Are traditional boundaries and constraints hindering your business from reaching its true potential? In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, Art Mazor, Global Human Capital Practice Leader at Deloitte, shares insights from the company’s 2023 Global Human Capital Trends Report. Learn best practices for shedding boundaries and sparking innovation in the emerging workplace ecosystem.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Art Mazor is the Global Human Capital Practice Leader at Deloitte, the world’s #1 Human Capital consultancy. He not only leads the Global Human Capital Executive Team but is also a member of the Global Consulting Offerings and Assets Leadership Team.
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THE EMERGING WORLD OF WORK
The introduction of Deloitte’s 2023 Global Human Capital Trends Report discusses recent findings regarding boundaries, or traditional constraints, that businesses have relied on for so long. Specifically, guest Art Mazor explained, “We’re moving into a world that has a very different landscape,” and “those constraints that may have kept things packaged and orderly have now started to lead the way towards gaining permission to experiment, to pilot, to innovate, and to really define new ways of working.”
Whether we recognize them as such, constructs that have been “interwoven into the fabric of work as we know it” are falling away, and a new world of work is emerging.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Workplace Ecosystem
“We see jobs falling away and moving in favor of skills instead. So we’re comprising teams based on skills rather than an aggregation of jobs. Rather than seeing employees as the construct and the only construct that people work within, we have this notion of workforce ecosystems — the combination of humans and machines, the combination of humans who are working as employees but also maybe in the short term flexible work arrangements. So it is truly traversing the full organizational landscape.”
Looking at the Numbers
“In some of our data around work and skills, we’ve found that more than 70% of workers are already performing work outside of their stated job responsibilities, and only 24% are doing the same work as others with the same job title. And so it’s already amidst us as we work. It just may not be as formalized. And so when leaders and/or workers start to see movements within a company toward changes that start to look like and feel boundaryless, some of it will feel very familiar, and other parts of it might feel like we’re stretching. But it’s on the basis of organic change that’s already been underway for a number of years.”
Making an Impact
“I think, in many ways, [there’s] this notion of activating a future relationship that recognizes that workers have more choices and influence than they’ve ever had before. And for a leader like yourself and others, take that passion and energy that individuals have to harness it and create benefits for everyone, not just for the workers in the organization. This might sound a little lofty, but we are in a world where most of the workforce has a desire to make an impact that goes beyond their individual assignment or their individual company. Most really say that they would like to have an impact on the world.”
Bridging the Gap
“Our report indicates, in a number of ways, that there is a recognition of the importance of these kinds of shifts and yet a gap in readiness. And that’s a common theme from what we’ve seen over the last 12 or 13 years of this annual report, in that when we are finding what’s beginning to trend and become future-facing, we’re also very typically seeing that the readiness isn’t quite there. And so as we talk about unlocking the skill sets and elevating capabilities of the workforce, the elevation of skills for leaders to be able to navigate this new way of working should not be underestimated.”
Skills vs. Departments
“I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say [that] having a host of people who are working on a project strictly based on their job description can often lead to more chaotic projects than those that have been organized around skills. And the reason for that is you have that norming, forming, storming kind of thing that goes on with teams when they come together.”
“Often that’s happening because we’ve brought a group of people together, not based on the skills needed, but [because] we need someone from X department, Y department, and Z department to come together. And so you get the people representing their departments, but they don’t have the requisite skills. They’re not really sure how to navigate to the outcomes.”
Technology and Innovation
“There’s been a lot written about artificial intelligence taking over the world, or machines that are kind of going crazy with data, but the reality is that these new workplace technologies are helping to improve teaming. They’re helping humans to be able to work better together. And this technology is sort of a combination of tools from those that produce data and insights to those that are like wearables that help us in various forms of work. […] The endless possibilities are there. And so when we think about technology as part of this trend to the boundaryless world, it’s about powering the impact of humans and elevating the value that humans can achieve with technology on their side.”
LEARN MORE
Read more about Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends Report here or connect with Art Mazor on LinkedIn.