Oct. 7, 2017 "It's time to modernize productivity": Today I found this article by Naomi Titleman Colla in the Globe and Mail:
Founder and principal of Collaborativity Leadership Advisory (collaborativity.ca) and former chief human resources officer of American Express Canada.
How does work get done in the new world of work?
Twenty years ago, I visited a kibbutz in Israel. In the morning, we were assigned different tasks based on our core skills, strengths and interests.
One day, I spent time in the daycare because I was patient and enjoyed children, while my friend was deployed to work in the fields to gather food for our meals because she was quick, efficient and enjoyed the physical challenge. The next day, we were assigned different jobs that equally leveraged our strengths and interests.
We worked in teams to complete individual tasks and collaborated to achieve the broader "department" and overall objectives. People were engaged and delivered results – and felt accomplished.
Can we learn something from this organizational model to more effectively get work done in this new world of work?
Shocking that, with all of the technological innovation we are seeing in this fourth industrial revolution, we have not seen the commensurate spike in productivity. And despite the fear of robots taking all of our jobs, employees are more stressed and overworked than ever.
If we look at the way most organizations and teams are structured, and the way we set goals and measure and manage performance, there is ample opportunity to increase productivity and reduce overload.
How is work organized?
Many of today's successful companies structure themselves as agile teams. If, as in my kibbutz example, workers were deployed into purpose-driven teams, based on the needs of the organization at that moment, leveraging workers' strengths rather than their job titles, would we see better results?
Clearly, we can't all just show up to work each day not knowing, at least vaguely, what our accountabilities are; however, most organizations today build departments first, then role descriptions, assign people to these roles and then try to force-fit work onto people's plates, creating artificial boundaries between departments, barriers for productivity and competition and politics between departments.
In more agile organizations, where teams are built around a specific product or project or customer need, these boundaries are removed.
An agile approach enables teams to fail fast, learn and move on, minimizing rework and increasing speed to market.
Traditionally, goal setting has been part of a strategic planning process taking place once a year. And how many of us actually look at our goals on a regular (perhaps weekly) basis?
With today's pace of change, and the new slate of candidates in our work force, goal setting needs an overhaul. We live in a world where whatever is at the top of our inbox becomes the priority … and how many of us reflect upon our day saying, "I have no clue what I did all day but I was very busy." Setting (and refreshing) specific, meaningful and achievable goals is critical in this new world of work.
For example, for those who are apprehensive about virtual working, for fear that workers will slack off or not be aligned with corporate objectives – think about your goal-setting practices, how to makes linkages between individual and team goals to the company's purpose for all workers, and then measure and manage performance.
How is performance measured and managed?
Once we've set clear goals, we must create feedback mechanisms to maximize performance.
Without the carrot (or stick) of traditional performance-management processes, how can we ensure all workers are on board with company goals and strategic objectives?
How can we create a high-performance culture when we don't have as much loyalty and longevity in our work force?
These are loaded questions that many organizations are addressing head-on. For example, the idea of getting rid of performance ratings is not about the rating nor the use of a three-point or five-point scale.
The underlying issue is that, in many cases, performance management was a process that would occur twice a year and only for permanent employees. In this new world of work, this process does not adequately drive company performance.
Full-time equivalents (FTEs), freelancers and even robots require regular, constructive feedback, based on clear goals that tie to company objectives.
Imagine a world where teams, comprised of all types of workers (human and not) are structured in a way that makes work easier to get done, leveraging exponential technologies and applying the core skills of each human.
And where those humans are motivated to perform, regardless of their employment relationship with the company, because they believe in its strategy and purpose. This reality does exist in many high-performing organizations today. It's time for the rest of us to get on board.
"Facing the threat of automation, outsourcing industry takes stock": Today I found this article by Ditas Lopez and Seigfrid Alegado in the Globe and Mail:
Since the early 2000s, the Philippines added more than a million jobs as foreign companies outsourced customer support and sales tasks to the Southeast Asian country.
Now, a looming wave of automation is threatening employment at call centres and forcing the industry to retrain workers to meet the demand for higher skilled jobs in areas such as health care, banking, finance and insurance.
“The biggest challenge is people,” Jojo Uligan, president of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines or CCAP, said in an interview at his office in Manila on Wednesday. “We lack people with enough technical expertise and experience to service emerging needs.”
The Philippines is the world’s top call-centre destination with companies such as Accenture PLC and American Express Co. among those that have set up shop in the Southeast Asian country.
They’ve been lured by cheaper wages, Filipinos’ cultural affinity with the West and a population of 100 million people that are mostly fluent in English.
With technology constantly advancing, machines are now able to replicate some of the tasks that people do, including customer relations. More than half of outsourced jobs could be lost in a few years unless significant retraining is done, according to a study by Tholons Capital, a New York-based consultancy.
In India, robots are now replacing warehouse workers, for example.
Leaders of some of the biggest outsourcing companies in the world will meet this month in the Philippines to craft fresh strategies to counter the impact of automation, Mr. Uligan said.
Companies are increasingly seeking workers who are college educated, experienced, have technical expertise and can easily be retrained, he said.
“There is a lot of complex work now,” Mr. Uligan said. “It’s no longer mere directory assistance or taking orders.”
These concerns are tempering the outlook for the industry. The CCAP estimates that revenue will grow as much as 8 per cent this year until 2022, compared with growth rates exceeding 10 per cent in the past.
“People don’t evolve as fast as technology,” Mr. Uligan said.
My opinion: When I was working at the Office Job, I did get laid off because my company contract was outsourced.
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