THE FUTURE OF WORK: Evaluating your strategies to meet today’s rising employee demands

By Tina McCorkindale, Ph.D., APRPresident and CEO

@tmccorkindale

THE 2019 IPR FUTURE OF WORK REPORT

By Melissa D. Dodd, Ph.D., APR

Published: Oct. 3, 2019

PART ONE: FORCES SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK

PART TWO: WHO ARE YOU? COMMUNICATING TO A NEW WORKFORCE

PART THREE: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK

TODAY'S DISCUSSIONOUTLINE OF TOPICS

PART ONE: FORCES SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK

The Pace of Change is More Significant than the Change Itself

"There's a lot of change happening and a lot of uncertainty"

– Director, employee communication at aU.S. health services company

According to McKinsey, 375 million workers – or roughly 14 percent of

the global workforce – may need to switch occupational categories

Executives are increasingly investing in retaining and

“upskilling” existing workers

Source: McKinsey Global Institute, “Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wage,” November 2017

Time Spent and Automation Potential by Work Activity Category

PART ONE: FORCES SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK

Internal Communication Resources are Lagging Behind

"Especially on the internal side, we have antiquated systems with our intranet. Any internal communicator's intranet is like a big eye roll.“

– Sr. Director of Communications at aResearch Firm

Employees are burdened with too many initiatives.

Must have a well-defined strategy for internal communication.

Commonly cited problems with intranets and internal comms systems:

Outdated…lack of value…lack of ownership… poor search…lack of training…lack of personalization…lack of mobile integration

Possible solutions

Robust internal platforms

F2F

News alerts/push notifications

Project management/team platforms

Apps

Podcasts/Video

The key is finding an accessible medium (media) with feedback opportunities

PART ONE: FORCES SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK

The Contract Economy Will Continue to Grow, Altering Communications Functions

Impact of Gig

Economy2018 Gallup Poll –

36% of workers are gig workers

Offers employees sought-after

flexibility, freedom, and extra income

Closing the gap between

traditional employees and

freelancers (benefits)

"The gig economy is here. What are the implications of people not having pensions? Not having long-term relationships? Not having community in a work setting?” – CCO, Travel and Tourism Company

Are they being treated as people and not temporary resources?

How do you appraise ICs?

How do you streamline the hiring process?

How do you hire and train independent contractors?

How do you build trust and engagement?

How are you incentivizing your ICs?

Are you including ICs in your internal communications?

PART TWO: WHO ARE YOU? COMMUNICATING TO A NEW WORKFORCE

The Growing Generational Divide in the Workforce Offers Challenges and Opportunities

Kay Sargeant (HOK) on designing neurodiverse-friendly workspaces

"An employee culture is not something that is driven from the top down. It's a shared currency between you and I and how we like to do business. It's the behaviors and actions of your people that drive the culture, and if you're a global organization, being able to replicate that can be extremely challenging. Organizations are going to be challenged by creating a unified culture and an engaged workforce"

- Director of comms at a global pharma company

"Employee communication is focused on growing, building, and enhancing the culture of the organization. It is becoming more difficult to have that consistent culture that you're growing and building, fostering because more and more people are having a different employee experience"

– VP, Internal Comm at a multinational CPG company

Regardless of the generational breakdown, all employees share some

common needs and wants in the workplace…

“Generational change will bring with it new expectations from employees, and we will respond to that. But really, we try to look at it more holistically, as a push for inclusiveness as a core cultural element. The focus of our approach to a changing workforce is to have everyone thinking about it from the standpoint of diversity and inclusion.”

- Director of Corporate Comms (at an organization where 50% of employees will be eligible for retirement in 5 years)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

McKinsey’s 2018 Delivering Through Diversity:Public companies in the top quartile for gender diversity and ethnic/racial diversity in management were 21% and 33% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.

Cloverpop’s 2017 Hacking with Inclusive Decision-Making:inclusive decision-making leads to better business decisions 87% of the time, reaching those decisions twice as fast in half the meeting times.

PwC’s 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarking Survey:87% of global businesses say diversity and inclusion is an organizational priority.

SHERM’s 2016 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement:Nearly two-thirds (65%) of employees felt that the respectful treatment of all employees was a very important factor in their job satisfaction.

Why? Research shows…

• Accounting returns

• Cash flow return on investment

• Earnings Per Share

• Earnings Before Interests and Taxes (EBIT) margins

• Gross and net margins

• Investment performance

• Market performance

• Market value

• Return on Assets (ROA)

• Return on Equity (ROE)

• Return on Sales (ROS)

• Revenue

• Sales growth

• Share price performance

Research has demonstrated D&I improves financial performance including…

Source: Catalyst: Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter: Financial Performance (2018)

You may not be surprised by this statistic:In an industry that’s more than 75% women, just 20% occupy senior level leadership positions in PR in agencies (2015).

Most current research doesn’t specifically address public relations and communications.

So, what can we do about it?

What’s going on in our industry?

First phase• 60 industry participants in 10

focus groups

Second phase• Quantitative survey of 860

respondents in the PR and communications industry

We started talking and researching.

• 19% have never had a mentor• 76% say they often work after hours• 50% say they’ve experienced pay discrimination based on gender• 43% say there are obstacles to D&I in their company• Only 56% offer paternity leave; 92% offer maternity leave• 94% say flex work arrangements are important to them

Some topline findings…

THE CALL TO ACTIONFor future reading…

“Fixing the Flawed Approach to Diversity”Boston Consulting Group

PART THREE: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK

Investing in People and Communicating the Future Must Begin Now

…And, how can we help employees learn, maybe not a completely different job, but how to do their job in a different way that's more efficient?" - Communication Manager, financial services

"We need to make sure folks are trained up and know what's happening in all areas. With all the advances of different technology options, we need to make sure that we're keeping our employees in the loop on that fact that they're an integral part of our success and they're not being replaced by robots...

The Dilemma

• Only half of AT&T's 250,000 employees had the necessary science, technology, engineering and math skills the company required.

• 100,000 workers were in jobs having to do with hardware functions that probably wouldn't exist in the next decade.

Future Ready Initiative

• $1 billion web-based, multiyear effort

• Career Intelligence (online portal roadmap) lets workers see what jobs are available, the skills required for each, the potential salary range and whether that particular area is projected to grow or shrink in the years ahead.

• If successful, by 2020 AT&T will have reeducated 100,000 employees for new jobs

"It's important for companies, at the senior level, to engage and retrain workers rather than constantly going to the street to hire." -Bill Blase, Senior EVP of HR

PART THREE: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK

The Most Important Element is the Human Element

"Almost ironically in the face of all this technology and automation, actually going back to the basics is often ideal"

- CCO, large insurance company

“You need to keep people motivated, keep them inspired, and make it challenging. Even with new platforms and new technology, it's still back to the basics"

- Director, Comm and Public Affairs

"The empathy, care, and service that employees bring is irreplaceable from technology going forward. There may be tools to help them be quicker to serve more members, but the human element of that is going to be consistent."

-Communication Executive, multinational chemical company

THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT IS THE HUMAN

ELEMENT

CONCLUSIONThe Future Of Work Will Be Shaped By Speed, Agility, And Connectedness

Organizational (internal) communications can drive the organization to the٭future

The Future of Work begins with Leadership and Communicators٭

,Characteristics inherent in a new work model include Agility, Assimilation٭Development, Connectedness

٭ The Future of Work is about Creation

THE FUTURE OF WORK

QUESTIONS?

@ t m c c o r k i n d a l e t i n a @ i n s t i t u t e f o r p r . o r g