The employment landscape is changing rapidly under our feet. Companies need to address the many issues that these changes are coming down the line. Get professional advice with a workshop from world leading thought leader Ricardo Semler. Ricardo will address the issues below and the many other challenges in store for the future of work, the workforce and the future of work itself.
FLEXIBILITY
The notion of flexibility in the workplace is becoming more prevalent for both men and women. It’s no longer about an employee tethered to their desk for a certain number of hours, it’s more about the employee’s actual contribution at work. Employee contribution is now being more commonly measured by outcomes or outputs as opposed to bums on seats.
TRUST
There is a new requirement for ‘Trust’ in the workplace. According to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, the past two decades have seen a progressive destruction of trust in societal institutions. Traditional power elite figures, such as CEOs and heads of state, have been discredited. The growth of social media platforms has shifted people’s trust from a top-down orientation to a horizontal one in favour of peers or experts. There is a reordering of trust to more local sources, with the employer emerging as the most trusted entity, this is because the relationships that are closest to an employee feel more controllable.
WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE
Despite progress over the past few decades, women still face immense barriers to advancement in the workplace – both systemic and psychological. Women continue to command lower salaries and are under-represented in senior leadership roles. Women need to overcome their own uncertainties about being able to succeed in male-dominated companies and industries.
BAR FOR EMPLOYERS
With the influx of tech companies and the rather healthy job market at the moment, employees are expecting higher standards in their employment. As the talent war is currently so competitive, companies must not only offer competitive salaries, but other incentives too.
For example, a recent report from AnitaB.org, found that 8 in 10 tech companies offer formal gender diversity training programs, a number that’s been increasing steadily upward for the last three years. Amid the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, companies are facing a rising wave of criticism from investors, employees and the public to address the issue.
Also, other training programmes/incentives, such as corporate responsibility programmes are becoming more of the norm in the workplace.
CAPABILITY / TALENT
Talent retention has moved to the top of the agenda for a lot of organisations and the challenge is not only recruiting the right talent but also how to retain it. As mentioned above potential employees are requesting higher standards. Companies are requested to support retraining and lifelong learning, subsidise relocation as the distribution of jobs changes, extend income tax credits to improve incentives to work and reduce inequality.
INFLUX OF TECH COMPANIES
Other challenges include the influx of tech companies and how this is affecting the labour force in other areas. This is also affecting the future of cities.
LOSS OF JOBS DUE TO AUTOMATION
With the growing adoption of artificial intelligence, companies need to adapt and change in order to be prepared for the possibility of jobs being replaced by automation in the future. Education systems need to be reformed in order to cater for these changes, training and lifelong learning is an important part of this.
As a result of all of these changes, some companies are finding these issues challenging. We can help, Oration Speakers works exclusively with Ricardo Semler, champion of the employee-friendly radical corporate democracy he implemented as CEO of Semco Partners for over 20 years and most famous for his TED Talk ‘How to run a company with almost no rules‘.
Ricardo is currently doing One-to-One workshops with organisation leaders to help navigate the challenges that companies are experiencing during these turbulent times. These workshops are designed especially to address the challenges your particular organisation is currently facing.
Ricardo has also set up the Semco Style Institute with Co-founder Arko Van Brakel. The Semco Style Institute offers training programs for consultants, interim managers, corporate change-makers and entrepreneurs who want to implement a ‘Semco Style’ organisation.
For more information on these topics, we represent a host of other Keynote Speakers in these areas. Happy to have a conversation, please contact Oration Speakers directly.
