Returning to work after Covid-19 will require a full reboot
WHILE it may be an oversimplification, Covid-19 has presented businesses with the rare opportunity to begin driving economic value and employee value at the same time. Given that intellectual capital is generated by people, perhaps understanding our staff will be the best place to start.
More than 80 per cent of businesses surveyed by Aon in April this year said they are rethinking their operating models based on how their people work best. Largely, business leaders are acutely aware that the human capital decisions they make now, will shape their future.
EMBRACE THE FUTURE OF WORK
Through the circuit breaker months, Singapore has seen a complete transformation in the way we work, communicate, travel, and go about our daily lives. We have seen businesses display outstanding resilience by accelerating workforce changes such as adapting to remote work, using digital collaboration platforms, and an upending of old paradigms. The focus quickly shifted to data, analytics, and technology adoption − thus ushering in the future of work, a state often defined by increased digitalisation, far sooner than we had imagined.
As a result, we see in a number of our surveys that Singapore employees have unequivocally expressed a desire to have the flexibility to work from home or in the office. Meeting this desire in a business-productive way is key. The way to do that will be to provide adequate support to workplace productivity with an integrated ecosystem of digital and technology resources. Mindset changes and behavioural norms too should move towards defining work as something we do and not somewhere we go.
A WORKFORCE-PLANNING APPROACH
During the early recovery period of Singapore's partial reopening, business leaders will face some fundamental challenges. It will be hard to predict demand, or the changes in consumer patterns, or even the rate at which the economy will rise back to life.
The sure-footed way to move forward includes developing a practical roadmap that answers some of the critical questions about returning to the workplace - such as, who should work from the office? Do we still need a five-day/40-hour work week? Business leaders need to identify ways of saving money while also enhancing workforce agility and resilience. How to improve mobility and equip business leaders with the much-needed digital leadership capabilities, how receptive is the workforce to change and ambiguity in an evolving journey - these are all questions that need to be addressed before we begin returning to the workplace.
To approach these critical questions, focus on who among your workforce should be back in the office first. The analysis required here will include a thorough understanding of pivotal roles, their impact, and how to enable them to be productive within a timed workday. Fewer people in the office will not only reduce infrastructure costs but also help companies navigate the government mandates on social distancing.
Do not stop here, though. This is an opportunity to really understand your workforce, what they are capable of, and to enable workforce change. The answers to the above questions and building an agile and resilient workforce need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, the answer to these questions lie in the varying outcomes of the same foundational workforce analysis. Workforce planning backed by such analysis will lead to greater productivity and, most importantly, it will align people to the individual environment that suits them best.
By using data and analytics, we can draw insights on the skills, roles, capabilities, culture, demographics and cognitive diversity within our control. We can check the workings, drivers, and assumptions underlying our workforce's innate capabilities, and observe how that changes over time. We can provide clarity on which roles and options are most suited to the business, while giving employees ownership of their careers to help drive mobility and grow. Last but not least, we can adjust these to see the changes in outcome or returns on investment - the most elusive of future-of-work efforts.
DEFINE WHO YOU ARE, HOW YOU WORK
If you were quick thinking and nimble during this unprecedented crisis, chances are you have successfully replaced corporate bureaucracy with specialised teams and rapid decision-making. Teams that came together during the Covid-19 crisis often turned out to be faster and better at making decisions, despite the many ambiguities. Now, as the nation begins to move out of the circuit breaker and back into offices, maintaining this agility will be essential in building on this progress.
As you seek to bring staff back into the workplace, the unwritten social contract between the employer and the employee will be of utmost importance. Did you put the safety of your employees and communities first, or did you just pay lip service to the idea? The answer to this question will be pivotal for employees to feel a sense of shared purpose and work together to realise your business goals.
A flatter and effectively decentralised organisation, which matches the right talent to the right challenge, will help your business stay ahead of the competition in the times to come. This will only work if talent is managed more intelligently, with the right tools that support rapid decision-making while navigating a post-Covid world.
Regressing to business as usual is no longer an option. The future is already here.
