The last few years demonstrated that flexibility and a willingness to change are crucial to longevity, especially in the modern workforce, which is undergoing rapid shifts in expectations, technology, and approaches. Notably, the Great ResignationOpens a new window  has many businesses scrambling for strategies to maintain their workforces. Dubbed the Reskilling RevolutionOpens a new window  by the World Economic Forum, companies will need to implement programs to help current employees become more tech-savvy without decreasing productivity. One-off training sessions and constantly hiring new employees isn’t the answer – organizations must prepare to support flexible and continuous learning efforts. Navigating the future’s challenges will require businesses to cultivate a workforce that can quickly adopt new skills, policies, and opportunities. Â
Building Comfort with Change
While providing a workforce with the necessary tools and structures to succeed, enterprises must foster a higher tolerance or comfort to change amongst employees. Of course, some people are more psychologically compatible with change than others, and companies must know which employees will need added assistance and resources. Primarily, comfort with change is three major psychological aspects: tolerance for ambiguity, adaptability, and resilience. The first is the degree to which someone is calm in the face of uncertainty. Adaptability has to do with a person’s ability to switch from one way of doing things to another or from a group to an independent setting while still being innovative, adept, and optimistic. The last aspect is an employee’s power to keep moving forward despite difficult situations, setbacks, and hardships.
One way employees can identify the tools and resources to succeed is through machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). This technology helps collect performance metrics, including an employee’s project history, workload, individual feedback, and team velocity, to detect strengths and weaknesses, identify rising stars and predict attrition. To help change behavior and improve results, the technology then uses nudge theory to prompt activity from an employee or manager, which can reduce attrition and provide development opportunities. With an aggregated view of key metrics, organizations can build an adaptive workforce by easily identifying the unique areas of support employees need.
The Importance of Cultivating your Workforce
Before a workforce can change, they must get primed for it – otherwise, the transition to new technology and practices won’t be as successful and potentially detrimental. Getting employees on board will ensure that they feel comfortable and supportedOpens a new window  in their new roles. Likewise, encouraging the acceptance of new processes and technologies is best when the management leads by example. Companies will also need to build an environment that gives workers the confidence to solve problems – sometimes unexpected ones. Fostering such an environment requires employees to have the skills to use technologies and the freedom to change workflows without approval quickly While handing over a high level of freedom to employees can feel strange or unorthodox, a well-structured framework with defined rules empowers people to autonomously adjust to sudden changes to deliver the best outcomes possible.
To cultivate this environment and maintain efficiency, it’s important to ensure the whole organization works as one. This can be done by investing in communities within the organization, especially as teams become more dispersed with remote workers. Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and other internal channels provide an outlet for employees to connect with each other, build networks and find people with a skill set to collaborate in ways never thought possible.
See More: Empower Your People With Work-Based Learning
How to Prepare a Readiness to ChangeÂ
Although businesses that invest in their workforces outperform their competitorsOpens a new window in revenue growth, profit, and customer experience, organizations must determine how their managers can encourage flexibility by leading by example. From a management standpoint, business leaders set the tone for the entire organization and should respond positively to change, motivating teams to trust the company’s strategy. Transparent communication with the workforce is equally important. Leaders must assure teams not to stress or worry by promptly and effectively acknowledging when something new is happening to the business. Leaders should give employees time to ask questions about upcoming changes. Furthermore, leaders must be confident in their decision-making and adhere to new protocols after a change gets initiated. However, they shouldn’t maintain faulty approaches for commitment – if another superior option presents itself, they must not hesitate to adopt it.
Businesses can establish an environment that gives workforces the skills, technologies, and freedom to adjust quickly to unexpected changes by providing employees a seat at the planning table. Companies can tap into their workforce’s experience and knowledge by setting up brainstorming sessions, idea boxes, and training meetings. Allowing employees to work with new solutions and processes before approval will help determine if any issues must first get corrected. These exercises will give people a sense of ownership over the final implementation. Likewise, businesses should support activities that help their workforces freely build relationships, connections, and bonds. This helps foster a greater sense of community and a collective comfortability for change.   Â
Schooling Doesn’t Stop After School
Businesses will need to significantly change their mindset and invest in tools to hire, staff, and manage teams at scale to succeed in this post-pandemic future. Namely, organizations have to accept that it is no longer feasible to hire ready-made workers from university, as these graduates will need to undergo even more training once they arrive at an organization. Businesses must prepare to engage and equip their workers with the best tools for success, knowing that upskilling is essential to their jobs.
With an AI-enabled platform and suite of apps, businesses can quickly scale and drive efficiency by ensuring that employees have the resources to adapt and succeed in projects best suited for their skill sets. Machine learning can flag individual development needs and help track a path toward growth in real-time. Once these areas are identified, AI-aggregated learning courses can bring together internal and external content through intelligent discovery and recommendations for self-directed learning. By investing in these resources, employees are empowered to take their future into their own hands and adapt to changing business needs.
How do you think companies can begin to cultivate an adaptive workforce? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . We’d love to know!