Today’s job landscape is changing rapidly due to an influx of startups and technology. How can managers adapt to successfully attract, retain and develop the best employees in this new landscape? How can they keep the workplace enjoyable while adding value?
Chicago Ideas Week brought together a group of speakers to discuss changes in the workplace and explain how managers can succeed in shaping the workforce of the future.
Here we explain the reasons for these changes to the workplace and share the panels top tips for how to adapt:
Technology is fostering a change in the evolution of business
Because employees couldn’t take the work home, managing a work force used to be about control, explains Lisa Brummel, Chief People Officer at Microsoft. Today we work in big open spaces that are visual and interactive. Thanks to mobile technology we are always in the office. To succeed in a modern workplace managers need to find a way to use this technology and “manage an outcome, not control the people,” Brummel said.
Technology is creating a disruption of the traditional hierarchy: less walls and more technology means letting people work where they do the best job. “You may never see an employee and you may not understand their workplace but you still have to create a common outcome that you are all working towards. This means a higher level of community. You have to not only give direction but take direction,” Brummel said.
The best employees are self-educators
To learn more about the habits of the workforce of the future James Reilly, founder of the GUILD Agency, began to interview young, successful people. He found that they were succeeding in areas where they had no conventional training because they were committed to constantly learning outside the classroom. “They were taking an approach to life where they are able to educate themselves on things that are important to them. They then found a way to incorporate them back into their everyday life,” Reilly said. This approach helped them to enjoy their everyday work life.
