FountainBlue's June 11 VIP Roundtable was on the topic of 'The Future of Work', with our hosts at CITRIX. As usual, our participating executives represented a wide breadth of backgrounds and perspectives. We are all in agreement on the following:
The future of work was very much impacted by the pandemic for all participating executives, and everyone is scrambling to plan-fully and proactively address the current, projected and future needs of our workers, partners and customers. We don't know what the future will hold, but we do know that leadership and communication will help us collaboratively design solutions which benefit all, and that iterating on the adopted strategies and plans will help us more progressively serve everyone.
Companies large and small of all ilks and industries have adopted the technologies, processes, support and resources to ensure that most of us are able to work harder and more productively now than ever - even though we are restricted from interactions and travel.We don't know what the future will hold, but we do know that the productivity levels are not sustainable in the long term, as it will lead to burn-out and attrition.
We are all at various levels of returning to a hybrid form of work, and are all plan-fully considering who returns to the office and how the return will most productively benefit everyone.
We don't know when and where this return will happen, but we do know that we need to proactively address, manage, and communicate the logistical, policy, infrastructure, safety, and other issues introduced by the return-to-work, and get buy-in and support for any return-to-work plan.
We all agreed that technology has been progressively and aggressively adopted to help us all work through the pandemic. But we also agree that no technology will ever replace the need for workers.
We know that we will always have both workers and technologies, but we aren't sure how to best optimize each as we return to work. The plan will morph and flow over time as the technologies and the workers both become more integrated and more sophisticated.
We all agreed that this year-plus of working from home helped us all better connect with ourselves, our family, with nature, with our purpose. We all know that this will forever change the way we look at our work, and the choices and sacrifices we make for our work.
As leaders, we need to understand the motivations of our people, and ensure that we can speak to the purpose of why we do what we do, and how we add value to our team, our company, our customers, our future, our customers.
We all experienced how the pandemic made us feel both so isolated and yet so commonly human. As we return to work, we are all strategizing on how we can feel more deeply connected with each other so that we can better serve each other.
Work leaders need to facilitate that communication to drive that connection between team members and company leaders at all levels.
The topic of privacy, security and access was prominent prior to the pandemic, and will become even more as we return to that next normal.
Proactively managing that balance as we enter the next normal will remain an ongoing challenge.
Below is advice on how we can better do any of the above.
Take advantage of opportunities to have serendipitous discussions with your team, your partners and your customers. Building deeper relationships beyond work will not only help you with your work, it will also help you be more happy, more human.
Look for opportunities to manage beyond the silos of groups, apps or organizations. There will be many bleed-overs of each as everything becomes more integrated, more complex.
Choose and adopt best practices for the good work you do. Celebrate victories and successes and learn from each.
Be proactively protective of your mental health, your personal time, and encourage your others to do the same.
Build ecosystems and relationships which will support you personally as you grow and develop.
Be flexible about what you expect and how you and others respond to what they experience.
The bottom line is that we can all see the opportunities in the challenges, be more confident despite the fear, when we look at the future of work, if we continue to focus on leadership and innovation goals.