How to engage the workforce of today, and tomorrow

Six practical tips for engaging your digital workforce

1. Use technology as an enabler

We must realize that new products will continue to change how we do everything, at work as well as at home. When virtual-reality wearable glasses, avatars, and self-driving cars begin to sneak into the workplace, embrace it sooner rather than later.

2. Embrace disruption

Expect change. The speed of change is faster than ever. This causes greater lack of predictability, introduces us to new variables which we do not readily understand, and causes unclear cause and effect relationships. Embrace the mess and sort it out.

Read more: Digital upskilling: Modern workers are hungry for learning

3. Leverage information technology

Use social media often and always for better and faster results. The Twitter campaign after the Paris attacks organized thousands of safe places for residents to stay in one hour – where it would have taken months to achieve the same results without social media. Use this capability.

4. Become excellent at iteration

Good project management is still very much needed but iterating toward an acceptable launch is the new norm rather than waiting for the 100% perfect solution and then determining a roll-out plan. Learn how to iterate and get comfortable with small steps and incremental change.

Read more: Digital community that fosters employee belonging launches in NZ

5. Use the crowd wisely – For leaders, don’t think you must do it all. As Steve Jobs once said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Enough said.
6. Go beneath the surface – There has always been a delicate balance between data and intuition and that has not and will not change. The new challenge in the digital age is determining how to use the science, the data, in tandem with the art – the human element. We will continue to be asked to balance these two elements in our daily work and expected to look deeper to make good decisions, given that we will have more data at our fingertips to analyse and yet still need to make decisions that impact employees.

Download the free whitepaper and gain insight into:

• Digital transformation goes well beyond just automation
• HR's digital future depends on its ability to listen and adapt
• HR should embrace disruption, not run from it
• Your talent strategy can't thrive without good data
• Gamification, AI, and analytics are set to rewire HR as we know it

Download the full FREE whitepaper here: Don’t let technology outpace your people