Like many of you,

I’m anxious to understand what this pandemic will do to the future of the workplace. More specifically, my questions focus on which HR strategies need adaptation as a result of workplace changes due to COVID-19. 

In the past, small businesses have learned to adapt to crises at a local or national level. While some of these crises have a long-term impact, it’s rarer that a widespread crisis, such as the one we are in now, has a global effect on the workforce. 

As an HR advisor and consultant, understanding patterns in hiring and workplace policies is a pivotal aspect of work. Now is the time to be spotting the trends, using up-to-date data, and applying experience to helping business leaders make informed decisions about their workforce for today and tomorrow.

Initial Questions About the Future of the Workforce

While there is a vast difference in opinion about the future of the workplace, I’m convinced that some HR service offerings will need modification to help small businesses find, grow, and retain their workforce. 

To start, I developed an initial list of questions about HR service offerings that need modification.

Following is my initial shortlist of questions:

Q: Will the supply of labor be more plentiful, and for how long?

Q: Will businesses replace full-time employees with contingent workers?

Q: Will employee engagement continue to remain low? 

Q: Will Leaders need new or different skill sets to be effective? 

Q: Will employees voluntarily quit at the same high rate, or will they hunker down for security?

Q: Will employee policies and rewards will need to change to retain the workforce?

Before these questions can be answered, it’s necessary to explore the data.

Exploring the Data

Jeanne Meister, a partner with Future Workplace, an HR Advisory and Research firm, shared some insights from her in a recent survey, entitled The Impact of the Coronavirus in the Workplace, conducted among 350 HR leaders in the USA. 

The insights describe how the new normal of work is evolving within organizations such as:

• The need to invest in training on how to work effectively from home.

• Assisting employee well-being to cope with changes, including the growth of a digital economy, work-life balance, and the stress of the pandemic.

• Some business leaders are using the pandemic to re-think assumptions on their products, services, and business model as well as cross-training and creating new products to be better prepared for the next pandemic.

• A surge in skills-based hiring for critical thinking and creativity is predicted as more companies outsource routine tasks to machines. 

Some of these findings are obvious if you are in a leadership position for your business. However, the data is making one thing clear. There is an opportunity for improvement even amongst disaster.

Companies have the chance to understand their employees better and serve their customers better. For example, in the world of financial and regulatory technology (Fintech and Regtech), many are addressing systemic financial inclusion challenges, creating pathways of innovation, and assisting in economic recovery.

The second piece of research I would like to present is from Gartner, a leading research and advisory company. They identified Nine Trends for HR Leaders that Will Impact the Future of Work After the Coronavirus Pandemic, including:

• Expanding data collection on employees to have significantly more access to the health data of their employees. For example, employers will want to know if any of their employees have the COVID 19 antibodies.

• Replacing employees with contingent workers for greater workforce flexibility, and addressing how performance management systems would apply to such workers if at all, and exploring access to benefits eligibility as a requirement to attract and keep them.

• Providing more varied, adaptable, and flexible careers for their employees to gain more cross-functionality, which in turn will help the organization’s flexibility.

Finally, as a student of employee engagement, I took particular interest in Josh Bersin’s April 25th article, COVID-19 May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Employee Engagement. In this, Bersin explains that two decades of employee engagement levels are beginning to change for the positive. His surveys, coupled with a new study completed by Willis Towers Watson, show that businesses are bending over backward to take care of their employees. In Berin’s words:

“Why? Because they have to. Yesterday I talked with the CHRO of one of the world’s largest insurance companies, and she told me, ‘The crisis has created a level of transparency and trust in our workforce we haven’t seen in decades.’ The Willis research found that 90% of companies believe their culture has improved, 83% believe their employee experience is better, and 84% believe employee engagement has gone up. It took a global health crisis for business and HR leaders to wake up to the fact that when people don’t feel safe, supported, or emotionally secure, they cannot do their jobs. So now we see that this is a business transformation disguised as a pandemic.”

These three references and data sets are just a sampling of the overwhelming predictions out there. It’s essential to weed through them, call out commonalities, and look at the data from your own business. By doing that, you will have a better understanding of what needs to change or remain the same in your industry. 

Answers for Questions about the Future of the Workforce.

In the introduction, I brought up a list of my initial questions when considering HR policies that need modification in the face of a COVID-19 workforce. Here are the answers I've developed after a bit of research and application of my own past experiences:

Q: Will the supply of labor be more plentiful, and for how long?

A: The general opinion is that even if Congress extends the payroll protection, many companies will go out of business, and others will to layoff workers. The supply will exceed demand. Employers should use this opportunity to maximize their recruitment and employment process to “hire the right person.”

Q: Will businesses replace full-time employees with contingent workers? 

A: Although this is a trend that has been underway, I believe it will grow. Employers will need to monitor and evaluate this staffing alternative because we know from empirical research that there is a strong correlation between worker satisfaction and commitment to business unit performance.

Q: Will employee engagement continue to remain low?

A: Engagement levels haven’t changed in the last twenty years, and I’m not as convinced as others that it will because of how employers responded to the crisis. I believe it’s a “never-ending story,” and employers should continue training front line leaders to implement behaviors and actions that do drive commitment. We know that the workforce demands changed before this crisis, and I don't believe those demands will be any different going forward. For example, requirements shifted from “My Paycheck to My Purpose” to “My Satisfaction to My Development,” and “My Boss to My Coach.”

Q: Will Leaders need new or different skill sets to be effective? 

A: If I feel sure about anything, it’s yes to this one. Although it’s not a new skill requirement, the pandemic taught us just how critical it is for leaders to understand and demonstrate empathy. We have known for some time now that emotional intelligence skills are crucial to the successful development of front line leaders. Employers should invest in that development.

Q: Will employees voluntarily quit at the same high rate, or will they hunker down for security?

A: I think the quit rate will remain low for at least the rest of this year, as employees need healthcare and financial security. However, history has taught me that highly talented employees will seek opportunities that match their needs regardless of the current economic conditions. Again, employers should use this opportunity to maximize their recruitment and employment process to attract that talent. 

Q: Will employee policies and rewards will need to change to retain the workforce?

A: I don’t have enough information to answer this one, except I believe remote work is going to be necessary for some businesses. Employers who are considering this should look to the experts for creating the right policies. For example, Gallup’s research has taught us that there is an optimal number of days someone can work remotely without reducing productivity.

Final Thoughts

Time spent researching the impact of the coronavirus on the workforce and decades of HR experience has brought me to a singular conclusion. 

Employers have to be better at listening to their employees and analyzing the feedback. That can come from coaching conversations with their leader, surveys, or other means.

Crisis or not, the data they provide enables us to make better decisions as leaders and better choices for our employees and businesses. When a change like the one we are experiencing results in restructuring, and layoffs, it negatively impacts those employees who survive. Their anticipation of future change negatively impacts their performance and retention as much or more than the actual change that anticipation.

Don’t panic. There is a proven approach that businesses can use to improve candidate attraction and employee commitment, especially during a crisis. It’s called the Employer Value Proposition. It’s the set of attributes that the labor market and employees perceive as the value they gain through employment in the organization. If you want to learn more, simply contact us.

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