Last month, the Future of Work Summit took place as part of London Tech Week 2022. If you were there, you mightâve spotted a Parkable t-shirt or two and just above them, the eager, friendly faces of our UK team. For those who couldnât make it along, although you did miss out on a great conference, you donât have to miss out on all the learnings too - we studiously took notes of all the best bits for you.
What the Future of Work Summit was all about
If youâre in the business of managing a workforce, you donât need a summit to tell you that the way we work has changed significantly over the last couple of years. The Future of Work Summit knew that too, and didnât waste time re-hashing how covid has changed everything. Instead they facilitated insightful discussions on the most pressing workforce challenges weâre now facing as a result, and how we might approach them so that our organisations and people are equipped for the future.
The four main topics were:
The Great Resignation: Surviving the Talent Shortage
Whether it be from burnout, the extra time the pandemic afforded some of us to think about what we really want in life, or the fact that some employers expect staff to return to work and give up WFH, the great resignation is real. Not only is it real, but itâs exacerbating the talent shortage that years of closed borders has brought us.
So what were the key nuggets of wisdom on surviving the great talent shortage?
Gone are the days of overpromising and under-delivering when attracting and retaining talent. In a world where work no longer has borders and the hiring landscape is competitive, organisations must authentically listen to their people, empower them to thrive, and implement ways of working that their employees are saying will enable them to do their best work.
How Tech is Powering Productivity in our Humanised Workforce: A Conversation with JumpCloud
Workplace technology is the unsung hero that has gotten most organisations through the pandemic (relatively) economically unscathed with little more than a few Zoom faux-pas. And while it has meant work can seamlessly continue from our living rooms, it has been at the expense of the âwater-coolerâ moments, collaborating in person, and having clear boundaries of when you are and are not âonlineâ.
So how can organisations create a supportive digital workplace that drives team productivity? Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Greg Keller from JumpCloud had this to say:
Trust or Bust? The Power of a Purpose-driven Organisation
Itâs been a rough and rocky few years and the general consensus of this discussion was that itâs essential, now more than ever before, for organisations to come together around a collective mission and set the tone for the future. But re-setting your mission and values while adapting to new hybrid ways of working is no small feat, so what are some steps organisations can take?
Set authentic vision and values:
Hilary Sutcliffe from SocietyInside put it nicely, âWhen you are devising your purpose driven metrics and your purpose driven language, just keep it really really real somehow, there's so much fluff out there it's giving purpose driven business a bad nameâ. Organisational values that are centred around innovating, working together, and acting with integrity (we bet youâve heard some variation of these before!) sound nice and morally come from the right place, but theyâre unlikely to inspire and empower employees.
Find WFH policies that suit you and your employees:
Your employees' lives and routines have changed (and a lot of them out of necessity, not just to avoid a morning commute), so demanding they all return to the office will likely increase your turnover instead of your organisation's productivity. So how do you strike a balance?
Charu Bjuvestig, Managing Director of QA Talent says âA Hybrid WFH/in-office model will work if you put the right policies in place. Weâve had feedback from employees who don't want to come back because they have childcare support issues and a different lifestyle, and young employees who want to come back for the social interaction. The key thing is creating an environment where every single person gets to have a say and have the option to do a few things that work for them. In the long-term they can decide if a hybrid environment is right for them or not.â
Let go of controlling leadership styles and trust your employees more:
âOrganisations that are about empowering people to contribute and to work together with the business have thrived compared to those organisations who are command and control types. I think that shifting away from a command and control management leadership style into a one that favours inclusion and openness is a really important driver of trust and in building a purpose led organisation. Trust first and you will receive trust, and then people will also be trustworthy in return.â - Hilary Sutcliffe
Individualising the Employee Experience â is 2022 the year of the employee?
Whether 2022 is âthe year of the employeeâ or not, itâs certainly the year that employees have more say, more choice and more sway.
As Nick Hedderman, Senior Director at Microsoft UK said, âPeople are choosing their employer not just on the salary they get paid or the hours they work, but also the purpose of the organisation. What's the culture that's being created? Do they have flexibility to work how, when and where they want, and do they have a team that has a sense of energy around that? That's where weâre going to see people voting with their feet.â
So is it really all about the employee and not the organisation?
The short answer is no, but where there used to be an imbalance in favour of the organisation, the playing field is now a little more level. Organisations canât just expect to set the rules and have employees follow. The rules need to make sense and employees need to be able to have their say
âThere can certainly be tension between what an individual employee wants and what is best for the organisation, and itâs hard to find the balance. Thereâs the selfish act of working how when and where I want, with the selfless act of working when itâs best for the organisation or the team. You need a digital fabric to connect people and an organisation together, whether theyâre in person or remote, or working synchronously or asynchronicity - itâs really critical that all orgs establish that fabric. Itâs about organising ways to give flexibility and empowerment, while also maintaining culture and productivity with that fabric.â - Nick Hedderman, Senior Director at Microsoft UK
âCollaboration, innovation, and socialising is super important in terms of creating an environment where people want to stay. Create a social fabric that helps keep people in an organisation. Some of that will be face to face and some of that will be online. But the fabric you decide on has gotta mean something, it canât just be randomly picked. There are ways of doing it but I think whatever you do, you have to be very thoughtful and purposeful when you need to be in the office.â - Ben Higgin, Head of Technology and Investments at PwC
Organisations have been forced to see their employees for the humans that they are, with lives outside of their job titles that are filled with families, busy schedules, hobbies, and emotional ups and downs. And employees have seen that when the boundaries between work and life become blurred, the blurry line can be positive, resulting in a more efficient use of their time.
So if you take anything away from The 2022 Future of Work Summit, let it be that thereâs no right way to move forward, but the wrong way would be denying you need to adapt.
At Parkable, weâre passionate about creating better workplace experiences. Our award-winning staff parking management software company, improves workplace parking so that employees can start their days stress-free. By providing seamless, bookable, and fairly distributed staff parking, clients improve the entire employee commute, as well as culture and engagement.
Read more about how adopting park sharing in the workplace increases staff happiness.
Trusted by leading global companies such as Meta (Formerly Facebook) CBRE, White City Place, KPMG, The American Association of Critical Care Nurses, and more than 100,000 parkers globally.
Lack of staff parking is a major bone of contention. Time wasted cruising for parking, and earlier starts by employees racing to win limited parking, take their toll on worker wellbeing. This is even more pressing with flexible working.
As we dive right into 2023, uncertainty over the global economy continues to loom. From central banks continuing rate hikes to investors nervously wondering whether a soft-landing remains possible. With this, individuals are looking into cost-cutting measures â whether in their own lives as well as their businesses.
Last month, our Parkable UK team attended the Engage Employee Summit in London.