in nature, this is changing; hierarchies are breaking down, and expected timelines for promotion are shortening.

While it can be unnerving, there are plenty of reasons to welcome this. Brad Feld, who has been an entrepreneur and investor for 20+ years, sees that change as one of the most gratifying parts of his life…

“When I reflect on my best mentors, they are very long term relationships where I hope they’ve now gotten as much from me as I’ve gotten from them. I call this “peer mentoring” and – while it can start as an equal relationship, it’s magical when it evolves from a mentor – mentee relationship.”

Embrace a Learning-by-Teaching Approach

The apprenticeship model has always been part of the workplace, but it’s even more critical in the changing environment of remote work and faster, more self-driven career development.

With younger employees expected to get up to speed even more quickly, and without traditional in-office training, one of the things that a smart company can focus on is encouraging a culture where there is more mentorship in smaller bites, and where the model for learning is also a model for teaching.

Rather than lengthy sessions a few times a year or when a crisis arrives, setting up a mini-class with a mentor, for example, can be an effective way to quickly engage employees. Once they’ve acquired the information, having them in turn engage in quick working sessions with their peers fosters a model of continuous learning, and bi-directional mentorship.

Encourage employees to embrace their whole identity, but draw clear lines

Part of the reason so many Millennials look for a work culture fit is that they have a different expectation than previous generations about what role work should play in their lives. Many Millennials are looking for a different kind of relationship, one where their whole identity is embraced, where they are seen and respected for both their work and individual pursuits and passions.

Ultimately, mentorship will not disappear (as some have suggested). Mentorship will most definitely play a role in the future of work; Millennials want mentorship and talk about it often. Mentorship will, however, continue to shift into a mutually-respectful agreement that evolves by way of negotiation between employers and employees about what is important and how an employee’s goals can align with company goals. The monolithic giants will fight it, and lose the battle, while smart, nimble companies will embrace the changes and create an environment where employees not only learn and grow, but stick around to help the company do the same.

This article was originally published on MillennialCEO  on 10/20/2015
photo credit: Learn via photopin (license)

#WorkTrends Recap: Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself in the 21st Century

/ /by

During today’s #WorkTrends show, we discussed the importance of forgetting the old “work-life balance myth” and how to start LIFEworking. #WorkTrends Founder and Host Meghan M. Biro was joined by Tim McDonald and Ayelet Baron, Co-Founders of CreatingIs and LIFEworking.

While we have been led to believe that we can separate our personal and work personas, we are only one person. We don’t need to have this separation and balancing act; it’s more about blending work into our lives.

During the event, we learned more about LIFEworking, is an approach that meshes life and work into an integrated existence. Most importantly, it is a way of living in which the individual and not the organization defines the meaning of success. To achieve LIFEworking, we need to first understand what success really means for us, and then systematically address the fears that stand in the way of change. These fears typically relate to personal anxiety and the social consequences of choice.

It was a lively #WorkTrends podcast and Twitter conversation. Participants had a lot to share about the topic, making for another successful #WorkTrends show.

Want to learn more from today’s event? Listen to the recording and check out the highlights below:

Thank you to all the TalentCulture sponsors, partners and supporters!

The TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show is all new on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, from 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT). Join TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show Founder and Host Meghan M. Biro as she talks about Leadership Lessons from Superheroes with author and leadership expert David Kahn.

Join our social communities and stay up-to-date! The TalentCulture conversation continues daily. See what’s happening right now on the #WorkTrends Twitter stream, in our LinkedIn group and on our Google+ community. Engage with us anytime on our social networks or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

Image credit: StockSnap.io

The Future of Work Is Simple: LIFEworking

/ /by

LIFE working is about the adventure that so many souls before us have taken to explore with compassion what is possible for us to live fully. The work for each of us is to go deep inside and discover what’s fuels us: to know who you are and what you want to create. People may try to convince you that they know what’s best for you, but you know better. No one has the answers for you, but you. More and more people every day are waking up and realizing we have a real choice to make about how we live our precious moments. We want to follow our own heartbeat.

More People Will Pick Themselves In The 21st Century

Choice is abundant and there is simply a multitude of opportunities and possibilities. That is the exciting new path for people in the human-to-human purpose and experience driven era. Many will no longer wait to be picked for that job, promotion or project. An increasing number of people will start picking themselves and setting their own path as they see life as a daring adventure, where work is just one element of it. LIFEworking will be a way of life. We will start asking ourselves, what’s my enough? And realizing that we want to set our own path and follow our own journey; not someone else’s story.

Over The Next 25 Years, People Will Choose To Join Organizations With Shared Purpose That Values People

Purpose will become much more important to people than mission statements that hang on corporate walls. Trust, relationships and community will be the currencies that matter more in a world where people will choose to focus on business for good. This journey has already begun with a wide range of organizations moving in the direction of being powered by purpose. Today, people are becoming much more conscious of the food they consume as more organizations tell us that the food they produce is poison free. Today’s packaging informs the consumer that their food does not contain harmful ingredients. In the future, more people will question whether working for a certain company will damage their health and wellbeing, as well as whether the company’s practices are good for society and the planet.

Research Has Shown That The Companies That Do Good In The World Return More Profits To Their Shareholders Than Their Counterparts — Those Who Do Harm

Staying competitive in today’s socially conscious climate means more than having good products and being profitable. Not only are people more likely to buy from brands that share their social values, they are willing to spend more on their products, are nearly twice as loyal and employees are more than 50 percent more engaged and nearly 20 percent more productive. As Gina Manis-Anderson of Savii Group tells us, “Turns out doing good is good for business.”

Innovation Should Never Be a Department

In today’s world, many organizations focus on innovation and yet do not have the systems to allow for true innovation which include experimentation that often leads to the failure that is associated with it. In the future of work, we will make choices that sustain us and we will not be constrained by internal systems like incentive plans that restrict our ability to experiment and fail. Innovation will be exciting as it will be in the fabric of how we work and collaborate. With shared purpose, people will bring innovation to their day-to-day practices and have the freedom to create. The artist needs freedom to create. And we are all artists, makers, creators and doers in business.

A Call To Action

Imagine what could happen if we no longer needed to fight for our lives and we simply lived fully and co-created the world we want to live in where business is a force of good? In the 21st century human-to-human era, anything and everything is possible as we have everything we need to create a healthy and humane world. Imagine the possibilities, and find the people who want to co-create in living colors. We are waiting for you to join our journey to business common sense. It’s a conscious choice.

The future of work and life is as simple or complex as you make it. It is about having the mindset of a creator and artists. We will leave you with these two questions: What are you choosing? What’s the story you writing for your future LIFEwork?

A version of this post originally was published on medium.com on January 26, 2016 as: The Future of Work: Awakening the Artist Within

Image credit : StockSnap.io

Cheers To The Talent Who Focused On The Future Of Work In 2015

/ /by

I’m always looking forward in the world of work: exploring what the future of work will hold and how we can get there, how can we recruit the best and brightest and keep them, what’s tech is coming down the pike. Talent is inherently future-centric, driven as much by the underlying reality of succession and how to withstand the new normal of disruption and the incredible shrinking barrier between work and life. But 2015 has been a milestone year. So I’m going to look back. I’m in a thankful mood.

First off, I always want to thank the communities I’m a part of. I’m lucky: my colleagues and peers are thinkers, learners, doers, dreamers; not a naysayer or a mud-sticker-inner in the bunch. The optimism and interest (at times, obsession) of my brothers and sisters can be positively empowering and inspiring.

So here are a few trends from last year’s great year in the world of talent, and a few shout-outs to those I have to thank.

No Limits is the new normal.

We saw what was coming: the Cloud, mobile and social, a hyper-accelerated ability to analyze and find meaning in powerful ways. And we are doing this far more quickly and readily — with access to seemingly infinite amounts of data. The news circa 2015 was not in the what and how, but the who and why. It’s up to us to chart the direction and make sure we’re expanding who is included. Among my favorite events and its coverage was the IT@Cork European Technology Summit in Ireland, where my friend Kevin W. Grossman and I had the privilege of hosting a discussion on the impact of gender diversity in tech — with some fantastic guests.

Collectively engaged is bigger than distinctive and separate.

Forging a larger community was the focus of many a post; others paid far more attention to the differences. My preferred approach is a virtual Venn diagram of the characteristics we all have in common. I found, in study after study, there are more differences than similarities, and the most important takeaway is more about a blended workforce culture than striated, isolated segments. It’s all about breaking out of the box, or cubicle, and driving engagement — which means a spirit of collaborative innovation; the opposite of us and them.

Please be nice, be kind, be aware.

This has been a year of scrutiny on bullying, that terribly dehumanizing practice that happens not only in school, but very much in some workplaces. I hate to call out Amazon, but the news surrounding its apparently toxic culture was shocking; all the more so as it seemed stitching into the very fabric of the company culture. The good news: it sparked the conversation we all needed to have. Many of us chose to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty with this critical, yet anything but high-concept, issue. It’s not high concept, it’s not high anything, and that’s the point. Kudos to those who took it on.

The better I can see through you, the better.

With the changing population of the workforce has come a far more facile sense of what, exactly, transparency means. Hint: it’s not a marketing tool, except that it is: the essential message, mission and brand of an employer needs to be a through-line that encompasses all platforms and interactions from search to hire to retention to succession. And in terms of candidate experience, it’s a must. Transparency is a critical selling point when it comes to how candidates perceive an employer, and the statistics on just how aware we all are (not surprising in this culture) are remarkable.

It hasn’t all been sober predictions, either. There have been some uproariously entertaining moments. If you weren’t at this year’s Las Vegas HRTech conference, you should make a point of going next year, and combine being part of the zeitgeist with perusing all that sexy tech and gear. Its attendance broke records, which is proof to me that we are now growing up. I remember writing about the departure of the gold watch from employee recognition programs; the rise of HR in mobile and social; the entrance of Millennials; now we’re so far past that, I can’t wait to see what happens next. Thanks to everyone involved: it’s going to be a great ride in 2016.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

A version of this post was first published on Forbes on 12/5/15