By bringing together cross-disciplinary teams to address questions of fluidity, automation, and flexibility, HR leaders can best learn from and sustain the lessons learned Today, writes Dr. John Boudreau, professor emeritus of management and organization and a senior research scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations, at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.
What critical lessons is your team learning now as you respond to the coronavirus crisis that has accelerated work changes for millions of workers? Those lessons are happening every day, as your team pivots to working from home, adapts to new work safety protocols, and responds to calls for racial justice and social responsibility, among many other changes. You can sustain those lessons to build a better future for your workplace – if you take action now.
It’s tempting to wait until later to examine this unprecedented time for your company, or assume that the lessons of the crisis will just naturally be incorporated into your future workplace. You must resist that temptation or risk that the lessons will be forgotten, and your organization may snap back to the “old normal†or worse.
Evolving your future work environment shouldn’t start after the crisis has abated. HR leaders should act now to take stock and take action to shape the post-pandemic workplace – and HR must not act alone.
The current crises will require cross-disciplinary collaboration, and today’s disruptions offer HR leaders an unprecedented opportunity to forge those cross-disciplinary connections, focused on real and tangible strategic change.
Learn More: Is HR Ready for the Transformation of HR Tech and Business Post COVID-19?
3 Questions To Ask as You Plan for the Future of Work Today
The following questions on fluidity, automation, and flexibility offer examples to guide the complex but meaningful conversations you should have right now about the future of work for your company.
As work becomes more fluid, what platforms and technology will support new post-crisis work models?
The pandemic demanded that companies quickly pivot their work structures, workflows, and responsibilities. This accelerated the creation of fluid work, released from the confines of the traditional job, just as water is released from melted ice.
Examples are everywhere. Clothing companies pivoted to making masks, banks reassigned thousands of employees to manage incoming calls, and auto companies began producing ventilators. Workers, previously conceived as jobholders, are melting into more adaptable talent ready to shift to new skills, apply existing non-job skills, or even move across boundaries between organizations. Now that work has “melted,†it will not easily fully “refreeze.â€
Now is the time to evaluate how fluid your workforce has become and decide how fluid it should stay. That lesson will demand conversations with your colleagues across disciplines – such as legal, tech, and operations.
HR technology is pivotal, such as the best platform to manage a fluid workforce. Tech platforms manage and encourage workers to take on different tasks and track their performance. HR tech is vital to inferring your workers’ hidden skills, saving effort for HR leaders, and increasing opportunities for employees. Such platforms can add value, but HR technology leaders will play a vital role in finding the best fit for your unique workplace needs.
Learn More: 5 HR Jobs of the Future
What’s the right type and amount of work automation post-crisis?
The COVID-19 crisis will continue to accelerate work automation, which has already seen dozens of new usesOpens a new window , from disinfecting spaces to manufacturing PPE to enforcing quarantines. Work automation has proven its value by protecting consumers and patients from potentially dangerous contact with humans and mitigating the risk of workers falling ill.
Some innovations may be less necessary post-crisis, such as robots that perform intensive disinfecting. However, much pandemic-motivated work automation will remain. Now is the best time to use today’s experiences to assess what’s working – while lessons are still fresh – and build a robust long-term work automation strategy.
Take this moment to learn what resonates with your workers and consumers. Right now, simplistic solutions are tempting, such as “replace humans with automation,†but optimal work automation requires a nuanced approach that combines humans and automation.
In some cases, optimal work automation may replace human workers on a particular task, while in other circumstances, human-automation combinations augment humans or even reinvent human work in ways that aren’t possible without automation. HR leaders can learn and teach that lesson today.
How does accelerated remote work offer lessons on optimal flexibility to maintain post-COVID-19?
Accelerated remote work is another canary in the coal mine for the future of work. Worker expectations on flexibility have dramatically shifted as jobs became remote and changed entirely at warp speed. Those expectations won’t just snap back, so now is the time to learn the fundamental lessons. Just as with fluid work, it is unlikely you will return to the previous rigid structures and assumptions.
Seize this unique moment as your employees experience both the value and challenges of increased flexibility and capture their insights and preferences about their future work. Think of your employees as consumers of their work: understand how expectations have shifted and personalize their experience.
HR technology can support virtual employee surveysOpens a new window , focus groups, and one-on-one conversations. Now is when you can learn your workers’ insights about in-person versus remote work, flexible hours, location, and other considerations.
There is a lot of hype as some CEOs proclaim, “work from home forever,†while others insist, “innovation happens in person.†HR technology can help leaders delve beneath the hype by providing deeper and more reliable data on their own workforce.
There Isn’t a “One-Size-Fits-All†Workplace of the Future
Each workplace will require different fluidity, automation, and flexibility. Yet, some things are certain:
- The vital lessons for the future must be captured today and proactively analyzed and sustained using data and HR technology.
- Achieving the best outcome requires HR leaders to act now to coordinate across functional disciplines and engage cross-disciplinary counterparts.
How do you think work can be streamlined during the COVID-19 crisis? share your thoughts with us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window .