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Future of Digital Work: Ongoing Renewal and Acceleration

Savvy CEOs are inspiring their executive leadership team to clearly articulate a 'Digital Workspace' strategy that will differentiate them from their peer group within the Global Networked Economy. Today, a compelling digital business growth agenda is a paramount goal for all forward-looking board of directors.

As Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) continue to address the changes in disrupted business environments, as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Gartner has identified five key 'future of work' decisions that the enterprise human resources (HR) team must address in 2021 and beyond.

Major shifts in macroeconomic factors -- such as customer behaviors and government regulations -- and in micro factors -- including organizational strategy and policy -- have substantially shortened HR leaders’ time horizons when planning for the inevitable future commercial environment.

Digital Workspace Market Development

"2021 will be a year of not just recovery, but renewal and acceleration as organizations adopt new business, technology and talent strategies," said Emily Rose McRae, director at Gartner. "Given the tectonic shifts of 2020, HR leaders will have to face decisions they must be ready to make in order to set their organizations up for success."

Five key decisions HR leaders must make in 2021:

Triggers for Revising Workforce Strategies -- At some point in 2021, organizations will need to revisit the remote and hybrid work policies written during the pandemic crisis. Successful HR leaders will establish triggers for reviewing and revisiting their organizations’ remote and hybrid workforce strategies, rather than waiting for the strategies to become impractical.

According to the Gartner assessment, there are two types of workforce triggers – talent and situational. Talent triggers ensure that business leaders can monitor threats to the organization’s talent strategy.

With situational triggers, HR leaders identify challenges emerging from strategic decisions, such as having teams in different regions and at one-off locations.

Emerging Technologies for Onsite Employees -- HR leaders will need to look for opportunities to reduce the necessity for employees to perform tasks on-site, and emerging technologies will play a key role in this process.

Robotic process automation (RPA) and immersive technologies – such as virtual and augmented reality – are two categories of technology that are likely to help reduce the need for onsite work.

RPA addresses barriers to create more efficient workflows; as a result, organizations have turned to this technology as a solution for business recovery and renewal.

A 2020 Gartner survey revealed that nearly a quarter of senior finance leaders plan to increase investments in RPA as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immersive technologies will help organizations create new channels for high-value digital interaction, experiences that would be otherwise difficult to replicate in a hybrid workforce.

HR leaders should consider how investing in these technological tools will create demand for new roles or skill sets.

Redefining the Office Space -- In 2021, employees will work at home, onsite and potentially in third-party spaces. Corporate offices will now compete to serve employees’ physical and emotional work needs. Organizations must decide what their corporate offices can offer employees that other spaces cannot.

To do this, HR leaders must understand employees’ emotional needs and identify opportunities where the workplace can meet these needs.

This requires HR to work with other business leaders to make decisions about the purpose of corporate spaces and how to evolve them, while also determining how and when to reduce the organization’s real estate footprint.

Employment Model Innovations -- Many organizations experimented with innovative employment models as a pandemic response, such as offering 80 percent pay for 80 percent of full-time hours to employees who needed more flexibility, bringing in gig workers for pilot projects, or setting up formal talent sharing arrangements with other employers to make up for low talent supply.

Organizations need to decide whether to continue using these employment models going forward.

This will be particularly relevant for organizations with a high percentage of older employees in critical roles – offering greater flexibility in not just when employees are working, but how much they work, can help retain employees who otherwise might retire.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) -- Many organizations made new or heightened commitments to create more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces during 2020.

A 2018 Gartner survey found that 74 percent of employees expect their employer to take a stance on current societal or cultural issues, even if those issues have nothing to do with their employer.

Those demands have only become more urgent during recent protests demanding social equity and justice. In 2021, HR leaders need to evaluate their organization’s talent strategy to ensure it will meet their commitments to DEI.

Outlook for Digital Workspace Applications Growth

"Recruitment, compensation, performance management and workforce planning strategies all need to be evaluated to ensure they are in alignment with the organization’s goals and values, particularly if those shifted during 2020," said Ms. McRae.

I anticipate that we'll continue to see an evolution of the Digital Workspace, as more enterprise leaders seek ways to attract and retain the very best digital business transformation talent that they can find.

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