Thought Leadership for The Future of Work
aNewHR curates the most thought-provoking recent articles about the Future of Work
Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” HR leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to create the future of HR by understanding where we have been as a profession, identifying strengths and gaps, and taking high-priority actions to close the gaps. HR people must also develop a shared understanding about the evolving business context and environment in which HR and other business leaders operate—as well as the resulting required changes in work, the workforce, and the workplace.
There is a seemingly endless array of shifts taking place in where, how, and when
work gets done, and by whom. For purposes of this essay, let’s briefly address six such
factors to set the context.
1. Jobs are scarce as a result of the economic downturn that has gripped the global economy since 2008. Economists at the time predicted it would take five years for the economy to fully recover, but things have improved more slowly. This recovery has, in fact, been the slowest in history. But we are finally reaching the point where the economy is growing, jobs are being created at a steady pace, and unemployment is below 6 percent and dropping. Despite these improvements, we continue to face the dilemma that many of the jobs being created do not match the skill sets of available talent, and these people may therefore remain structurally and permanently unemployed or under-employed.
2. While globalization has been on the radar screen for a long time, only in recent
years has it become obvious that the majority of jobs, growth, and the math and
science skills required to do them are increasingly located outside the United
States. This shift is putting significant pressure on US companies that need to
find and keep talent.
3. From a technology standpoint, the internet is often credited with creating 2.6
jobs for every job it has destroyed. That’s the good news. The bad news is that
there is a complete disconnect between the technology-based jobs being created
and the skills possessed by many of those looking for work. This skills mismatch
is a fundamental source of tension in job markets around the world.
4. A scarce supply of talent inevitably leads to questions about workforce
engagement and the ability to attract and keep key people. Several engagement
studies suggest that 25 percent or more of high-potential employees are at
significant risk of leaving their current companies within the next year. This
challenge is becoming even more pronounced as the economy slowly but steadily
improves, thereby creating more opportunities and less anxiety related to the
risks of changing jobs and companies.
5. Likewise, the very nature of work and the definition of “employee” are also
rapidly evolving. Increasingly, people are looking for short-term, project-based
gigs rather than traditional long-term, full-time employment relationships. They
want to work where they want, when they want, on what they want, with whom
they want—and then move on to the next thing when they are ready, not when
the company is ready. Think about the challenges associated with employee
engagement when we are trying to engage people who are not employees by
traditional definitions.
6. In large measure, when it comes to the workforce demographics challenge,
demographics are destiny because the numbers are what they are. For example,
in the United States, 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65 every day for the next
19 years. That’s an aging population, and an aging workforce. Critical skills will
be leaving the workforce in droves, even if people are increasingly delaying their
retirement due to personal financial pressures.
The above external environmental factors provide a contextual backdrop for other
trends shaping the future of HR, including:
• Agile co-creativity and open innovation
• Analytics and big data
• Collective leadership
• Gamification
• Generational diversity
• Globalization
• Mass customization
• Personal technology
• Social media
• Sustainability
To learn more about these and other key trends, visit: http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0090261611000568.
For purposes of illustration, let’s consider the implications of just one of these trends—
mass customization. Mass customization at its core is a marketing concept that focuses on combining the mass production and delivery of products or services with specific
customization to individual consumers or consumer groups. At its most extreme, it
means creating and building each product or service to a specific customer’s set of
requirements while maintaining large-scale production and delivery.
Examples of mass customization include NikeiD, which allows consumers to design
their own sneakers with patterns and colors to fit their style; Chocomize, which
allows consumers to create their own gourmet chocolate bars by adding fruits, nuts,
and even sugared rose petals; and Pandora, which streams music to personalized
“radio stations” by learning listener preferences.
Mass customization in HR will include shifts from employment value
proposition to personal value proposition and from sameness to segmentation. Both concepts employ the use of marketing-related principles to solve people related
organizational challenges.
As consumers, people have learned to expect and value some choices within a reasonable range of alternatives. For example, when purchasing a new car, consumers have a choice of colors, interiors, electronics, and the ability to buy or lease.
The shift from sameness to segmentation is a related trend that continues to build
on the notion of using accepted marketing principles to address people issues. It
is probably the shift that makes HR leaders uncomfortable more than any other,
because it challenges our definition of fairness.
Fairness taken to extremes has evolved into sameness. We have equated fairness with
treating everyone the same because it is easy to explain and defend, both practically
and legally. In an environment of scarce resources, however, organizations can no
longer afford to peanut-butter-spread solutions and programs across all employees
in an effort to keep everyone happy.
As HR leaders, we must begin to shift our perspective from a focus on sameness to
an emphasis on segmentation. Rather than practices that ensure we treat everyone
the same, HR leaders will instead be called upon to segment talent, identify pivotal
roles and individuals, understand their unique needs, and fashion compelling ways
to attract, retain, develop, reward, and engage these key people.
The question we might ask ourselves as HR leaders is, “Can we reasonably expect
employees and potential employees to be satisfied with the same one-size-fits-all
HR practices and other elements of the employment value proposition, when they
are increasingly becoming beneficiaries of segmentation and mass customization
as consumers?”
A survey that John W. Boudreau and I conducted a few years ago with more than 300 HR people from 11 different companies revealed four very enlightening things:
1. Some of the trends listed above have already arrived for most HR leaders.
Trends such as globalization, generational diversity, sustainability, and social
media are in evidence in daily work challenges and routines.
2. Other trends have not quite arrived but are increasingly being felt and talked
about, including personal technology, mass customization, open innovation, big
data, and gamification.
3. There is a significant gap between the role HR people are playing today regarding
these trends and the role they think they should be playing in the future.
4. HR people want to be equally involved in all the above future trends—as well as
many others—whether they have already arrived or are still emerging. We want
to be great at, and directly involved in, virtually everything.
These findings beg some questions. Is it possible or even desirable for HR leaders
to be equally knowledgeable about and personally prepared to contribute to each of
these trends on behalf of their organizations? Furthermore, can HR leaders expect
to master these trends fast enough to keep pace with their organization’s need to
address them?
I believe the answer is “no,” on all counts. It would not be possible for HR people
to become equally knowledgeable or prepared, nor could they address these things
simultaneously. It would not even be desirable for them to try. And, they could not
move fast enough to be personally relevant and savvy in all these areas.
We might eventually learn how to address many of the present or emerging trends
facing HR leaders. But we don’t need to. That is not our role or the best way to
approach the challenge. Our role is to lead, follow, or get out of the way—to reach out beyond the boundaries and traditional disciplines of HR to bring together expertise and capabilities from multiple functions. We don’t necessarily need to solve big hairy problem by ourselves, but we do need to ensure they are solved.
To learn more about how HR needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way, visit: http://www.talentmgt.com/authors/966-john-boudreau-and-ian-ziskin.
Most challenges that organizations face today and will confront in the future are
large, complex, multidisciplinary, and cross-functional in nature—including the
issues mentioned in this essay. And, like the mass customization trend described
above, they imply the need for solutions that extend well beyond the traditional
boundaries of HR.
HR executives will therefore be challenged to reach out to other disciplines to deliver
an integrated set of solutions to complex organizational challenges. Think of HR as an orchestra conductor, bringing together a highly diverse set of people and capabilities to harmonize answers to these complex organizational issues.
The symphony orchestra conductor is not an expert at playing the violin, clarinet,
flute, trumpet, and timpani. Rather, he or she is adept at finding the very best
musicians who are expert at their respective instruments and bringing them together
to produce beautiful music. The differentiating leadership role is orchestration, not
universal expertise.
The orchestra conductor metaphor suggests a new role for emerging HR executives.
Bring together and partner with experts from a variety of disciplines such as
anthropology, communications, finance, law, marketing, project management,
statistics, and supply chain management. Reach out beyond the traditional boundaries
and comfort zones of HR. Orchestrate integrated solutions to multidisciplinary
problems.
It is probably impractical for us to start hiring a bunch of PhD anthropologists or
experts in customer intimacy into our HR organizations. And, we might be thinking
to ourselves, “Why would these non-HR people want to work in HR anyway?”
They may or may not want to work in HR, but they may be very interested in solving complex organizational challenges. We need to engage these experts on a part-time or full-time basis. Let’s bring them into HR, second them to HR for a specified period, or simply partner with them across boundaries. The willingness and ability to orchestrate business solutions to complex issues may indeed by the single most important factor that will differentiate the next generation of highly successful HR leaders from all the rest.
CEOs and other operating leaders don’t care where these integrated solutions come
from, or who leads them. They don’t care whether they fit neatly into the traditional
HR competency or operating models. All they care about are solutions and results. So,
why don’t we HR leaders take the lead in orchestrating these solutions? That’s what
organizational capability is all about. And, who better to deliver it than us?
Previously posted on HRCI Rise of HR
When an organization needs culture change, sometimes HR is charged to lead—or worse, it’s frozen out all together. Both circumstances (and everything in between) are fraught with pitfalls, and it’s hard to figure out the starting point. Regardless of the scenario and contrary to most, culture change must start at home, within HR. This is especially the case if the function wants to play any meaningful role, lead or otherwise, in the life of the organization. For whatever we in HR do, we must do so from a place of strength, one where our collective capabilities are both evident and demonstrated. After all, what credibility or voice comes with a broken, dysfunctional, and divided HR?
Culture change eventually needs to spread throughout the organization and will take time to get there. A large initiative as part of an organization-wide effort can be taken, but it may also begin small, even within a single team. Consider HR the pilot, if you will, or perhaps the experiential lab where strategies, ideas, and approaches may be developed and tested in a learning environment while honing people’s culture-building skills. There are so many targets where HR can start:
All that being said, the best way to determine where the smallest amount of effort will net the biggest impact (along with priorities, in order) begins with a deep dive into the current state of HR in your organization. A Culture Study will go beyond what people think they know to “what is”, uncover the complexities and the conditions that create them, and develop unprecedented levels of understanding about the experiences working with and within HR. Design of Work Experience (DOWE) begins this process and takes you all the way through designing, implementing, and sustaining a new culture.
Design of Work Experience (DOWE, pronounced [ˈdü ˈwē]) is a co-creation model, framework, and process that “partners employees with their employers to co-create customized and meaningful work experiences that set the conditions for people and business to thrive.” It provides the much needed, step-by-step “how to” for culture and employee experiences. There are 4 main components: the combination of DESIGN and CHANGE processes enabled by ENGAGEMENT and CAPABILITY throughout.
These are arranged as a series of 5 phases, each with progressive learning loops of specific activities.
Ultimately, the model yields an in-depth understanding of the current state, a strategy for the future state, and a plan for how to get there.
All aspects that factor into how one is satisfied at work can be purposefully designed (or co-designed), including: behavior, interactions, climate, people practices, workspace, processes, etc. Unlike much of what’s out there in the world of “human resources best practices,” DOWE is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Its remarkable power comes from designing solutions out of a deep, empathetic understanding for an organization’s unique context, rendering solutions that are relevant and impactful. Nothing is “off the shelf” here.
Everyone involved can benefit from this. When engaged in great experiences they help create, employees are bound to find meaning in their work, leading to more productivity and higher performance. This in turn translates to business success.
So when it comes to deciding whether HR needs a culture change, think about whether the function has met its full potential with energized, engaged, and inspired employees who take the entire organization to a higher level. If things are not at their best, there’s no question. Do something to prevent further deterioration and make it a turnaround story for the ages. Even if all is well, think about the potential left on the table in the absence of a culture initiative to provide that extra boost.
In the midst of whatever else is going on in the greater organization, now might be the chance to do something about HR’s culture. Should enough change take hold, people will pay attention and look to HR as the example or beacon for everyone else. Maybe then we will no longer be the shoemaker’s children, for we are finally taking care of ourselves before everyone else.
Learn more about Design of Work Experience (DOWE) in Culture Your Culture: Innovating Experiences @Workor visit www.designofworkexperience.com.
This article was previously published in HR Strategy & Planning Excellence Magazine
Learn more about Karen Jaw-Madson
aNewHR curates the most thought-provoking recent articles about the Future of Work
‘Can I work part-time?’
As a team lead and hiring manager I hear this question a lot, now that the four-day workweek is a ‘thing’ – and for the right candidate it’s a no-brainer.
I consider myself as a four-day workweek pioneer, blazing a part-time trail before it was cool. It started when I was returning from maternity leave. I wanted to work part-time but was confident I could handle the demands of the role in fewer hours.
I felt a bit nervous asking the hiring manager, but his answer surprised me: ‘I love part-team people. They cost less, waste less time, and work harder.’
I accepted the offer and ended up doing two full-time roles in twenty hours a week, which was possible because the team culture supported me and we had top notch collaboration tools.
Now I pay it forward, not because it’s trendy to offer a four-day work week, or even because multiple four-day work week experiments have shown higher productivity and engagement. It’s because being flexible gives me access to some amazingly talented people who can effectively manage their time and deliver key results faster.
There’s a flip side, of course: skipped team lunches, minimal time for networking, leaving earlier than everyone else, missing meetings, etc. But all that can be managed though proper expectations setting and proactive communication.
If being available and ‘being seen’ are prioritized at your company, you may not be ready to accommodate part-time people in leadership or high visibility roles. That’s fine but you may be missing out on some great talent, or paying people to focus on non-mission critical tasks.
Is a four-day work week right for your team or company?
First let’s look at the benefits:
Now let’s look at a couple of caveats because a four-day work week isn’t for everyone:
The corporate world isn’t yet ready for a universal four-day work week, but you can pilot the idea and get most of the benefits by: 1) offering it where it makes sense; and 2) supporting the arrangement with tools, communication, expectations setting, etc. so it works.
Whether or not you like the idea of the four-day work week, more people are asking for personalized work arrangements and choosing to work for companies that offer it.
This post was previously published on Working Girl.
Learn more about Laura Schroeder
aNewHR curates the most thought-provoking recent articles about the Future of Work
Recently a long tenured human resources executive for a Fortune 500 company announced her retirement. With no successor in place, the CEO and Board began the vetting process for an Executive Search firm. During the consultation process several firms made convincing presentations of the talent landscape for HR leaders and the critical nature of the role of HR in achieving the corporate objectives. One vital common element of those presentations was the importance of the CHRO reporting to the CEO. So, when the CEO informed the search firm candidates the new head of HR would report to the COO and a key first year deliverable would be evaluating and recommending changes to the human resources information system, several of the firms raised concerns. In the end, the CEO selected a firm that committed to find a slate of candidates to meet his objectives. This is a fictional account but very common in my experience.
Shaping expectations of key stakeholders by defining what is needed to move beyond today’s expectations (including those that are antiquated) of HR is a challenge that has been taken up by the Global Consortium to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent and the Enterprise (CHREATE). A key deliverable for CHREATE is to develop tools to diagnose and shape constituent expectations about HR. In 2014 a group of key CHROs and HR though leaders/stakeholders came together to accelerate the development of the HR profession to meet the dramatically rapid pace of change in business and society. As a volunteer group, CHREATE identified several pivotal areas of focus; one of which is to shape expectations of HR key constituents. CHREATE defined five key constituent groups including Boards, CEOs, investment analysts, private equity, and search firms. These constituents are key influencers in advancing beyond today’s expectations of the value creation delivered by HR. This essay, as you may have guessed, focuses on the search firm constituent group.
Search executives operate in an extraordinarily competitive environment. They compete with each other, their potential clients (who may have robust internal talent acquisition functions), and external forces such as social media which support existing HR talent acquisition activities. The competitiveness of the environment increases the stakes for securing search engagements. In our fictional account, the search firm may be correct- the CEO may very well need a strategist to serve as a top officer, to move the organizational culture forward. But the CEO does not see it that way. From the CEO perspective, people have always been paid on time, productivity is good, shareholders and proxy advisors are happy; why should the CEO spend valuable time being “sold something” that is not wanted? Pushing too hard could mean the business goes to another firm and the search consultant loses a valuable client and potential future revenue stream.
I began this journey by asking three relative strangers to work with me to develop tools/resources for search firm executives designed to shape expectations of their clients around the human resources leadership role in delivering value. Further I asked this group to be prepared to present our findings at a national event in less than four months. The only promise I could make was that it would be messy.
Our collaboration, ingenuity, and common passion to develop solutions to advance human resources as the critical partner in meeting the rapidly changing needs of business was the driving force behind our development of a prototype application (app) for CHREATE as a possible solution to this challenge. This app, tentatively, called “Engage” provides a non-threatening vehicle for the search consultant to engage with the CEO around their needs and is based on input from the CEO.
Other essays in this book describe how CHREATE teams defined four future roles needed to transform the nature of work:
The “Engage” app demonstrates how these might be used to diagnose the CEO’s needs. In the “Engage” app, the CEO provides a self-assessment of what they believe is needed in each of the four roles. Here are examples of questions and their scoring from the prototype:
| Organizational Performance Engineer | |
| has clear roles and responsibilities and formal structures of governance | 1 |
| uses ad-hoc teams to solve key business problems | 2 |
| has a network of interdependent teams that proactively solve organization issues | 3 |
| has organic communities of expertise that come together to address issues | 4 |
| Cultural Architect and Community Activist | |
| has a formal plan to understand how our employees currently view our culture | 1 |
| takes regular actions to improve the culture | 2 |
| empowers employees to solve organizational problems | 3 |
| harnesses the best of everyone | 4 |
| Global Talent Scout, Convener, Coach | |
| uses traditional sourcing and external recruiting capability to fill positions | 1 |
| has employees and managers actively involved in relationship recruiting | 2 |
| uses a marketing approach to attract talent | 3 |
| uses our customer base as a possible source of talent and referrals | 4 |
| Trend Forecaster and Technology Integrator | |
| has strong business acumen | 1 |
| understands how business trends impact the workforce | 2 |
| is able to “sense” and real time strategic responses | 3 |
| systematically uses scenario planning | 4 |
Based on the responses the app displays one of eight different archetypes or personas of the HR leader. The archetypes/personas are adapted from “The Eight Archetypes of Leadership” (Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, Harvard Business Review December 18, 2013) as follows:
For demonstration, the eight archetypes were derived from the answers to the questions by summing up the total of the scores for the four roles. Because each role score can range from 1 to 4, the total score can range from 4 to 16. The archetypes might be assigned this way:
| “Engage” App Total Score | Archetype/Persona Assignment |
| 1-2 | Communicator |
| 3-4 | Coach |
| 4 | Processor |
| 6-8 | Innovator |
| 9-10 | Builder |
| 11-12 | Transactor |
| 13-14 | Change Catalyst |
| 15-16 | Strategist |
The archetypes/personas are not judgments, and one is not necessarily better than another. The appropriate archetype/persona for each organization depends on how they match the organization’s needs. So, they are designed to help the search partner and CEO understand the organizational needs, and to plan for what the CEO/Organization should expect of the type of the candidate the CEO is presented.
I believe this or similar tools can serve as an important catalyst, capturing the organizational need in a non-threatening manner. Additionally, it provides a level of segmentation across HR leaders. For example, if the organization seeking a HR leader is a startup, the CEO is likely to select inputs that reflect this need and the app will respond by suggesting the archetype/persona of “builder”.
The app is open source and available through CHREATE. I believe this is an excellent starting point for further discussion and development. During a recent presentation to a CHREATE community (including search executives), over 88% responded that they see the potential and want to learn more. Over 70% responded positively to the question “If the tool were fully developed and validated can you imagine it as something you would use?”
The competitive nature of search notwithstanding, further development of the app is a project that should be undertaken in a collaborative, co-creation environment by the search community. It would be suitable for an innovation lab/hacking experience. Since the tool is open source there are multiple possibilities to individualize development or use the framework to create other tools.
Some potential areas to be explored include:
I hope you also see the potential and value in this tool and will take up the charge to join CHREATE in helping to refine, adopt, and adapt this tool for your unique use.
*note- the prototype app has been disabled in order to complete the coding work required.
This article was published in Black Holes & White Spaces: Reimagining The Future of and HR with the CHREATE Project
Learn more about John Sigmon
The future of HR is inextricably entwined with the future of work, leadership, society and organizations. It has long been insufficient to consider the future of HR strictly from the perspective of changes in the HR function, its organization, its operating model and its technology. Such questions are important, but HR leaders and their constituents (non-HR leaders, investors, workers, policy-makers and others) must consider the future of HR through more fundamental questions about the future of work.
Though there is an immense amount of useful writing and information about the future of HR and work, here are some questions that often get too little attention and research activity, and that also happen to be the focus of emerging research at the Center for Effective Organizations and its affiliates.
Every organization has a “talent management” system, and the word “talent” will undoubtedly appear thousands of times in organizational statements of their values, culture, employment branding, investor communication, and descriptions of social and sustainability efforts. It’s easy to assume that the concept of “talent” means the same thing to all of these groups, because that’s a basic assumption for an effective system of talent, work and HR. Lacking a common perspective, can organizations expect these diverse constituents to work together toward common goals? The inconvenient reality, however, is that the fundamental concept of “talent” means very different things to different constituents, organizations and contexts. Try this experiment: Convene a group of leaders, employees or strategists, and simply ask them to define “talent” as it applies to your organization. When Sharna Wiblen and I did this experiment at the recent meeting of Center for Effective Organizations sponsors, we heard definitions ranging from “the high-potential employees who are identified for significant advancement” to “the inherent capability that exists in each of our employees,” to “the competencies that we identify in our internal system,” to “the capacity that our employees have to do their jobs.” Think how differently your talent systems would define value, productivity, performance, potential and advancement under each of these definitions. As Sharna’s research has convincingly showed, the “epistemology” of the word “talent” reveals often-overlooked differences that can explain thorny problems of goal alignment, performance management, and effectiveness in attracting, developing and retaining your workforce. As an example, consider how differently leaders approach conversations about employee development depending on whether their concept of talent is “the high-potential employees identified for significant advancement” versus “the inherent capability that exists in each of our employees.”
The implications of work automation are no longer just the topic of discussion for economists, HR leaders and social scientists. If you wonder whether work automation is mainstream, just take a look at a 2019 segment on “This Week Tonight,” where the host, John Oliver, describes the research finding that there are actually more bank tellers today than before the automatic teller machine was invented. Mr. Oliver’s closing point is that it’s not a question of workers being replaced in jobs, but how work changes when humans and automation are combined. The future of work will increasingly mean that the “talent” doing the work represents an ever-changing combination of automation and humans, so optimizing how work gets done will require understanding and guiding how work elements are constantly reinvented. The idea of a fixed “job” will be increasingly outdated and less useful. What will replace it? Organizational systems, including HR systems, must evolve to allow the elements of work to be “deconstructed,”and considered on their own. Those deconstructed work elements, whether they be tasks, projects, etc. become the new currency of work. They will be constantly recombined and reinvented. Sometimes automation will replace the human worker doing that task, but just as often automation will augment the speed-efficiency-reliability-safety of the human doing the work, and frequently automation will allow the work to transform the human worker to contribute much greater value in ways that were simply impossible without automation. Considering how fundamental is this human-automation combination, shouldn’t the concept of “talent” and “work” include automation? Seen this way, we can envision that soon the HR function may be the place to start an automation project, rather in the IT or Operations disciplines. How would your talent systems need to change, to incorporate automation into measures of human performance, potential and development. Sharna Wiblen posed a fascinating question at the CEO sponsors’ meeting: “Will the most valuable human talent in some situations be the ability to know how and when to turn the technology off?”
These changes in talent and work reflect a larger set of trends that reframe the fundamental ideas of performance and merit. Traditionally, performance meant some measure of achievement or behavior related to job requirements, and merit-based rewards meant allocating more to the higher performers and vice versa. Yet, as my colleague Alan Colquitt points out, decades of research suggest that typical merit-based performance ratings vary more based on the rater, than what’s being rated, and that the idea of allocating rewards against an “objective” reality of work value rests on some very tenuous assumptions, and may often cause more harm than good. These challenges increase when the work is constantly evolving, and when human and automated work blend together. Should organizations reduce their reliance on performance measurement and “merit” based rewards, perhaps opting for more uniform rewards except in cases where the differences in worker value are most obvious?
The changes in work at the level of the job and individual are profound, but they also challenge the fundamental idea of “leadership.” First, the ever-increasing array of work arrangements (contractors, freelancers, volunteers, gig workers, etc.) means that some work will often be done by humans who are not regular full-time employees. Yet, most HR and organization systems still define work in terms of a set of jobs, done by humans who have a regular full-time employment agreement, and who exist inside a boundary called the “organization” where employees are “inside” and others are “outside.” When a high proportion of the work is done by contractors or through other arrangements, shouldn’t HR and organization systems hold leaders accountable for “leading the work,”not just “leading the employees? How well do your leaders lead the entire array of workers, both employees and others? Few HR systems can do that today, but it may be increasingly essential where work spans across the organization boundary.
Automation and digitization raise even more fundamental questions about leadership. My colleague, Jay Conger, asks whether leadership in the digital age merely an extension of traditional leadership, simply transferring the same leadership principles to new types of work and automation, or something more fundamentally different. Emerging digital capabilities will increasingly allow front-line workers to directly access digital information about processes, consumer behavior, product performance and financial results, all in real-time. If traditional “leadership” meant communicating such information to achieve worker alignment and motivation, does that go away in the digital organization? Can “leaders” emerge outside the regular hierarchy, through the empowerment of front-line workers with access to information formerly available to only a few “leaders?”
Is your organization adequately represented in the organization chart? Does everyone understand the value and meaning of job titles like “manager,” “supervisor,” “director,” “president,” etc.? As noted above, digitization offers tantalizing alternatives to the traditional organization chart. Haier Group reorganized the very concept of their organization as a hub for employee-entrepreneurs, who are armed with real-time data about processes, products and consumers, and then encouraged to create start-ups to implement product and service innovations, all with very little formal structure and job titles. Consider the importance and power of your “social networks,” which comprise the actual relationships between individuals and teams through which flow information, values, energy and trust. Evidence suggests that when those social networks are mapped, they reveal very different patterns of influence, expertise and leadership than the formal organizational structures. Indeed, as Michael Arena noted in his book Adaptive Space, better understanding such social networks is often a key to creating and sustaining innovation. Yet most organization and HR systems continue to rely on formal organization charts and job titles to describe things like accountability, authority, influence and information.
On their face, these questions seem to have obvious answers, which is precisely why HR leaders must help leaders, workers, investors and other constituents rethink them to understand the future of work and HR.
Originally published on The Center for Effective Organizations website
Dr. Boudreau is Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization at USC and a Senior Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations. Learn more
