The latest issue of Think Global People magazine is out now!

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“As a leader, never before has it been so essential to engage and communicate with your workforce,” said Jennifer Morgan, CEO of HR solutions company UKG.Sharing her insights on the future of workforce management, she stressed the importance of employee engagement and seamless borderless payroll solutions when operating on a global scale and the negative impact it can have on employees and productivity if poorly managed.“The complexity of operating successfully while remaining compliant of regulations and local laws is accelerating and the need for precision in payroll is absolute. The penalties and repercussions are real, and beyond that, the impact on your people can be immense.”Morgan proceeded to share how various HR solutions and technologies are helping companies to operate more efficiently, from workforce planning tools to cloud-based culture solutions.

Embracing technology

Later that morning, a stimulating panel featuring HR, talent and operational leads from companies including Greggs, Schneider Electric and Accenture shared how they are driving growth and working to elevate employee experience across their organisations.Moderated by UKG, the panel touched on talent retention to digital transformation, organisational culture and the latest workforce trends.“The pace of change has never been faster than it is today. The expectations of generations are different too, so we’re really looking at how we embrace that for the good of our businesses and our colleagues who work with us and that we’re responsible for,” said Neil Parrish, workload planning manager at Greggs.“Greggs is a value brand and labour is our biggest single cost so it's absolutely critical that we manage that cost from a business perspective but also that we do that without compromising on service and it’s a fine line getting that balance right. Embracing new technology to be able to do that is really important for us.”Claire Howells, payroll and time management director (Europe) at Schneider Electric shared how the company is optimising their payroll systems and creating efficiencies that their employees can benefit from.“From a business perspective, we’re very serious about ensuring all our solutions and technology partners are certifiable. Not all potential partners pass the test as there is a very strict process we go through in order to ensure we’re always protecting employee data and the business as a whole so that we remain compliant. Reducing the amount of suppliers, vendors, solutions is also helping us reduce costs and any potential risks across networks,” she explained. Panellists spoke on the latest workforce trends at a recent UKG event held at BAFTA in London

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Shifting workforce trends

Tim Good, senior managing director and EMEA talent and organisation lead at Accenture, outlined some broader workforce trends that are impacting organisations across all sectors.“AI and generative AI presents some profound changes to the world of work. At Accenture we cover a lot of floor space, around 800,000 people worldwide and conduct a lot of research as well as speaking to many executives and business leaders. We know that 50% of the work done today will be disrupted. Of that 50%, about half of it will be automated away and we shouldn't be too fearful of that because that’s something that’s always happened, throughout the other previous industrial revolutions. There are certain things that we still do in the workplace as human beings that aren’t very time efficient or engaging.”Many more roles will also be augmented, added Good. “Creating new opportunities and skills – not necessarily doing something different – but using data to empower what we do.”He continued that AI is also likely to inform and augment every walk of life, including front office, back office and core value chain.“We’re also going to see new roles created, like prompt engineering, and around ethics and compliance. Any good AI, in very simple terms, always needs to have a human check to verify things like accuracy and the data behind it, so that will be profound. There is also a huge shortage in skills.”To address the skills gap, Good suggests that organisations are going to have to ‘widen the aperture for accessing skills and build new connective tissue into places of the workforce’. He spoke of  needing to build stronger and earlier connections between workplaces and education institutions, as well as challenging how we build work ready skills and growing and valuing different routes, like apprenticeships.Due to the pace of change, he added that re-skilling and building new capabilities would be inevitable for organisations, as well as figuring out how best to connect their people’s skills to match future business opportunities that create value.The panel later touched on using data to tap into organisational culture. In order to empower employees and enrich their experience and overall feeling of purpose, as well as practical applications for AI tools in people operations.

Adapting to employee expectations

Panellists spoke on the growing importance of culture in the workplace. Fostering a positive organisational culture becomes even more critical for companies if the majority of their revenue comes from people operating out of vast amounts of physical space.Managing a diversity of generations across the workforce, and the need to understand each generation of employees, what they expect, need and desire was both a challenge and priority for companies.The panel explored how employee needs have changed over the years, particularly for newer generations, to become more focused on the type of work environment they are entering. Desiring not just compensation, but flexible working times, the ability to work from different locations, and the room and support to acquire new skills and develop themselves.Members of the panel also debated the somewhat fading idea of a ‘traditional career’. From one where you may stay in one role at the same company for a decade and climb the ladder, to a less linear career that is multi-faceted and involves multiple roles across different locations, at different companies.Howells spoke to the audience about managing a technical workforce. She described how many of their technical and industrial employees have been doing their roles for 20 or more years and shared how Schneider is actively adapting to developments in robotics and AI and ensuring the workforce remains engaged and upskilled, while catering to new generations coming through who want to work in a different way.“We work very closely with universities. We also have large graduate and apprenticeship programmes that are really important to us to make sure we are attracting the best individuals for jobs of the future. It’s a big challenge but one that we’re making good progress in.”The future of work requires new forms of leadership too. “At Schneider, we’re focused on upskilling leadership, so leaders of yesterday can act more like leaders of tomorrow, change with the times and adapt to how people want to be managed.”

Did you know?

• 55% say work-life balance/flexibility is one of the most important factors when choosing an employer
• More than half of all frontline employees would take more vacation time over a pay increase
• Workplace flexibility is the #2 factor in choosing an employer for frontline employees

Source:  Perspectives from the Frontline Workforce: A UKG Global Study

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