The future of work in an ever-changing environment

Since March 2020 and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we work has dramatically changed. As the world continues to adjust to this new working reality, businesses, and their leaders, will be required to adopt agile mindsets to meet the emergent needs of a dynamic workforce. On top of that, employers must adjust to the demands of the current tight job market and lean on responsive leadership to instill enticing and equitable opportunities that attract and retain talent.

Leaders must balance employee preferences, strategic business priorities, shifting remote/hybrid work cultures, and this is within the context of an evolving virus that has halted plans and shifts return-to-work timelines for countless enterprises.

Training managers to be leaders

You may have heard the saying, “all leaders are managers, but not all managers are leaders,” and this statement has never been truer. If you’ve ever supported or led a team, you undoubtedly understand the critical role that managers play in engaging, motivating and retaining top performers within an organization. Empowering management and teaching leaders the skills they need to succeed is key to the overall success and has a direct impact on productivity and performance outcomes.

As the world grapples with the recovery and ongoing management of COVID-19, leaders have been faced with several new challenges and opportunities. Today’s workforce has options, and people are clear about the fact that they want to work for companies that will invest in their ongoing development. Employees want managers to help them grow their careers and support them along the way—and if their organizations do not rise to the challenge, many top performers will leave and take their talent elsewhere.

It is important for business leaders to invest in ongoing employee development and create leadership programs that equip managers with the skills and competencies needed to achieve success and help them expand their skill sets. This may take many different forms but the investment in developing people-leaders is critical for a business to thrive.

Ultimately, employees want to work for responsive organizations that are goal-driven, harness a growth mindset, foster conditions for developmental feedback and coaching, and where solid performance is recognized and rewarded.

Encouraging employee engagement and feedback

It’s important that organizations are dedicated to cultivating a collaborative environment where employees and leadership can have fun together, but also get things done and deliver on our product offerings to a global user base. It’s even more important that those in leadership roles communicate and listen to their employees and use their feedback to inform human resource initiatives. Training managers to actively listen to their team members creates an environment where all employees feel valued and listened to.

Fostering the conditions for employee engagement is a multi-pronged approach. Ways to do this include engaging employees through interactive all-hands meetings, staff engagement surveys, and listening tours when developing strategies and executing tactics related to employee satisfaction, motivation, retention, and recruiting new talent.

You can also measure employee engagement with analytics tools and solutions, and partner with analytics companies and consulting firms to achieve your goal of being not just a great place to work but the best place our employees have worked, ever.

Another common approach is conducting surveys ahead of developing a return-to-work strategy and asking employees directly where they would prefer to work. For example, a recent employee survey conducted at TeleSign, revealed that the vast majority prefers to continue working remotely. In response, we released a “Workplace Declaration Form” which provided all employees the autonomy to make the best decision for their ways of working, whether that was fully remote, hybrid, or in-office.

Listening to your employees opens new pathways of communication across the entire organization. When our employees requested more opportunities to connect with our CEO and more guidelines on collaborating virtually, we launched CEO “office hours” and shared guidelines to help us maximize virtual ways of working and continue to reinforce a team-focused culture. The guidelines also established meeting hours expectations to support more effective work norms based on respect and balance for our colleagues around the world.

Lastly, the development of partnerships with analytics and consulting firms, provides greater insight into how to best serve your workplace community. Market studies work to help human resource leaders better assess internal plans and processes and then align their KPIs.

Attracting and retaining talent

Everyone knows that the remote work environment brings challenges to fostering an engaging company culture. Now more than ever it’s important for employers to instill enticing and equitable compensation and benefit programs to attract and retain talent. While we may not be able to gather for in-person events or utilize physical office space benefits, we must be able to provide employees with unique opportunities that prove we are invested in their commitment, dedication and talent. This is a vital component to our work as human resource leaders because employees are the most integral part of our success.

Recognition programs, managed through platforms like Motivosity, are a great way to encourage employee engagement, recognition, and support on a day-to-day basis. Company-wide recognition by way of an internal awards program is another way to help align employees to unified goals and encourage peer-to-peer recognition. Celebrating high achievers through awards-based incentives is still something that is possible, even in a remote work environment.

Adding additional mental health benefits is another means for supporting an employees’ well-being. By providing employees access to mental health resources while they are working from home in the new normal, you are demonstrating that you support who they are as employees and human beings. Be creative with your offerings, monthly gym and exercise offer reimbursements to cover subscription fees and equipment which have now taken the place of gyms for so many. Encourage physical health through fun and creative programs that help challenge, connect and build camaraderie. Try out programs and apps that gamify exercise or create opportunities for team building internally.

Executive leaders must work together to achieve what is best for their company by making sure employees know their perspectives are important and impactful. This includes embedding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) into their strategic priorities, expanding company culture to foster collective engagement and sense of belonging among distributed employees, and creating comprehensive, strategic recruiting practices that will attract and retain the right talent.

As we look forward to the year ahead, it will be vitally important for HR and workforce leaders to gather feedback from their employees, listen to their individual concerns, and implement practices that make them feel heard and valued.

Peter Vermeulen is chief people officer at TeleSign. With a strong background in finance and analytics, coupled with his human resources expertise, Peter specializes in developing cost-effective, sustainable, and measurable strategies that drive organizational and talent success.  Before coming to TeleSign, Peter served as the Global Head of Human Resources & Customer Service for Amazon, and he has also held leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson and the Linde Group.