Shaping the future workplace: Strategies for navigating change and enhancing employee experience

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SUZANNE MCANDREW: Looking at the most important areas for companies to focus on to get the future of the workplace right, there are three things that are emerging from our latest research on what drives a high-performing employee experience. The first thing that we found in our research is the need to focus on a culture of well-being. We found in our data that companies that focus on a culture of well-being are two times more likely to retain their people. This is all about being able to answer the questions do leaders care about my well-being? And well-being is very closely connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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The second thing that we found in our data is for companies to focus on growth. It's very important to focus on growth because employees don't want to be left behind or excluded as companies are reskilling for the future. And this is really important to be clear on what the goals are for learning and development and ways that employees can expand their experiences. Ways of working within that, the flexibility for how you work where you work is an important part of growth.

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And the last thing that we found in our data is recognition. Employees that are high performing companies say that they're seen and heard. Employees want to be seen, heard, and recognized for their contributions, and they're looking to ensure that their employer gives them those opportunities, whether they be through pay or other experience.

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SUZANNE MCANDREW: Flexible work arrangements are probably the hottest topic happening on a day-to-day standpoint with HR teams and business leaders. Look, we want to be able to bring flexible work into our full employee value proposition. So the first thing is, is really defining what does flexibility mean to you in your organization. The second is test it with employees.

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Unfortunately, some organizations have moved to mandates without testing it with employees, and that has led to other retention related issues. Our data says, you know, people are on the fence. 50% want it, 50% don't want to be in the office. The third thing is think about widening your view of flexibility.

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Flexibility means more than just where you sit in your day-to-day. Flexibility are the things you're working on day to day. Flexibility are the things that you're able to flex and become in your career, who you work with, how you work, and why you work. So these policies are very important, and those are three simple ways that you can get them right.

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SUZANNE MCANDREW: For years, we've been talking about culture as a moment that really defines an organization's success. What we're seeing now, with so much disruption and transformation of organizations, many organizations looking to redefine, reset, refresh what the culture means, defining all the mindsets that are needed, the beliefs and the enablers, how you make it happen. And the experiences across that culture. The thing is that with culture, if you ask someone today what the culture is at your company, you probably get many different answers, right? Because no one has truly defined it beyond a vision statement on the wall.

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So we believe that you have to start culture with really envisioning the future. Be bold, really think about the place you're going to be going to and what are those expectations of leaders of teams and employees to be able to live in that future as it relates to things, the ways of working, the expectations, for example, how you collaborate have to come together. Maybe it's in office in group spaces. That might be an example. So really define the future.

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Then you need to think about how do you bring managers, not just HR, but this magic middle. I call them together to really help create and shape a plan to move forward with your culture. And lastly, build an activation plan that is sustainable and measurable. Sometimes, culture gets left on a PowerPoint deck or a statement on the wall. If you really envision the future, move to the two, really ask managers to be engaged in what's next, and deliver out an activation plan that you can evolve and adapt.

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It has to be an adaptive culture. You will be successful.

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SUZANNE MCANDREW: Modeling the culture happens from every part of the organization. I think for years, we have put the reliance on the top-down to make culture happen. And remember, culture comes from everywhere. You really have to look at culture through the lens of your leaders first. They have to really understand what's expected, and you have to come up with ways to hold leaders accountable for helping that culture live and breathe in the organizational area that they're leading.

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The second part of culture that I really believe in is really getting to the manager and really understanding with the manager what are those expectations, what are the ways that you're selecting managers and leaders of the future for to be able to demonstrate that culture on a day-to-day and measure it, you know, really get the voice of the employee to measure how those leaders and managers are holding up the culture. And the third one is with employees. Employees are on the front lines of your culture.

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They might be a flight attendant who is helping a passenger understand why their flight is delayed. They might be at the front of a retail customer experience. They might be innovating the next new thing. It is really important to get employees involved in the culture. Some of the best organizations don't look at culture change as a moment. They look at it as a movement and using things like grassroots movements, starting with employees, to really build this through the organization, leading from the top.

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You almost have an hourglass, you know, this pyramid, top-down and bottom out, coming together in a very nice way.

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SUZANNE MCANDREW: Leadership capabilities have evolved tremendously over the past decade. And the emerging model for leadership is really about transformative leadership. There's capabilities that need to come forward, like from decision-making to sensemaking. The second might be from leading just with data to understanding how to tell stories with data, that it might move from knowing how to navigate a challenge in a very linear way to having more agile thinking in how you go about solving problems.

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It moves from being a leader who is worried about the operations of your business to a leader that can act with care, compassion, and empathy. So there's really a call for leaders to really show up in a very different way and to exercise things around sensemaking storytelling, empathy, to be able to lead us to the next wave in our strategies.

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