The Employee Takes Centre Stage
Future of Work
My journey into the ‘Future of Work’ actually began as diligence for a menopause tech company (everyone knows how much I love femtech and of course I am coming of age). Of course, both themes very talked about currently in the UK startup landscape. Recent article on meno in Pitchbook news attached here in case you haven’t read it already — still circulating in the virtual world — https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/vc-menopause-femtech. Second theme — ‘Future of Work’, very much real, makes me feel like we are all participating in a social experiment, a live reality show and wondering how all of it will ultimately unfold.
Menopause was a quick discussion. While I had these HR Directors on the phone, I decided to delve slightly deeper into what they have been dealing with over the last few weeks and the current pain points they were trying to solve for their organisations.
First things first — their first area of focus is their key asset base — their current employees and how they can help them navigate COVID19. For all those B2B mental health startups, there seems to be no better time than to pitch to corporates. Even better, if you have a wholistic solution that encompasses 1. physical health, 2. mental health and 3. financial wellbeing. At the start of lock-down, many companies rushed in with EAP hotlines for their employees but in many cases, the take-up was low. Certain segments of employee populations (not husbands, contrary to popular belief) such as those young/middle aged & living alone found it harder to cope during quarantine and in response to low engagement on EAP hotlines, employers tried to create makeshift communities based on these persona to see if interacting with each other acted as a band-aid to the problem. These are of course temporary solutions. Along with these groups, also came challenges with those who have caregiving responsibilities. Families took on a new meaning overnight. People moved in with parents to take care of them and many also had to take care of home schooling and household chores. In relation to this, companies have now been rethinking the future of benefits — what kind of benefits do employees want — Is it flexibility? Is it childcare? Is it elderly care? Is it a community? Is it a financial wellness app? And who this coverage should include?
In addition to current employees, talent acquisition is also a new challenge for these organisations. In some ways, one can now recruit from anywhere in the world since one is no longer limited by the need to visit a physical office everyday. (Side note: I am personally also hoping that this mobilizes what in my view is one of the biggest asset classes waiting to be monetized — the female workforce). However, it is ultimately the war for talent — the world is your oyster and it is up to you to find those pearls. One HR director I spoke to mentioned that finding those pearls was not that easy a task as you might think. Perhaps global marketplaces focusing on specific industries making it easier to post positions and find talent might be the answer. Furthermore, employers are currently looking more than ever to recruit for certain skills such as resilience, ability to deal with ambiguity, ability to work without supervision and in the absence of physically meeting people, how do you test for these skills? Is it more psychometric testing, reliance on certain interviewing techniques or is it going back and recruiting from your alumni pool (employees you know well) to help identify these candidates? Once identified, how does a company then onboard this employee remotely, get their home office set up (what does this look like — physically and ergonomically — is the company liable for this?) and how do they get them their laptop with the relevant software and induction materials on it ASAP.
Beyond retention and recruitment, employers are rethinking the “future of learning”. Self-learning has grown tremendously but how can one replicate the learning that you gain by sitting next to someone at the office, a co-worker, a mentor, a guide? Platforms and content providers who support this — enabling creation of videos from company leaders, mentors and more experienced employees — perhaps a Netflix of learning. Taking it a step further — the “future of engagement” — how does one measure employee engagement not via an annual pulse survey but does one now measure continuous engagement by asking — “how do you feel today” at the end of each day?
I can go on. Employee performance measurement, field visits beyond zoom calls; VR tools enabling this, robotic process automation, replacing water cooler conversations, building corporate culture, upskilling employees so that digital is no longer for a small group of people — the list is endless.
What was evident very soon through my discussions was that digitisation efforts in the past have focused around the customer. COVID19 has very quickly changed this and the employee has taken centre stage. Organisations are crying out loud for good digital solutions that focus on the employer-employee relationship and it has never been a more fertile time for startups and innovators who are focusing on providing these. Additionally, it is no longer just a cost-benefit/ROI analysis when adopting digital tools; the new strategic agenda and soft measures are equally as important for these companies when picking service providers.
