Redesigning Work for the Age of Uncertainty

The “big bang” disruption caused by Covid-19 was previously unimaginable for most organizations. But, looking through the lens of business transformation, what if Covid-19 was just a rehearsal? What if greater disruption is on the way, driven by the multitude of previously insidious trends that the pandemic served to accelerate?

Perhaps the most immediate issue, and one that many of the world’s businesses are currently grappling with, is workplace location. As futurist Ben Hammersley puts it, we are now seeing “the Great Reassessment” of location-based working, as the workforce questions traditional obligations around place of work, and employers negotiate solutions. But, in terms of Covid-19-ampified trends, this Great Reassessment is just the tip of the iceberg. From mounting skills gaps and rising job vacancies, to digital transformation and the growing need for digital skills, to elevated importance of organizational culture and values, multiple other areas of disruption are emerging and scaling up.

With the number of pressures on businesses increasing, the only certainty is that the future is uncertain. So, how can organizations in-build resilience for the converging storm of events coming down the line? How can they better prepare for an unknown future? And how can they in-build resilience by redesigning work for the age of uncertainty?

In partnership with orgvue, WIRED Consulting brought together global business leaders across a range of industries to explore these issues and to source their views on successfully navigating the path ahead.

Pär Åström, a Division President at the 332-year-old Husqvarna Group, is somebody well placed to comment on navigating a changing world. For Åström, anchoring strategy in megatrends is a tried and tested means of being ready to adapt if, and when, those trends accelerate. In his experience, starting the journey earlier allows organizations to not only survive, but to also achieve a competitive advantage.

Slack is a company who has done just that. According to Christina Janzer, Slack’s senior director of research and analytics, while few employees worked fully remotely pre-pandemic, Slack was ahead of accelerating trends and was already using its product as a digital HQ. When the pandemic arrived, Janzer cites this as “one of the reasons that Slack, as a company, was able to quickly adapt.” It meant that where most companies worked to digitally translate their business—adding a virtual meeting link into “business as usual” practices—Slack was better placed to genuinely transform, something many other organizations are just now embarking on.

Of course, being ready for the future doesn’t mean over-planning for every trend—something that Allison Vendt, Dropbox’s global head of people strategy and analytics, highlights as a sure-fire way of creating more resistance to future change. Rather, it’s about what Rupert Morrison, CEO and founder of orgvue, describes as the “what if?” mindset—a forward-looking way of thinking that sees organizations build on their intelligence to create potential future scenarios. This ability to experiment with potentials, and not be fixated on the certainties, allows them to spot disruption events faster, adapt more effectively, and thrive where others fail.

“What if” thinking is essential in enabling organizations to build resilience. But it’s only part of the story. So what are the other success factors that can help organizations to thrive against a backdrop of constant disruption?

Starting with the end in mind

When redesigning and reorganizing in response to change, businesses need to start with the end in mind—specifically, what are the outcomes that they are looking to achieve? As Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s chief human resources officer describes it, “companies have spent too much time thinking about where work happens, rather than when and how it happens. The question they should be asking is, what is the most effective way to get the job done to deliver desired outcomes?”

One of the challenges here is the way in which organizations think about those outcomes. Many are too focused on the short-term outputs, rather than longer-term success factors that will drive better outcomes. As Shawn Zimmerman, Vice President of HR at Cardinal Health points out, too many companies focus on short-term pressures to increase productivity and make trade-offs for short gains, “win the day, win the week, win the quarter,” at the expense of investing and planning for the longer-term outcomes that will drive success.

A further challenge is the way in which many companies view themselves. As Morrison puts it, “an organization is a system and, all too often, people don’t have a systems perspective.” For Sheldon Monteiro, chief product officer at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, this systems perspective means factoring in broader context—looking beyond traditional workplace silos and even beyond the organization itself. “The system isn't just your own organization,” he says. “It is the entire context in which you operate, it’s how you serve your customers and the wider community—it’s about looking more broadly at how you create a better future.” 

Being true to who you are

Each companies’ context is unique, something that needs to be factored into change initiatives. For IBM’s LaMoreaux, this means ensuring that change is rooted in the culture, values, business model, and purpose of an organization. She notes that too many companies are trying to take a one size fits all approach—mimicking trends they’ve seen other companies announce versus what truly fits their own organization, and she urges caution.

In a world in flux, organizational values have never mattered more—they can steady and direct businesses as they navigate the storm of change. Monteiro highlights values as a way of standing out from the competition, observing that these become a way in which brands can attract top-tech talent away from tech-unicorns and big tech brands alike. And herein lies an opportunity. Stacy Martinet, Adobe’s vice president of marketing and communications, identifies the organizational redesign process as, “an opportunity for corporations and government organizations to define their long-term values for this next era.” Nuanced actions that accommodate different contexts can then be rolled out as required, but need to be underpinned by shared organizational values.

Putting people, and their skills, at the heart of your redesign

Alongside company values, people should be kept at the heart of any transformation process. As Martinet points out, when approaching a redesign, “it’s people, process and technology—if you don’t start with the people, it’s never going to work.” Even for a software company such as Adobe, it’s clear that it’s the people and how they want to work, communicate, and exist within the company culture that matter.

The world’s businesses are experiencing what Martinet describes as a “talent tsunami.” Onboarding, retaining, and caring for talent has never mattered more, and, aside from company values, there are several other considerations here.

Internal mobility and re-skilling present a significant and mutually beneficial solution for organizations and their workforce. In the context of the “talent tsunami,” internal mobility, career progression, and formalizing processes to make this happen have become business priorities. Companies must think about how best to predict the skills that are going to be needed in the future. Although there are a number of tools out there that can help, the solution might already exist—in-building learning into the company culture. According to IBM’s LaMoreaux, “embedding continuous learning into organizational culture, and emphasizing and rewarding it, is one way to enable your employees to take your company to new levels of innovation.”

Fusing organizational data with human insight

One of the great challenges of redesign is an over-reliance on the wrong types of data—something that orgvue’s Morrison has observed time and time again. In his experience, “organizations often focus on productivity metrics that are easy to calculate and measure, rather than on the work that is being done and the skills and behaviors that make it happen.” The danger is that, “companies that focus on productivity run the risk of dialing up the inputs to increase the outputs, without looking at the work process holistically.” They over-rely on the wrong data and, as a result, they make the wrong decisions for long-term success. 

Those that are leading the way know that data alone is not enough. As Slack’s Janzer points out, “data doesn’t make decisions, people do. Data should be used to inform decisions, but it’s not enough to deliver your strategy.” It’s clear that data-driven insight, fused with human understanding, is the right approach to organizational redesign.

Testing and learning as you go

Coupled with “what if?” thinking, a test-and-learn mindset can ensure that organizations are not only ready for new scenarios, but can quickly trial and learn from solutions and actions. For Publicis Sapient’s Monteiro, this means creating and testing hypotheses and ideas, and then scale the things that work and turn back from those that don't. In his view, “an organization’s ability to go around the loop from hunt, to shape, to incubate, to build, and scale, is key. The ones that master doing that are the ones I see winning.”

In this context, understanding what is working, and taking an appropriate response, matters. As Dropbox’s Vendt points out, it’s critical to build in feedback opportunities for the workforce. “If companies aren’t building in the right feedback loops or phased approach, they can really limit the ability to change and change effectively,” explains Vendt. This is an approach endorsed by Slack’s Janzer, “You have to just try things, and you have to have this culture of prototyping, because you can't predict how things are going to be and all the research in the world will not predict human behavior.” 

In this age of uncertainty, organizational redesign is a complex process, with multiple success factors and no one-size-fits all solution. But, approached with thoughtfulness, it is possible to in-build resilience and be better prepared for whatever the future might hold. Cultivating a “what if?” mindset, a people-centric and values-led approach, and a strategy that is underpinned by both data and human insights are great starting points for those organizations looking to successfully navigate the path ahead—however disruptive it may be.

This story was produced by WIRED Consulting for orgvue.