During breakfast over the weekend, my wife casually mentioned that she wanted the two of us to start our holiday shopping. When she politely informed me that I had rolled my eyes at her statement, I began to say, “Well, it’s too early,” but then quickly realized that we’ve entered the final quarter of the year. If it’s not too early to start holiday shopping, then it’s certainly not too early to start thinking about how businesses should plan for 2021.
After a strange, disruptive, and unprecedented year (and one that keeps throwing curveballs at us even as the months tick away), businesses sit in a precarious position when it comes to business, operational, and, most importantly, workforce planning for the year ahead. In the spirit of earlier-than-normal business preparations, here’s what all companies should at least start to think of as 2021 creeps upon us:
- Devise a plan to transform the workforce into a more agile source of talent. If there’s one lesson that all companies learned this year, it’s that when things are disrupted in an unprecedented fashion, not being able to respond dynamically hurts businesses over the ensuing weeks and months. Layoffs, furloughs, temporary business closures; these were the workforce hallmarks of the earliest days of the pandemic. The enterprises that had deep talent pools, a vast network of talent channels, and an overarching ability to tap in these sources were the ones that were able to weather the storm, keep things running, and shift the size of their workforce based on market demand. Strategies like direct sourcing, in particular, can help organizations better prepare for both an expected market recovery and any additional challenges the pandemic may throw their way.
- Embrace Future of Work accelerants where they are best aligned. Remote work. Virtual conferencing. Automated onboarding. Artificial intelligence-led tactics and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). More utilization of mobile applications.
- Adopt transformational thinking across business operations, workforce planning, and overall leadership attributes. 2020 has surely been a strange year from both personal and business perspectives. If anything, it has taught many an enterprise leader that they cannot rely on archaic thinking to survive, let alone thrive, in the coming months. Right now is the time to reimagine and reboot outdated business thinking in favor of:
- Investing in diversity and inclusion initiatives to spark innovation and include new voices in key enterprise roles, positions, and units.
- Plant the “seedlings” of total talent intelligence by tapping into the collective data in VMS, HRIS, and other workforce management systems.
- Educate business executives on the impact of empathy-led leadership and how it can be incredibly effective for talent management, talent retention, and the overall talent experience in 2021.
When we look back on the chaos and disruption of 2021, there are certainly aspects that fall into the “Who would’ve thought?” category. However, given what we do know and what we’ve experience over the last seven months, it’s not too early to start to put some rigor behind planning for the upcoming year and ensuring agility, intelligence, diversity, and empathy are foundational elements of the future state of the greater business.
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