Navigate the Future of Work With These 5 Tips

Takeaways from Future of Work USA

Here’s a million dollar question: What’s the secret sauce to building engagement and connection, even in the midst of economic uncertainty and distributed work? It’s a question on the minds of so many HR and people leaders – and the reason topics like “return to office” and “quiet quitting” are still dominating headlines after all these years. What does the future of work look like?

While there’s no single strategy that will bring about a magnetic company culture, there are proven tactics that forward-thinking organizations are using to put their people at the center of their business.

These were just some of the topics featured at the recent Future of Work USA event in Chicago, where Enboarder®’s Chief People Officer, Laura Lee, and our CEO and founder, Brent Pearson, sat on two panels. Here I’ll share some of the key takeaways from those conversations.

Don’t forget about your values.

If you’re looking to preserve and grow your culture, use your company values as your North Star. Laura Lee shared how she took Enboarder’s values – Love It, Never Settle, Customers Rule, Team Play, and Keep It Real – and translated them into values in action. “So I have behavioral signposts that we can pull into performance and development conversations, the promotion process, and more,” she explained. “We doubled down on culture so that we wouldn’t get washed away in this hybrid environment.”

Connect across geographies.

Yes, remote work comes with its own set of challenges. But the beauty of technology is that it generates new connections that may have never been built otherwise. Karin Knecht, director, global talent, learning and organizational development, shared how Livingston International has redesigned virtual training. “We are connecting people from all over the world. It’s the first time our colleagues in Poland are in the same session as colleagues from Mexico and North America. People really enjoy that and we see people have become closer,” she said.

Leverage the power of peers.

One of the mistakes some HR teams make is thinking they need to craft and deliver a solution to every people challenge. But Laura Lee shared that her team has seen success in just bringing the right people together to ideate and problem solve. She shared an example of Enboarder’s senior manager group, which is all our leaders who report into Enboarder’s C-suite and have direct reports.

“They started meeting once a month and we had initial ideas about what they ought to discuss around the flow of information and connectivity in the organization,” she said. “But organically that group has evolved and they’ve become a peer knowledge center for one another.” So during the performance management process, some of the group members offered to coach their peers on how to have difficult conversations.

Use communication to drive retention.

During the internal communications panel, Brent discussed how critical effective communication is in retaining employees. “I see it less as direct execution and more about architecting. How do you help managers be better communicators with their staff? And a lot of managers need the help. The skills you’ve got in terms of helping managers be more empathetic is what’s going to lead to better engagement,” he argued.

Tell a better story.

As an HR business partner, are you more of an order taker or a strategic business partner? Nicole Neal, head of internal communications at Zurich North America, argued that HR and internal comms can add much more value when they can shape a company story that connects employees to purpose. “I like to say it’s either going to be an epic love story and giving people reasons to stay, or it can be a nightmare, and we would prefer to not have the nightmare stories,” she said. “It’s not just telling people things. It is how we bring them in and involve them in the story.”

Navigate the future of work with Enboarder

Each of these tactics can bring you one step closer to building a culture of connection and belonging. But using technology like Enboarder’s Human Connection Platform® makes it that much easier to scale your programs, whether you’re building an internal comms strategy or launching a new learning and development series. Schedule a demo today to learn more!