1 It has also created a “Random Room” on Google Hangouts where anyone can drop in, mimicking unplanned social interactions or water cooler moments.1 Recreating social connectivity in virtual and hybrid settings is tough but essential. When reimagined, work can be more than a process. When we asked respondents about their satisfaction with tools such as videoconferencing, virtual white boards, and project management software, we found another powerful driver of productivity: employees who are satisfied with their tools are about twice as likely to have maintained or improved their productivity on collaborative tasks as those not satisfied with their tools. When part of the team is in the office and part of it is at home, how do you develop norms to ensure that everyone feels included? This means organizations need to recruit differently than they have in the past and offer more robust opportunities for growth. Without a doubt, how businesses communicate, collaborate and engage their workforce is set to evolve, if current technological progress and trends continue. This isn’t a time to sit back and wait for events to unfold. The desire to innovate in government can be a tough sell in a risk-averse culture driven by public scrutiny and accountability to taxpayers. Shifts in the way we work are likely to continue as employers move a growing portion of their employees to more flexible models. Companies can also try to make virtual team activities fun. Most surprising in our analysis is the outsize impact that social connectivity has on productivity: employees who reported satisfaction with social connectivity with their colleagues are two to three times more likely to have maintained or improved their productivity on collaborative tasks than those who are dissatisfied with their connections. These efforts continue to be scaled up. Even before COVID-19, it routinely invested in setting up its TelePresence system—videoconferencing technology that makes two physically separate rooms resemble a single space—in the homes of its managers and leaders to ensure that they remain productive when working remotely and to facilitate virtual collaboration. This experience is yielding fascinating insights that have significant implications for the way we should organize work. All rights reserved. Our survey found the pandemic has forced employers to move an unprecedented share of employees—some 40%—to remote working. Workplace Tools. To counter this concern and promote equal participation in meetings, one option is to have all participants dial in to the call individually, even if they are onsite. In fact, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey found that companies expect about 40% of their employees to follow a remote-working model in the future. Investments in physical infrastructure, support (such as daycare), and digital technologies will of course be essential. To be prepared for the future, you have to understand it. Social Connectivity. Combined with our findings on what drives employee productivity, this underscores the fact that listening and responding to what employees want are essential to a company’s success, including its ability to attract and retain talent. People Strategy, While governments may be constrained in terms of compensation and promotions, they can think creatively about recognizing and nurturing talent. Boston Consulting Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. And that is not only good for business—it is good for people. Read the research, insights, and innovative ideas that are shaping the future … WORKPLACE STRATEGY The future role of the office is the biggest question facing corporate real estate executives today. Digital, Technology, and Data, August 11, 2020 To build the workforce of the future, they cannot afford to rely solely on the power of their societal mission; they must revisit the ways they attract, develop, and retain talent. Cisco got ahead of the game. And we focused our analysis on collaborative tasks because, as our survey reveals, in this new remote or hybrid world, collaborative work seems harder and appears to generate the most concern among employers—many of whom assume teams need to meet in person to collaborate. How do you build social capital with new employees who are fully remote? In response, it piloted agile project teams designed to boost employees’ morale and encourage collaborative decision making. Indian companies recognize the need for a more diverse workforce and have initiated pro-grams to drive inclusion. Given the ubiquity of digital technology in the traditional workplace, the virtual or hybrid version needs to replicate this. Workplace Tools. In a recent BCG survey of investors, 88% said that they want CEOs to focus on build-ing capabilities to create advantage, drive future growth, and be better positioned for winning the future, and 65% are even open to dividend cuts to drive current resilience and future advantage. https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/work-flexibility/2020/ways-you-can-make-remote-workers-feel-included . An impressive 79% of respondents who indicated they are satisfied or doing better on all four of these factors said they have been able to maintain or improve productivity on collaborative tasks. Given what our data reveals on this, all companies should be urgently investing in building their virtual social-intimacy muscles. countries in workplace inclusion. This includes forecasting future workforce needs, identifying capabilities gaps, and developing strategies to address these gaps. Patients Prescribers Medical Representatives/ Pharmacos Pharmacy. Today’s employees expect their employers to give them an opportunity to work in flexible and collaborative ways. Related Expertise: The public sector has a unique appeal that can help it attract talent, especially among today’s employees: it offers the chance to make a difference in the world. What 12,000 Employees Have to Say About the Future of Remote Work, This crisis has presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to, designing appropriate, sustainable working models, How to Remain Remotely Agile Through COVID-19, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey, https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/work-flexibility/2020/ways-you-can-make-remote-workers-feel-included. Nonetheless, important gaps remain. Early Solutions. 26% feel challenged or unable to cope … And for those still onsite, social distancing and collaborating remotely with colleagues have transformed the workplace experience. What’s more, this applies across geographic areas as well as to both remote employees and those who have remained mostly onsite—indicating that changes to the ways of working are having an impact across the board. In the digital era, the public sector often can’t compete with the generous compensation packages offered by private-sector companies, particularly when recruiting for highly skilled, in-demand professions. We see a number of companies coming up with creative ideas. To fulfill this role, HR must be equipped for effective strategic workforce planning (SWP). It is too soon to provide all the answers. HR leaders need to plan for the future of work, including workforce and employee planning, management, ... Nine HR trends emerge as the lasting result of workforce and workplace changes resulting from coronavirus pandemic disruption, according to a Gartner survey of 800-plus HR leaders. For example, the US Office of Personnel Management’s Center for Leadership Development offers training for aspiring government leaders in subjects such as the fundamentals of human-centered design and resiliency 2.0, alongside more traditional leadership courses. Physical Health. If we could take a walk around the future workplace, what would we see? But the standard talent management strategy is sorely outdated. And when employees are working remotely, it adds to the challenges. To retain digital-age employees seeking greater autonomy and empowerment, it is particularly important for governments to create an innovative, collaborative, and agile culture. What digital tools do employees need in a non-office-centric workplace—particularly to support collaborative tasks? Early Solutions. Today, we help clients with total transformation—inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact. To understand why, we dug more deeply into the data. Public Sector, What systems and benefits do you need to put in place in order to support employees who are experiencing mental-health difficulties? Understanding the drivers of productivity in this new environment and designing appropriate, sustainable working models are crucial to the success of work—both today and tomorrow. Some challenges are more demanding than others. The Singapore government launched GovTech Hive, a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, designers, and engineers, to foster a startup-like culture that delivers innovative services across government agencies. Our findings suggest that the future of work will be increasingly hybrid. The responses also reveal a significant shift in employee expectations for the future of work, with a keen appetite for flexible ways of working—and increased openness to this from managers. We found four factors that correlate with employee perceptions of their productivity on collaborative tasks, whether working remotely or onsite: social connectivity, mental health, physical health, and workplace tools. BOSTON—An international Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey on employee sentiment reveals that productivity can be maintained surprisingly well in a virtual or hybrid work setting, according to a new BCG article, What 12,000 Employees Have to Say About the Future of Remote Work. Early Solutions. But the pandemic has accelerated the rate at which employers are coming up with ways to ensure that employees have all the equipment they need to work efficiently, even when working remotely. Online services company GitLab encourages employees to set aside a few hours per week for virtual coffee breaks and to use Slack for informal connections and conversations. In fact, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey found that companies expect about 40% of their employees to follow a remote-working model in the future. Moreover, focusing on well-being and social connectivity will serve another important purpose: helping employees to recover faster from what, for so many people, has been a traumatic, painful, and stressful period. While some jobs will be lost, and many others created, almost all will change. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity / expression, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under federal, state or local law, where applicable, and those with criminal histories will be considered in a manner consistent with applicable state and local laws. What’s more, when we analyzed what lay behind the survey results, we uncovered key factors that are critical to maintaining and improving productivity in hybrid remote/onsite and completely remote settings. While governments face many challenges as they prepare their workforce for the future, these five fundamentals of talent management have the potential to transform the way governments function from top to bottom. Powerful forces are driving an increasingly productive workforce for whom traditional boundaries have been eroded and whose physical workplace is shifting beyond recognition. But to benefit fully from the changes, organizations need to focus on helping leaders, managers, and employees to promote physical and mental well-being and—most important—virtual social connections. Some companies were already investing in tools for the virtual workplace before the COVID-19 outbreak. While the survey covers topics like workplace motivations, it also asked Gen Z about their experience with office technology, such as productivity tools, collaboration tools, and business intelligence tools. But employers should ask themselves a number of key questions as they work to design customized solutions. But if, as our survey suggests, employee productivity is possible at the height of the pandemic with little to no training or preparation, some of the new ways of working could be continued in the post-COVID-19 world. BCG has created wellness challenges for employees and highlighted winners in the company newsletter. While awareness of the impact of mental health on work has been increasing, the pandemic—and the stresses and anxieties it has created—underscores how critical it is for employers to recognize the links between mental health and productivity. BCG: Boston Consulting Group looks at the future of Digital Factories and the future of Manufacturing Technologies The future of manufacturing is exciting. In the future when working in the office, employees Additionally, Singapore’s Public Service Leadership Programme develops leaders with specialized capabilities for key functions that span multiple agencies in areas such as economy building, infrastructure and environment, security, social issues, and administration. In fact, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey found that companies expect about 40% of their employees to follow a remote-working model in the future. To access in-demand capabilities, governments can form partnerships with organizations outside the public sector. One of the few certainties coming out of COVID-19 is that it will have a lasting impact on how people work going forward. (See Exhibit 2.) Yet they should take heart: investing in these changes will likely pay off—and may be nothing short of essential to their competitiveness in the future. Companies need to find ways of supporting employees’ mental health in the new remote and hybrid workplace. How do you foster a culture in which leaders see it as their responsibility to design and execute social-connectivity strategies and practices for their teams? As technology rapidly evolves, we need to have people who The workplace has undergone a dramatic shift that is fundamentally changing how we work and collaborate. BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future survey reveals that most organizations believe their future workforce will be much more remote than ever before: Overall, companies expect approximately 40% of employees to utilize a remote working model in the future. This makes it even more important for governments to deliver a value proposition that satisfies the expectations of today’s workforce. Similarly, government HR can leverage employee data to tailor acquisition, retention, training, and engagement initiatives to individual employees. Front, a workplace-communications platform provider, offers an employee assistance program in the form of a confidential counseling service to help employees with challenges related to work, family, stress, finances, and other personal issues. One financial services company told us it believes a hybrid model (rather than 100% remote) would likely be the And given employee desires for flexibility, the changes will also allow companies to recruit and retain the best talent. What steps should you take to help employees manage the burdens of working remotely, such as the blurring of work-life boundaries and the cognitive overload from being digitally engaged all day? Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. Our findings provide compelling evidence of this: employees who have experienced better physical health during the pandemic than before it are about twice as likely to have maintained or improved their productivity on collaborative tasks as those with worse physical health. Without being able to provide access to a corporate gym, what other benefits, incentives, and structures might you put in place to encourage physical well-being? In our Workplace of the Future survey, 87% of employers said they anticipate prioritizing tech and digital infrastructure investments that support sustained remote work. Along with emphasizing this value through branding and communications, agencies can give employees more choice over how and where they contribute as public servants. Given the speed and scale of the pandemic-related changes and the fact that employers had no time to prepare staff for the shift to remote work, we expected to see a decline in employee productivity. BCG surveyed, in collaboration with KRC Research, more than 1,500 managers and 7,500 white- and blue-collar employees across 15 European countries in a broad range of industries, and interviewed numerous European busi-ness leaders at major companies. By Kam Dhillon, January 11, 2018 - Future Workplace • Future Workplace 2025 • Future Workplace 2025 - Articles • Future Workplace 2025 - Resources • Research An overwhelming 92% of participants in the Workplace 2025 study in the Benelux region state that interoperability with outdated technology is a challenge to workplace productivity. While employees who are no longer commuting have more time to exercise, it is easy for them to be sedentary when working remotely. As they recognize the power of social connectivity at work, employers are thinking about how to replicate some of the more informal interactions that take place in physical workplaces. A BCG analysis found that using advanced robots can reduce conversion costs by up to 15%, and combining advanced robotics with other technologies, process en - hancements, and structural layout changes can yield savings of up to 40%. The good news is that companies have already been investing heavily in the tools needed to work remotely. In this data-filled -- and quite charming -- talk, human resources expert Rainer Strack suggests that countries ought to look across borders for mobile and willing job seekers. Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. But while some respondents did report such a drop, a surprisingly large number said they have been able to maintain or even improve their productivity. A state government in Australia worked with a health insurer to access data and analytical talent in order to better understand which clinical practices and medical treatments provided the best long-term outcomes for patients. Our survey shows that only 13% of respondents greatly enjoy working with advanced technologies, and 34% are comfortable with advanced software in their workplaces. Governments should focus primarily on hiring and building expertise internally, especially in core areas such as data analytics, emerging technologies, and cybersecurity. Furthermore, our survey suggests that employees miss the connectivity they had with colleagues in the office. Door of Clubs: What 5,000 Gen Z’ers Tell Us About the Future of Work Governments need a major human resources overhaul. The respondents work in roles such as analysts, engineers, HR personnel, teachers, and health care providers (but generally not in jobs performed onsite such as cashiers or assembly line workers). Many companies are experimenting with new approaches, as P&G Indian Subcontinent is doing by inviting employees to webinars with emotional well-being experts, according to a recent report from the Economic Times of India. But even so, more than half—51%—of all respondents said they have been able to maintain or improve their productivity on collaborative tasks. To support professional development, governments can do the following: BCG’s survey also found that employees place a high value on feeling appreciated and receiving recognition for their work—respondents ranked this among the top ten satisfaction factors globally (German workers ranked it number one). For many, this means embracing agile behaviors and mindsets in order to lead and empower cross-agency agile teams. At least 8 days a month now clear that business as usual will be lost, and better! 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