You might be ready to embrace digital transformation, but are your employees?
PwC’s the Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2024, which surveyed more than 56,000 employees across 50 countries and regions, shows that:
Employees are also feeling the weight of increasing workloads, job insecurity and financial hardship.
So, what's the answer? Real change leadership for our most important stakeholders... our employees.
Let's consider 5 actions leaders can apply to prepare their workforce for our constantly transforming world of work.
Lead for resilience
Prioritise employee wellbeing as a core value of your business. Encourage and demonstrate balance between personal and business lives. Set realistic expectations for your employees, that inspire them rather than terrify them. Communicate openly about the business, results and challenges. Show empathy and be transparent.
Through transformative leadership your employees will begin to build resilience which will help them to grasp opportunities without fear, and to navigate uncertainty in our ever-changing world.
Engage employees on change
When employees understand WHY change is necessary, they are usually more willing to engage with change. Tell your employees WHY something is changing, WHAT the outcome of the change will be, and HOW they can personally be involved in a successful transition. Inspire them with your “to be” vision for the future, and empower them to contribute.
Help your employees to lead innovation
Who loves red tape and admin? No-one, right?
Give your employees the AI tools to free up their time and allow them to make their hours at work more efficient. Change meeting protocols that see bored individual sitting around a boardroom table for hours on end while the world passes them by.
Upskill everyone to make the most of the tools and systems your business uses. Did you know that only one-in-five senior execs are using AI tools daily? If YOU aren’t being innovative, why would your employees be?
Prioritise the employee experience
Employees who don’t believe they are getting what they need or want, are less engaged and less willing to change.
Survey your people to establish where the gaps are between what they want and what they have, and then plan what you will do and how you will do it, to close these gaps.
Issues may be varied, like fair pay, work-life balance, opportunities to advance, opportunities to learn, access to technology and tools, and more.
Recognise the importance of skills building
Upskilling and reskilling have become key differentiators on which employees base their resignation and job seeking decisions.
In PwC’s survey, 51% of respondents agreed that the skills needed to do their job would change within the next 5 years. Are you preparing your employees? Do you have a strategy in place to ensure that upskilling and reskilling are constantly happening within your workforce?
“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot
read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler – Author of Future Shock (2001)
While employees are intimidated by change, and overwhelmed at the thought, they also acknowledge that they need to be equipped to handle the change that is inevitably headed in their direction.
Implement a change management strategy that will empower your people.
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