As the future of work continues to unfold, the cultural fabric of an organization becomes the foundation that determines how well it can adapt to new realities. With the rise of remote work and flexible scheduling, alongside increased demand for location flexibility from employees, incorporating the right cultural elements becomes essential for navigating these changes effectively. Organizations need to cultivate environments that are not only adaptable but also supportive of continuous learning and innovation. Understanding the cultural principles that support these attributes is critical to preparing for the future of work.

The advancement of automation technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the workplace at an unprecedented pace, increasing organizations’ need to develop cultural attributes that promote agility and resilience. At the same time, the growth of the freelance economy and the normalization of remote work are changing how employees interact and collaborate. These developments underscore the need for cultural development practices to sustain engagement and productivity in a dispersed workforce.

Perspectives from Thought Leaders on How to Prepare for the Future of Work

To explore the critical cultural elements needed for the future of work, we have gathered insights from thought leaders who have effectively cultivated such environments within their organizations. Their experiences and reflections shed light on the cultural foundations that support adaptability, innovation, and sustained engagement in a rapidly changing organizational environment.

Graham Peelle
Global Operations, People, & Talent Leader at Endeavor Strategic

The future of work is here and is always coming. It’s not always a definite point in time or a turn-the-page moment, but usually an evolution where you see progress over time. The future of work is always changing today and tomorrow. Technology empowers the future of work, and it’s critical to prepare for what tomorrow brings. In order to capitalize on tech working for you rather than against you, your preparation to learn, adapt, and implement change will determine your success in the market. When your best competitors are using tech to get ahead, it’s in your court to see how you can also use tech to make your business better but also to see how tech can provide a spark for your people to take the next leap in their development. Tech-powered people are hard to beat.

Technology is a great equalizer, but it also provides the opportunity to integrate with your talented team to enable efficiency, effectiveness, and quality while driving profitability. Use tech to empower and enable the best for your people by making their jobs more fun and meaningful and becoming the fuel that powers your culture.

To drive real change and embrace digital transformation, you must bring your people along for the ride. Here are some considerations for a people-centered approach when preparing for the future of work:

1. Change is hard; people are nervous. Keep compassion and thoughtful communication in mind.
   
   
2. Show them, not just tell them, as you want to bring your people along for the ride. Your actions should show your words in motion; leave out the talk just to talk. Show them you mean what you say and that the change will make their jobs better in the long run.
   
   
3. Bring them along with you. Train, develop, and always teach to show them and transform the culture through consistent engagement and education, leaving off the bully pulpit approach. Think roundtable sessions, not keynote speeches.
   
   
4. Drive business efficiency and effectiveness with people in mind. Heartless businesses won’t last in a human-driven world. Put yourself in the shoes of your most uneducated, less-informed, and hardest-working laborers or lowest decision-making level. If they don’t get it or don’t care, this spreads, and it will spread to others and even your customers.
   
   
5. Use any redundancies to grow your business, not to shrink your headcount. This mindset is the big picture, not what the P&L looks like this month or quarter, so few will do it. However, if you lengthen your horizon and look at your business across 3, 5, or 10 years, your decision-making gets better. Power your business through operationalizing and monetizing your people’s work. When you think of people as an expense, you have a poor model and create a narrow mindset.
   
   
6. Use repetition to support your change initiatives. Saying it once isn’t good enough, or twice, and not even three times. At your level, people should hear the message consistently and see it reinforced through actions.

The future of work comes continuously, so it’s important to constantly evaluate your business for what makes it better, not for change’s sake but for the longevity and health of your business, team members, and customers. Your team will power the future of work if you embrace positive change, a big picture, a positive sum mindset, and keep people at the forefront of your vision.

Nataliya Harkins 
Talent and Workforce Strategies Leader, Ex-Deloitte & Korn Ferry

The future of work has been a hot topic and a challenge for HR and business leaders since the early onset of the pandemic and has become a new reality. Global leaders faced unprecedented challenges of maintaining high performance, employee engagement, talent retention, and team dynamics. The future of work arrived almost overnight with an immediate need for new models of human-machine interaction, communication, and technology assistance. Human capital practices became redefined as an amalgam of workers, technology, and ways of working, accelerated by AI and machine capabilities to nudge organizational performance. The company’s readiness to thrive under new economic, social, and technological conditions was time pressure tested.

From this collective experience, three critical components of organizational culture emerged as potent and impactful for preparing for the future of work and mitigating the effects and limitations of unexpected conditions. First, it is organizational agility. While every company is different and delineates its unique cultural identity, a high degree of organizational flexibility and managerial freedom to adjust tools, processes, and resources to address unconventional circumstances is required to support business objectives. Timeliness is imperative. Second, authentic leadership and decision transparency enable organizational changes to be adopted more efficiently. Workers embrace the requirements of learning a new way of performing work from a position of organizational purpose, not threats to their agency. Third, focusing on customer services and listening to customer needs and pain points pave a path to new operational models, including running diagnostics and co-creating business growth strategies. Feedback from front-line workers facing clients and customers daily is an irreplaceable source of the most relevant, accurate, and actionable data.

Stephanie Thommen
Head of People at Nivoda

A leader’s key role is to prepare their business for the future while fostering thriving work environments with engaged and innovative team members. The main tool at their disposal is to anchor their efforts on the four pillars of culture: Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values. Firstly, leaders need to ensure that the organization's purpose is clearly articulated and understood by all team members. This involves communicating the overarching reason for the company's existence beyond just generating profits through the positive impact it aims to create in the world. By aligning individual roles and responsibilities with this overarching purpose, team members feel a sense of meaning and fulfillment in their work, which in turn boosts motivation and engagement.

Secondly, leaders and stakeholders should continuously reinforce the organization's vision and mission, which serve as guiding lights for the company's future direction and strategic objectives. A compelling vision paints a vivid picture of what success looks like for the organization, inspiring teams to strive towards shared goals. Similarly, a well-defined mission outlines the specific actions and strategies required to realize that vision, providing everyone with a clear roadmap for their efforts. When team members understand how their daily tasks contribute to the broader vision and mission of the organization, they feel a sense of ownership and accountability, driving greater engagement and commitment to the company's success.

Lastly, values serve as a crucial component of organizational culture, shaping people's behavior and increasing accountability across the organization. Values define the principles and beliefs that guide decision-making and behavior, acting as a moral compass for employees at all levels. When values are ingrained in the culture, individuals feel empowered to hold themselves and others accountable for their actions, fostering a culture of responsibility and transparency. This not only strengthens the overall integrity of the organization but also enhances collaboration and teamwork as everybody works towards common goals while adhering to shared values.

Other Articles in the Series on How to Prepare for the Future of Work

Understanding the critical cultural elements is just one aspect of this preparation. Equally important are the lessons learned in preparing for the future of work and the impactful advice for leaders and managers to guide their teams through these changes successfully. Together, these perspectives can give organizations and professionals a comprehensive view of what it takes to thrive in the future workplace.

Enabling Practices and Resources

Emerging Workforce Planning Practices that Drive Broader Skills-based and Future-focused Staffing Projections.

Emerging workforce planning focuses on the future with a highly refined level of detail, moving the analysis from roles and critical segments to specific skills that aggregate into organizational capabilities.

Building "Future of Work" Considerations into Workforce Planning.

The "Future of Work" is a construct that is based on three major components - forthcoming changes in work method ("what" is done), the makeup of the worker population ("who does the work"), and the location of the workplace ("where the work is done").

Creating a Top-tier Organizational Culture that Embraces and Reinforces a New Digital Future.

The culture of a digital organization consists of the workforce's processes, practices, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. The HR digital transformation strategy must hit on all these components to drive a sustainable, high-performing culture.