TalentCulture #WorkTrends

What's happening today has thrown lives and work into turmoil, but we've never adapted more quickly. What's enabling some businesses to pivot in record time is being grounded in the technology needed to keep the workflow going, and the people who possess the digital skills to make it happen. Digital skills were in high demand before Covid-19, part of the digital transformation some call Work 4.0, and that demand is increasing. As businesses scale, adjust, strategize, and aim for the future, their survival depends on workforce that's skilled in digital skills — including analytics, data-driven decision making, and new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. How do you create that workforce, as a startup, an SMB, as a Fortune 500? By understanding the nature of your business, assessing what you need to function, and identifying the gaps. And there are effective strategies to assess the digital skills of prospective hires today that accommodate a changed hiring landscape. On this episode of #WorkTrends, sponsored by SAS, our guest is Sean O'Brien, Senior Vice President, Education at SAS. We're discussing how to create a digitally skilled workforce, including assessing the skills gaps you may not even realize you have in your company. Sean will talk about the new realities and challenges organizations face as far as hiring talent, and how to better develop the talent you already have.

On a granular level, work cultures are made of relationships, and relationships are made of interactions. Every interaction we make has the opportunity to benefit our relationships or potentially cause damage. In work, where relationships are the backbone of collaboration, productivity, engagement and teamwork, interactions are important to get right. But it's not always that easy, or that simple. Even before the pandemic triggered a lockdown and work from home, we weren't always succeeding. Now that we're working remotely with increased distraction and less direct contact, or on the front lines as essential workers under tremendous pressures, the dynamics have gotten even more complicated. Zoom fatigue and incivility are just two factors undermining our working relationships, whether we're aware of them or not. Today, Robin Rosenberg, CEO and Founder of Live in Their World, as well as an executive coach and clinical psychologist, joins #WorkTrends to talk about the best practices for improving our work interactions and our empathy for each other, and learning how to repair the damage before it adds up to an impasse. Robin's organization, Live in Their World, uses VR technology to teach us not just how to walk in each other's shoes, but "in their feet," to truly experience their perspective and build bridges rather than walls.

What is wellness? The definition has been thrust into high contrast by COVID-19 and our changing work landscape. Working remotely or not, employers tending to employee well-being are finding themselves at the cutting edge of employee experience when their wellness offerings fit the needs and lives of their people. At #WorkTrends we're looking at some of the companies who are focusing on wellness as a key differentiator -- in terms of employee performance and experience, and also customer experience. And we're looking at how the pressures and challenges today are helping to catalyze a new definition of what wellness means. It's not a matter of offering isolated benefits or perks anymore — it can't be. As companies shift to flexible and remote working out of necessity, they're finding the need to provide a through-and-through culture that embodies their values — and wellness is an enormous component. Today I'm bringing Arthur Matuszewski, VP of Talent, Better.Com to #WorkTrends to talk about how he and his company are innovating a wellness culture that employees thrive on. It has demonstrable benefits in terms of customer success, and some of its most popular elements may surprise some in this audience.

Work is all about relationships — you and your boss, you and your managers, you and your teammates, you and your direct reports, and everyone else. Every single one of the relationships we have at work (as well as everywhere) has to be carefully managed, or it can go south fast. At work, compound that need to manage your relationships with the pressure of the workflow, and there's little margin for error. And teams are becoming the functional nucleus for more and more organizations. 81% of employees work on teams — cross-functional, multi-layered, remote, hybrid, of all shapes and sizes. And no team can function without great management and great relationships. But here's the good news: managing is a skill like any other. There are effective strategies and approaches for every kind of managing we do: up, down and across — to improve our work, our effectiveness, and our relationships. Today we're going to learn from an expert on the workplace — in fact she's an expert on so many facets of technology and teams that it's hard to keep track.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered intense economic and social disruption and it's far from over. And our work landscape has changed and will continue to evolve. For businesses, steering through COVID-19 and navigating this new work landscape requires savvy and careful strategizing. More than ever, HR is playing a critical role. And you need the best information you can right now — from managing a newly remote workforce, facilitating furloughs and layoffs, and helping the business leverage provisions of the CARES Act, understanding and tapping into the Paycheck Protection Program. This is a new normal that can seem like anything but normal, and among many HR practitioners, there's a very real need for guidance and support. One very effective strategy is HR outsourcing. But it's not about giving up control. It's about the value it can bring to the business. Today I'm bringing Tom Hammond, VP, Corporate Strategy and Product Management at Paychex, to #WorkTrends for this sponsored podcast on the why and the how of outsourcing HR. We're going to talk about the best strategies for surviving these tough times, and supporting our businesses and our employees through it. In light of COVID-19, we'll be looking at a range of outsourcing models — such as professional employer organizations (PEOs) and administrative services organizations (ASOs). We want to help our listeners understand how these solutions can support them right now — when we really need them.

Right now organizations are seeing their mettle tested and one thing that's helping them keep their workforces aligned, engaged and supported is a great company culture. We're going to talk with organizational culture expert Josh Levine about what makes a company culture matter now — such as how leaders play a key role, and why being there for your people may also mean shifting priorities for the duration. Messaging and zingy purpose statements aside, companies that operate from a foundation of truly essential values and demonstrate caring and perspective are the companies who are going to do better in the long run. Can we say that a culture of caring is good for business? Right now, I think we can. And Josh Levine has a lot to say about what we can all do to strengthen our culture — and strengthen our connections to each other as we work remotely, work differently, and work together.

The world of work is in the midst of a reckoning. From finance to retail to hospitals to energy to technology, there's not one sector that has not felt an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic of its toll on the economy . But we're evolving, and quickly. Weeks in, many organizations are past that sudden pivot to remote teams and are now stepping back from doing triage to think about what's truly important for supporting our people. That includes technology, security, and knowledge — as in learning the skills, approached, and technologies we need to know to function. Laying the framework for a successful shift to what happens now, and in the future, depends on expanding on the lessons we're learning right now. Today I'm talking to Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek, Chief Marketing Officer at Skillsoft, to #WorkTrends for this sponsored podcast on the key to remote workplaces that allow your people to excel, thrive and grow. We're going to talk about the challenges for leaders and managers to engage and support their remote teams, why knowledge is so important right now to all of us.

On today's #WorkTrends podcast we're talking about the skills our workforce will need for the future — and why we need them now. The skills we're going to need to achieve in the workplace of the future have everything to do with attributes, behaviors, habits and mindset that support collaboration, creativity and innovation, and empathy. And the new workforce is trending to high-performing, sometimes cross-functional teams, with less hierarchy and more independence. To thrive in this context, we need to harness our incredible potential as humans — and be able to use our skills to excel. This is going to matter increasingly, as we face the hybrid workplace of the near future. Today's guest, Angela Maiers, is here to get us mapping to the skills of the future. Angela is an edupreneur, a futurist, an author, an innovator, and the founder of Choose2Matter, a global nonprofit.

As younger-gen (I'm not saying young gen intentionally) and Next Gen hires come into organizations and show their incredible aptitude and promise, we're certainly justified in wanting to reward them and promote them. Continuity is on our minds right now as we search for the light at the end of the tunnel of this current crisis — and look for how we're going to sustain our organizations for the future. And it's the bright stars in our own workforce that may wind up leading the way. So how do we best develop them? How can smaller organizations keep pace and provide access to coaching and support? The answer may lie in AI. An AI-driven digital coach named Amanda is actually proving to be a phenomenal solution for companies looking to train, develop, and educate front-line managers, supervisors, and upcoming leaders. It was launched by Kevin Kruse of LEADX using technology powered by IBM Watson. We're going to talk about what it is, how it works, and why it's leveling the playing field for organizations no matter their size. Both 80% of those polled on whether or not they wanted robot coaching, and the same percentage of those polled on whether or not they want human coaching said yes, they do. The bottom line isn't machine or person. It's having a coach, period. And the results with Coach Amanda are really compelling.

Even right now, even with everything, we need to amp up our workplaces like never before. Culture keeps us together — but you can't create a great culture if you're not leading like a rockstar, and treating your employees like MVPs. So many organizations are morphing right now into remote and fragmented workforces — by necessity. But we're really looking for the glue that will keep us together. Tell you what we all need to keep the beat: Culture. A culture that celebrates empathy, emotional intelligence, innovation, alignment and growth Culture is a dynamic reality that can make our people feel awesome and want to keep on rocking. Or, it can make them want to go join another band. Culture also sets us on a course for the future. And all the organizations I know are obsessed with what the future holds. Culture helps us attract the next superstars to our organization, helps the leaders connect with the rest of the workforce, and supports the employees who have the promise to really go the distance and be the next leaders. And that's what Jim Knight is all about. He's a standout expert on workplace cultures and rockstar leaders. So we're going to talk as well about how you can become that leader — who creates an amazing workplace culture, embodies it, and keeps it evolving, current, and sustaining for the long-term. And hey, we love those bands that have stood the test of time and stayed relevant through the decades, am I right?