3 Ways to Prepare Your People for the Next Disruption
While the tech industry continues to battle economic headwinds, digital innovation shows no signs of slowing. In fact, companies that prioritize digital transformation, investments and growth during times of crisis have historically emerged stronger — and the trend in 2023 will likely be no exception.
During times of uncertainty, I often see organizations make the mistake of focusing solely on new technologies and processes to future-proof or secure their operations. While this approach is understandable, it’s easy to get swept up in the implementation of new technology and overlook putting focus on the engine behind any successful transformation — the people. Long-lasting and organizational transformation is not only about your investment in new tools, but also is about investing in your best people and empowering them with the skills necessary to use those tools to drive greater, long-lasting impact across your organization.
This is why organizations should prepare their people for disruption by keeping their purpose, growth and employee experience top of mind.
Focus on your purpose
Organizations need strong foundations to navigate times of change with confidence and for many, that strong foundation is their purpose. During uncertain times, treating your purpose as your guiding star is paramount in keeping all transformation efforts aligned with the overall goals and strategy of your business.
At the end of the day, any transformation or change effort that doesn’t support your company’s short- or long-term goals is a wasted effort. Additionally, it could also erode employee trust if you push new initiatives that don’t support their career and role objectives or provide them with measurable improvement and efficiency in their day-to-day operations.
Taking action to align transformation efforts with your strategy and to communicate these efforts — along with the reasons behind them— to your employees is key. Companies that embrace rather than fear disruption experience success and growth when their actions are mobilized by their purpose and mission.
Related Article: Knowledge Retention in Times of Disruption
Focus on growth
Being agile has now become a necessity. But being agile is so much more than just investing in the right tools or policies to drive greater efficiencies. It's about adopting a complete growth mindset — and a critical piece of this is your people’s development and their skill sets.
Investing in the right skill set doesn’t have to mean hiring externally. Time and again, I’ve seen how the best source for new talent can be your current employee base.
Our Annual Global Survey shows 52% of CEOs say they’re planning to cut costs in the current environment. That may sometimes mean reducing headcount, but many CEOs today are hesitant to reduce staff, understanding that workers need to be reskilled to take on entirely new roles.
This is increasingly relevant as companies eagerly seek new ways to adopt emerging technologies, to free up time to focus on more strategic tasks. An example of this could be an HR team using generative AI tools to take a first pass at writing employee contracts, offer letters or benefit one-pagers. From there, employees will be newly trained to review the tool’s outputs, refine as needed and approve these materials, all while giving them time back to focus on other important tasks.
Learning Opportunities
New processes, technologies and business outcomes require new skills. Training your people on how to use the latest tech, while also upskilling them in business acumen and change resilience skills, is necessary to thrive in today’s rapidly changing business environment.
Focus on employee experience
At PwC, we’ve seen firsthand how the best ideas often come from those closest to the problem, regardless of job title or experience level. This is why we have invested significantly in citizen-led innovation to upskill our people and disrupt ourselves from the bottom-up. People and technology are crucial to business, so it’s important to bring those two powerful forces together in order to unlock success, especially during uncertain times.
Simply investing in citizen-led innovation is only one piece of the puzzle. Leaders should make an effort to create a work environment where employees engage, challenge each other and support one another as they grow their digital skills and tackle complex challenges.
Upskilling and inclusion go hand-in-hand. Pairing self-led learning and innovation with community support can amplify both effectiveness and employee experience, ultimately leading to improved business outcomes.
Related Article: Good Business Practices are Key to Resilience During Disruption
Build trust from within
Employees understand the importance of their organization’s investment in technology and transformation to achieve business growth. What may be less clear to them is how innovation efforts can have a positive impact on their own careers.
As a leader, it is important to communicate to your people how transformation efforts can spur employee growth and lead your people down new and exciting career paths they may have never envisioned for themselves — building a more resilient, highly-trained workforce on the foundation of mutual trust.
We call this our “human-led, tech-powered” approach, bringing the best of people and technology together to create new opportunities, find new solutions and continue to deepen trust across your organization.
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About the Author
As PwC’s US Products & Technology Chief Growth Officer, Suneet is responsible for driving more than $1 billion in product revenue and executing PwC’s product revenue strategy. He’s focused on driving innovation, delivering world-class, forward-thinking products and digitally upskilling the workforce and society at large.
Connect with Suneet Dua:
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