HCM and Smart Working

Work in the future and talent organization in the Digital Age

2 minutes reading - Published: 15 Gen, 2019 @ 11:47 by Andrea Ruscica

As never before, man has recently had to face a period characterized by great opportunities and great change.

Digital Transformation has a disruptive impact on machines but, first and foremost, on people: it has changed and is changing the paradigm of work and interpersonal relations. Companies address change by looking to the new tools of People Management, by introducing lean organizational methods and applying new process digitalization technologies. In the near future, our way of working, the way in which we interact with our workers, will change radically. Social technologies, wearable technologies and social collaboration are expressed at such advanced levels thanks to augmented and virtual reality that physical presence, for example, or the amount of time spent at work, will no longer be the parameters used to assess the performance of human resources. Work spaces will also be redesigned and made more fluid, thanks to activity-based design and smart working (adopted by an ever growing number of companies). The power of human resource management software in the cloud, the most advanced platforms of Human Capital Management (HCM) and talent assessment, and the flexibility of technologies for collaboration & personal productivity will support the growth of people and skills, to transfer the company into an environment that is physical and digital, productive and highly performing.

FIXED WORKSPACE & MODERN WORKPLACE: the work experience in a continuous temporal space

Jobs are permanent; work spaces are fluid. Not only are the work spaces fluid, so are the working hours, flexibly matching our personal needs (family, interests, study, hobbies), often dictated by work requirements and project needs (if we have ever happened to work for a customer on the other side of the ocean, an 8 hour time difference will not have stopped us contacting the team at headquarters to get the job done). That’s why any discussion centred on HCM and Smart Working strategies is tantamount to viewing work as the overall physical and digital experience of employees (smart workers) in time and space.

I am borrowing the 3B approach (Behaviours | Bricks | Bytes), illustrated by Philip Vanhoutte and Guy Clapperton in their famous work “The Smarter Working Manifesto” to present my own vision of the future, a mix of organizational methods and empowering technologies.

Jobs are permanent; work spaces are fluid. Click To Tweet

BEHAVIOURS: corporate culture oriented to change and continuous learning

The capacity to acquire knowledge will be more precious than knowledge itself. Tapping and sourcing information will become increasingly more important than knowledge as an end in itself. In a context in constant transformation and traversed by disruptive technologies, the curiosity to discover and the ability to seek answers and creative solutions will be the key to growth and improvement.

Smart companies, the organizations of the future, promote the practice of continuous learning, ongoing training and the self-maintenance of personal stores of knowledge at all levels of the organization. In doing so, they rethink training sessions as experiences, situations to remember and make recourse to, trump cards for playing in the everyday work environment. Moreover, the tools enabling training also change: corporate knowledge transfer platforms constitute the avant-garde form of e-learning, conceived as a place in which to exchange views and opinions on particular topics of interest, the vibrant and throbbing heart of authentic digital social communities.

“A form of creative learning for a society that will have an ever increasing need of people who are able to learn creatively and less and less need for human beings able to resolve problems, since these are effectively addressed by robots and computers.” (Joi Ito, How to Survive our Faster Future)

The most important cultural change takes place at an organizational level.

Hierarchy gives way to autonomy which means affording trust and a high degree of responsibility to people with regard to the expected results. When objectives descend from above, this inevitably leads to a sort of last mile dispersion, leaving single elements of the organization to freely interpret the goals. Building an engaged community means getting people involved in doing something in the interests of the organization, united in their efforts to achieve the objectives. The OKR – Objectives and Key Results – motivation system, when successfully applied within Exponential Organizations, not only improves company performance levels but also acts as a powerful engagement tool for people. Each worker has personal goals to reach, as well as contributing with his work to the attainment of team objectives and, more in general, to company results. The distribution of objectives that are crystal clear for people and transparent in the way they are assessed and monitored, both on a personal and community level, within a short term time frame, activates what is defined as peer pressure and triggers a most effective engagement (because deep down inside we all have a competitive streak – Author’s note). The OKR system evaluates the work of each team member towards the attainment of shared objectives, which become increasingly challenging in order to address market needs. A monitoring dashboard rapidly shows the trend and enables timely intervention wherever necessary.

Hard-line company divisions dissolve into interdisciplinary and cross-functional teams, involving people with different specializations and skills, to achieve the best possible resolution of the tasks on hand and to valorise talents. This is also one of the basic principles of the Agile Scrum method, according to which the work group unites the best available minds to solve each phase of the project, regardless of company departments and the roles covered. If required by the project, and if there are no available resources within the company, it is now customary to think in terms of Staff on Demand or Crowd Sourcing by opening up recruitment to new horizons. The collaboration between professional networks is the life blood of future organizations.

BRICKS: the office is smart if it becomes a place of encounter, identity and innovation

Smart working does not simply mean “working from home”, “remote working” or “telecommuting” (in Altea Federation we call it green home); neither does it mean sharing “a co-working space” while travelling or out of the office. For companies, it primarily means designing a work environment that is able to unleash the human capital, with functional spaces for specific tasks and conceived with a view to the employees’ wellbeing.

There is more and more talk of activity-based offices, offices endowed with human-centred design and great attention to sustainability. Work spaces are conceived in such a way as to facilitate interactions between workers: people can in fact choose, on each occasion, the most suitable environment for effectively carrying out various activities. Free open plan work stations are flanked by meeting rooms, brainstorming areas, phone cabs for confidential calls, areas destined for relaxation and a space for vegetation.

For example, in our Milanese offices, we have recently provided some theme rooms for use in various phases of our work: entire walls covered in white boards afford space and organization to ideas; design thinking maps are available in the Strategy room to assist creation and innovation by exploring new trails; instead the Focus Room can only be accessed without mobile phones, this being a space dedicated to concentration when awkward tasks need to be accomplished; finally there is a little room called “It’s about me” furnished with comfortable armchairs where job interviews and assessment sessions are held.

So, in the most complete definition of smart working, the smart office becomes a place of inspiration, a nice place to be, a place which communicates the company identity, which facilitates synergy between people and enables them to optimize their work. Technologies are also all-important because they empower communication, collaboration and improve people’s productivity.

BYTES: the new human-tech paradigm unleashes human potential on the cloud

Digital literacy is one of the basic work skills of the future. Smart working is based on the assumption that technology is routine for all workers, at any level of the organization.

How can we be sure that no one is left behind?

This is a concept I like a lot, because when we refer to the culture of change we cannot help but valorise the generational differences within the work team with a twofold aim in mind: to preserve the knowledge experience of high seniority profiles and to activate virtuous circles of reverse mentoring, by making room for the Millennials’ fresh ideas and developing a new way of working augmented by technologies.

Stay connected, anywhere & anytime. The importance of having access to workstations, in mobility, from home or in the office is viewed as the new normality. Work tools are transformed into cloud-based Apps designed to satisfy the way in which people work and live today.

Collaboration & sharing. An organization thus distributed in space and time needs a safe place dedicated to the exchange of views and collaboration; from chats to company portals or project sites (to respond to the need to exchange views and ideas within the work group), everything lives on the cloud, an infinite container of ideas and elevated performances.

High performance productivity with AI. Artificial intelligence is the right arm for supporting talents in the execution of their tasks. A modern workspace may also include, for example, a virtual assistant, a chatbot which helps us obtain the information we need; moreover, according to the role played in the company, Predictive Analytics tools can provide insights and suggestions to help people fulfil their objectives. Or to take another example, constantly updated Machine Learning algorithms improve the efficacy of the management solutions on which we operate every day, thereby unleashing our potential.

IoT for space efficiency. The Internet of Things enters the offices of the future to enable an increasingly efficient use of space. For instance, thanks to intelligent sensors, it is possible to measure the quality of the air, to monitor energy consumption, and even depend on intelligent chairs to monitor the actual use of the rooms (assessing possible situations of overcrowding or insufficiently secure offices).

HCM for Talent software. Work innovation starts from the beginning, from the need to attract talents, and lasts for the entire life cycle of the resource within the company. The valorisation and personalization of the work experience and the optimization of results, by means of specifically targeted training courses and the routine of constant feedback, facilitates the evolution of a career in line with personal aspirations. All of this takes place within the framework of a technological solution which involves the employee in his journey and facilitates the work of the HR executive, thanks to the support of People Analytics, monitoring tools that go beyond customary reporting.

SMART WORK FOR SMART LIFE

An approach based on sharing, on a common vision and the construction of challenging and measurable objectives is the first step on the way to successful Employee Engagement. Engaging people, and clarifying the reasons why certain projects or activities are deemed to be important for the organization, expresses in a word the significance of human resources. Why is the work of each individual worker important? Why is every person in the organization important? Why is people’s wellbeing important?

The focus of every HCM and Smart Working strategy aims at achieving:

A positive work environment, conducive to high levels of engagement and a sensation of satisfaction and complete professional self-realization, compatible with the best possible work-life balance (people engagement)
An enhanced personal productivity, also thanks to the reinforcement of cognitive skills and augmented by technologies (people empowerment)
A communion of intents for the growth of business results (people commitment)

To responsibly consider present conditions in order to create the workforce of the future has to be a priority for all leaders, CEOs, managers and anyone in the position of guiding a team. To address the exponential growth of technologies and to make sure that the entire organization is aware of it is the turning point for real cultural change. Today we are at the Beginning, at the start of a new Human+Tech paradigm and this really is the best time to start changing.

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BIO

For almost 30 years, Altea Federation has been working alongside the global leaders of technological innovation through a holonic-virtual business model which embraces the professional approach and high degree of specialization of a federation of companies under one brand: different yet complementary worlds which reinforce each other while preserving a strong Group identity and an unmistakable approach to the challenges posed by new paradigms in the ambits of Consulting, Technology, Digital and Operations.