Step Up or Step Aside: The Impact of Restructuring

As the business landscape continues to shift and evolve, many executives may be feeling uncertain about their futures. In the face of widespread insolvencies, profit warnings, and restructuring plans, it’s more important than ever to seek out strong executive career advice to ensure that you’re prepared for any potential disruptions in your career path. With so many factors at play, from global supply chain disruptions to changing consumer behaviors, it’s critical to have a solid strategy in place to navigate these uncertain times and come out on top.

In moments like these, the focus often shifts to the business, with leaders needing to make careful and difficult decisions on whether to adjust structures that might be undermining growth or change strategic direction towards some form of transformation. This may require reworking practices, introducing new technology and new operating models, rethinking customer segmentation, geography, making challenging staffing decisions, re-evaluating and redirecting investments, or a combination of these. Clearly, the primary objective is to safeguard the future of the business.

But when these moments strike, how do executives demonstrate value and the impact they can make? How can you become an integral part of a solution driving growth and setting the organisation up for continued success? Read on for our experts’ top executive career advice for navigating a restructuring.

Stepping Up

When the business takes centre stage during times of turmoil, the focus is usually on the collective rather than the individual. No one is going to automatically push you up the ladder or carve out routes to progression for you. Promotions and pay rises are not guaranteed. The responsibility of managing your career has to be completely your own.

This can feel equally daunting and liberating. It also presents a choice. You can choose to become complacent and let the future happen, or you can seize control of your own destiny. Only by having a clear plan that puts your career into your own hands carving out the right opportunities for yourself do you give yourself the best opportunity to progress.

Being able to take initiative and inspired action whilst adding value and driving results will become critical. Restructuring challenges senior leaders to either step up or step aside. Rather than bowing out and accepting the latter option, most will look to take their career and their skills to that next level, whatever it might be.

Mindsets and Skills for Success

In the evolving environment, our experts’ executive career advice is to consider setting yourself standards to make game changing, transformational career moves. It is important to think both internally and externally about your value and impact.

What can be done from within to make an impact? What external factors may be holding the business back, or influencing the conditions in which it operates? You must understand which challenges lie on both sides and how you should be equipped to help overcome them.

• Confidence, Communication, and Conviction: If you have ideas about how you can help the business progress where it’s clear a restructure is needed, now is the time to speak up. Do not be afraid to put your ideas forward and become part of a solution. Do not assume that others have noticed the same things you have. You need to be willing to be the person who points out flaws in the ‘as is’ status quo and who does not let complacency and comfort overrule progress. Some executives may feel they lack internal support during a change when the focus is solely on keeping the business on course, so they must therefore be willing to back themselves and become their own greatest advocate. That said, volatile times often create high stress and pressured environments where miscommunication may occur. The clarity and delivery of your ideas is just as important as the confidence with which you present them. Because of the pressures involved, you may need to navigate a wide range of emotions with the leadership team and stakeholders.
• Relationship Management: It is crucial to have a united front on the inside of the organisation. Alignment amongst team members is key to delivering transformation. Global research continues to demonstrate that most transformations fail because stakeholders are not aligned. Understandably, it may feel like ‘every man for themself’ as economic and operational uncertainties lead to stress and reflection. For leaders, it is important to gain an understanding of what your team’s personal priorities are in order to effectively influence them to buy into your organisation’s change and growth objectives. You need to get comfortable with wearing various hats simultaneously playing different roles with different people. With the board and C Suite, you may need to become an advocate for your team or an advisor. For your team, you should provide a stabilising force. With clients/customers, you offer a much-needed resource. As situations evolve, you will need to navigate these various relationships with tact, empathy, and sensitivity.
• Agility and Future Focus: We can expect some of the current volatility in market dynamics to stay for a while, which will require a willingness to adapt accordingly. Once today’s challenges subside, new ones will spring up in their place. It is likely that we will see an endless cycle of disruption that ebbs and flows, and senior executives must be ready to evolve and lead. That means developing the ability to adapt in real time while also looking ahead. We know current threats such as climate change and digitisation will remain for the long term, so it’s best to embrace them now. But it is not just our challenges that will change. We have already seen shifts with hybrid working, and our working models will continue to evolve. Expect to see rigidity and hierarchical structures challenged by these dynamics for more fluid ways of working that favour project-based and people centred leadership styles for maximum adaptability. Restructuring offers an ideal opportunity to adopt new practices that improve the business’s efficiency and profitability, so it is better to embrace agility now to set the organisation up for future flexibility.
• Customer Centricity: If you are not also considering how these changes will impact your customers, then the battle is lost before it has even begun. Every challenge your business faces trickles down to your customer through the products and services you are able—or unable—to offer successfully. Your customers must be at the very core of all the efforts that spring up from a restructure. Their needs should underlie every idea you propose. They should be at the core of all strategic conversations and inform any changes you make to your practices. The aim of a restructure is to make the business as efficient as possible and increase its profitability. It is ultimately your customers who will be impacted by these changes, and whose activities will make or break your efforts. Keeping their needs front of mind is non-negotiable.
• Digital Capabilities: Digital will underscore all of this. Digital transformation has accelerated and is increasingly critical for survival. Understanding the new tools in the market and having the capabilities to use them will be highly valuable. You may be tasked with adopting these tools in your role, introducing them to your team, or implementing them into your new, restructure-driven strategy. Fundamentally, digital capabilities are becoming much more imperative for current and future business success as most Boards will invest more in this area in the future.

With so many moving parts in the wider external market and within your own internal business landscape, making time to step up, take control of your career, and drive impact may feel a bit daunting. But if you don’t, then who will? Having command over your next move and honing the right skills will enable you to become an asset for business transformation and success and will demonstrate your continued value as business dynamics evolve and organisations transition from one phase to the next. Be willing to back yourself and put your ideas forward, because you just might have exactly the solution that a business needs to charge ahead.

It is easy to understand why so many professionals choose LinkedIn as their preferred medium for building their personal brand and navigating an executive job search. When used correctly and strategically, this platform can be an incredibly powerful and valuable tool for senior executives looking to build their profile, enhance their career prospects and expand their networks. One study found that 122 million people received an interview through LinkedIn with 35.5 million having been hired by a person they connected with on the site, highlighting the potential to create real opportunities from this platform.

With approximately 830 million LinkedIn users in more than 200 countries worldwide, the site has become a staple of professional activity. Because of its popularity, many executives are drawn to building their presence on LinkedIn as opposed to pursuing other thought leadership avenues such as registering as a speaker, creating their own website, or starting a podcast. LinkedIn boasts built-in audiences and some great features to allow you to reach them.

We know that crafting a personal digital brand is not like creating your CV, so bringing it to life online takes more than simply having a flat profile on multiple platforms. Creating a successful personal digital brand involves taking the time to be present and comfortable in a nonstop online discussion environment and to effectively live out the brand you have established.

If LinkedIn has been your chosen medium thus far, it is likely that you have the basics completed but are looking to take your LinkedIn use to the next level or have some questions about how to use the site to your maximum advantage. We have compiled a list of five frequently asked questions from our clients about using the site in an executive job search and beyond that may help you enhance your presence and derive real benefit from your LinkedIn activity:

1. Should I use the ‘Repost’ or the ‘Share with your own thoughts’ option?

The ‘Repost’ feature on LinkedIn is one of its newest additions as of summer 2022. Similar to Twitter’s ‘Retweet’ function, choosing ‘Repost’ will share that post with your followers. It will appear the same as it does on your feed, with a small bar above it that indicates you have reposted it.

While this may help a post from your peer or company page get more views or engagement, it does very little for you in terms of thought leadership. We usually recommend our Personal Digital Branding clients use the ‘Share with your own thoughts’ option and take the time to add a bit of commentary with your thoughts on the posts’ content. The only drawback of this option is how LinkedIn’s algorithm treats Shared posts. If you have used this feature before, you may have noticed that your Views or interactions were lower on these posts compared to any original posts you may have sent. There is no real explanation for why LinkedIn does this, but it is something to consider when debating what option to use.

A great alternative is to leave a salient and thoughtful comment on the original post, as posts you’ve commented on will still appear in your followers’ feeds. This option will also put you in front of the original poster’s audience and potentially lead to more eyes on your profile, new connections, or opportunities.

2. Can others see the things I like and comment on?

Yes. Anyone who visits your profile can see what you have shared, what posts you have liked, and what comments you have left on others’ posts in the ‘Activity’ section. Those you are connected to will see this content on their feeds, and above the post in question will be a bar with your name and an indication of how you interacted with that post (i.e. “commented on this” or “finds this insightful”).

Therefore, it is important to be mindful of what you say and do on the platform both inside and outside your own profile. You never know what recruiter, potential employer, or other potentially beneficial connection may see your activity and what impressions of you they may draw from it. It is critical to ensure that all aspects of your professional profile, including your activity, are aligned to what your current or future employer might expect from you. It is also crucial to consider what audiences you might want to reach, networks you may want to be a part of, or thought leadership perceptions you may want to create and tailor your activity to those specific audiences. If you want to be associated with a specific thought leadership subject, try to interact with content related to those subjects so that anyone who checks your Activity will see that you are truly engaged with the topics you are championing. Ensure that the trail you are leaving online is a good reflection of how you would like to be perceived professionally.

3. Is there a limit on how many connections I can have?

Yes and no. To push the value of quality connections over quantity, LinkedIn caps the number of ‘Connections’ you can have at 30,000. The thinking behind this is that no one could possibly know or communicate with more than 30,000 people on a professional level, and even that many is overly generous. When you are Connected to another LinkedIn user, you gain access to each other’s networks, you can send direct messages to one another, and you will see each other’s content on your feed. But what happens once you exceed 30,000?

Anyone who tries to Connect with you after you hit this threshold will instead become a ‘Follower.’ What this means is that they will see your content in their feed, but not vice versa, and they will also lack all of the other benefits of a Connection. The same will apply if you try to Connect with anyone else.

LinkedIn does offer the option for you to trigger this earlier than 30,000 Connections with what it calls ‘Creator Mode.’ If you enable this setting, no one will be allowed to Connect with you, even if you have less than 30,000 Connections. Instead, the only option is to Follow. They will see your content, but you will not see theirs.

While enabling this setting may sound appealing from a thought leadership standpoint, we typically advise our Personal Digital Branding clients against it. Most senior executives will be looking to expand their networks and engage in meaningful interactions with industry peers. If your aim is to make a career change or to attract new opportunities, Creator Mode makes it much more difficult to get in contact with you. Creator Mode is best reserved for those purely focused on thought leadership who are not interested in building out their network. Think of business leaders like Richard Branson and Bill Gates, whose LinkedIn profiles are set to Creator mode and only enable you to Follow rather than send a Connection request.

4. Should I ‘cold connect’ with someone on LinkedIn?

If you are looking to build a stronger network and actually derive value from it, then you need to be thoughtful and strategic about the people you connect with. Networking can certainly be a numbers game, but at the senior level you should have a good idea of which Connections might or might not be ones you can share useful insights with. Our experts’ advice is to not just accept any and every Connection request that comes through and instead exert a bit of judgement over the potential shared benefit of being in the same network.

That said, that does not mean you cannot connect with someone you have never met in person. If there is someone you feel could be a good Connection for you to have, there is no harm in sending them a request. However, if you are going to do this, we recommend that you think about what shared value, interest, or connection you have that would persuade this person to want to connect with you. For example, if you have something relevant in common such as your membership in the same LinkedIn Group, attendance at the same industry event, or Connections in common, that could provide the link you need and demonstrate enough mutual benefit for that person to accept your invitation.

If a link is present, customise the text of your Connection invite to reflect this. After saying hello, make brief mention of why you are sending an invite or how you came across their profile, and mention that it would be great to connect before signing off the message. While technically a ‘cold connection’, you have warmed up the connection with relevancy and are more likely to be successful at adding this person to your network.

If there is not a common link, you will need to be a bit more strategic with your approach. Connections should be mutually beneficial. You will have identified your reasoning for wanting to connect with this person, but what benefit could the connection bring to them? Since you will not have common ground to work from in this case, you will need to approach your connection invitation from those benefits you have identified. Since this is a true cold contact, you need to clearly express why it is you have reached out and what benefits you feel the connection could produce. If you are unable to determine what those benefits are, or if they skew in your favour with little to no benefit for the other person, it is probably best not to pursue that cold Connection.

Remember, your Connection request messages can be a maximum of 300 characters, so use them wisely. Consider this invitation to be the short elevator pitch, opening the doors to a longer conversation once the request has been accepted.

5. What are some Settings I should enable or disable?

LinkedIn offers a whole host of privacy and visibility settings to enable you to share as much or as little as you’d like. However, there are a few that we recommend either enabling or disabling completely, most of which fall under the Visibility category.

Your Visibility settings control what visitors to your profile can or cannot see before they are a Connection. The first on this list is Profile Viewing, which offers three options for visibility. We strongly recommend you use the first option, which shows your profile photo, full name, and headline to everyone. The other two settings make your profile much more vague and makes you harder to find, which can be detrimental for attracting opportunities or recruiters.

Also under Visibility, you will find ‘Connections.’ This setting allows your Connections to see your full Connections list. You might be okay with this, in which case you can leave it On. However, you may want to be a bit protective of your Connections for various reasons. For example, if you are in a highly competitive and contacts-driven industry, you may not want competitors to be able to use your Connections list to identify who your clients are. If you feel it best to keep your Connections private, turn this setting to Off.

Another key Visibility setting is ‘Profile discovery and visibility off LinkedIn,’ which controls whether or not your profile can be found via search engines such as Google. We strongly recommend leaving this enabled so that your LinkedIn appears as one of the top results when anyone Googles your name. The more places you are visible, the better. It is up to you whether or not you would like potential contacts to find you on LinkedIn using your email or phone number. These settings are more of a personal preference.

A final setting you may want to consider whether to disable is ‘Share profile updates with your network’ under Visibility. If you have this setting enabled, your Connections will receive a notification any time you update your profile with a new role, education, awards, and so on. If you are someone who updates your profile frequently or are in the process of making some major changes, you may want to switch this setting to Off to avoid overwhelming your network with notifications. Alternatively, if you are not someone who regularly updates their profile or have not amended your information in a while, having this setting enabled may be a good way to prompt your contacts to touch base with you about the new changes in your career. If you are on the fence about whether or not to use this setting, an alternative is to disable it and instead share your milestones and good news in a post.

LinkedIn may seem tricky to master but be patient with it. Over time, you may find that what works for others is not the same as what works for you. Do not be afraid to experiment until you find the settings, habits, and content that serve you best.

We hope this Q&A helps give you a jumping off point with some best practice, and if you would like some personalised help with your LinkedIn presence and personal digital brand, you can reach out our team on +44 (0) 20 3746 2960.

If 2020 was the year of change, then 2021 was the year of adaptation. Last year threw disruption at us from every angle, and this year was all about adjusting to those new market conditions, customer behaviours, regulations, disruptive technologies and expectations. The disruption continued, but we were better placed to cope with it. At times, it felt like taking two steps forward and one step backwards, making progress but slowly. Gradually, we managed to rebuild and recover rather than focusing our energy on fighting fire after fire as it became apparent that the world would not revert back to how it was pre COVID-19.

As 2021 draws to a close, it’s become apparent over these final weeks of the year that our need for adaptation and learning hasn’t ended. We need to continue on the journey to ensure we’re not set back.  So, before we all switch off to recharge over the festive period, let’s take a moment to reflect on the lessons of 2021 so that we may come back even stronger in 2022!

Where We Started

In December 2020, we published our annual predictions for the new year. At this point in time, the UK had not yet locked down for a third time, the Government had not introduced its roadmap out of lockdown, and only the eldest and most vulnerable of us had received the vaccine. Our predictions were born out of uncertainty and caution, but with the optimism that we would finally begin to move forward.

There is a lot that our and other commentators end-of-year predictions got right, but none of us could have predicted that it would all play out exactly the way that it did. For example, we predicted that the customer journey would become increasingly digital and experiential, but we could not have guessed that the global supply chain to provide them with products would become so unstable. Based on the public stances that many of the world’s biggest companies took in regard to their business models last year and with the third UK lockdown looming overhead as we made our 2021 predictions, we knew remote work would continue in some form but could not have forecasted that it would contribute to one of the biggest employment shifts in our lifetime. And though many statistics and surveys of the UK’s professionals indicated a majority preference for flexibility, many businesses learned the hard way just how serious their employees were about continuing on this way.

The Great Resignation is arguably one of the biggest disruptions we saw this year, though it was not the employment shakeup any of us would have guessed would happen. At the start of this year, it seemed most possible that the end of the furlough scheme would rock the job market and lead to mass redundancy. Instead, we saw people willingly leave their roles in search of something ‘better,’ whether that be in terms of pay, flexibility, or culture. Staff and executives alike don’t want to be ‘managed’ or ‘told what is, ’ but instead want to play a role in co-creation and are willing to move on to an organisation that will allow them to do so. As a result, we are seeing record-breaking employment figures and an increasingly complex job market.

Where We Stand

In the latest ONS Employment in the UK update, it was estimated that the unemployment rate is at 4.2%, which is 0.2 percentage points higher than before the pandemic but 0.4 points lower than the previous quarter. The employment rate grew as well, rising 0.2 percentage points from the previous quarter to 75.5%. A net increase of 304,000 people moved from unemployment into work in Q3, the biggest jump on modern records dating back to 2001. The data also shows that the number of vacancies in the market reached a record high in the three months to November, climbing to more than 1.2 million. The UK job market is rebounding as anticipated, with plenty of opportunity available.

But if things seem to be improving, what does that say about the Great Resignation? The latest ONS figures primarily reflect the months leading up to October and November, meaning we won’t know until early 2022 what happened in the final three months of 2021. If the impacts of the Great Resignation aren’t already being felt, they likely will be soon. In a poll from Randstad published in November, 24% of employees in the UK reported plans to move jobs within the next three to six months.

In the new year, this will all have major implications for both leaders and executives undergoing their own career transitions. For these executives, this may mean even fiercer competition in an already challenging executive job market. The desirable roles will be highly sought after by a pool of qualified candidates from around the world, making it more imperative than ever to differentiate oneself.  For leaders, it means a reset in what ‘leadership’ really looks like.

What Comes Next

The situation cannot change unless organisations and their leadership lead the charge. One thing is clear: If businesses have any hope of bouncing back strong in 2022, they need to shift focus from recovering profits to retaining their people. Here are our top predictions for the year to come:

The Great Recruitment Challenge: The Great Resignation has created market conditions that will be difficult for both executives and organisations to navigate. While the resignations mean that fresh talent is entering the market, the competition between employers to secure this talent will be fierce. On the other side of the coin, with so much qualified talent in the market, executives will have a harder time securing the desirable roles. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword for the executives undergoing career transitions. The Great Resignation is opening up more opportunities in the market, but there’s a reason for that. In the wake of this wave of resignations, it’s easy for an executive to be a bit wary about why a seemingly fantastic role has suddenly opened up. If an executive is undergoing a career transition in search of specific criteria, they may have a hard time finding that.

For employers, an ageing population, disrupted immigration post-Brexit, and the strong recovery in customer demand have put additional strains on the labour markets that will remain throughout 2022. The pandemic shifted our priorities in so many ways, and while many organisations were quick to adapt their practices to keep things ticking over, culture shifts have been much slower. Employers are going to have a difficult time drawing in the talent that they want if they are not willing or able to provide the types of things today’s executives are looking for, which will be a real detriment to businesses looking to recruit next year.

The Great Retention Challenge: The culture issues will also make it much harder to hold on to the organisation’s existing talent. In November, Rialto conducted a poll asking executives who were considering a career transition or who had recently resigned from their position what they were looking for most in their next role. The resounding majority (61%) reported wanting a better culture or leadership. Flexibility and salary took a back seat here in terms of priority, earning only 17% and 16% of the vote, respectively. This indicates that if organisations want to avoid having to battle a tight labour market, they need to fix the internal problems that may lead their existing talent to leave and may make it difficult to attract new talent.

Leaders need to spend the start of 2022 identifying where these issues may be in order to address them. We are already seeing a trend of many leaders conducting ‘stay interviews’ with staff to unearth the grievances that may lead them to leave. Expect to spend much of your energy in Q1 2022 on rebuilding internally rather than branching out externally.

The Upskilling Imperative: The record-breaking number of vacancies in the market and high unemployment rates tell us that the problems in the market aren’t due to the number of roles or candidates available in the marketplace. Rather, it’s a skills issue. The jobs available simply don’t match the people. That of course makes it more difficult for executives in transition to find the types of roles they want or are suited for. Differentiation is more imperative than ever for executives. Adding desirable, future-focused skills to your arsenal can help to set you apart from other similar candidates and provide you with an edge in an increasingly competitive global job market. Tech skills as well as more human-centric capabilities such as strategic thinking, communication, empathy, and creativity will all be increasingly valuable in 2022.

But just as much as executives want desirable roles, employers want the best possible talent on their team. If battling the recruitment landscape is not a feasible option, consider investing internally into programmes that will equip your current workforce with the types of capabilities that will further the organisation’s strategic objectives and provide value to the organisation in the future. Not only that, but it shows your staff that you are invested in their success and may help your retention efforts. Leaders should also invest in their own skills to enhance their own capabilities and ensure they have what it takes to lead the workforce of the future.

The Leadership Reset: For leaders, it will take more than upskilling to become future ready. In 2022, there needs to be an overhaul of what leadership means and looks like. The role of a leader is becoming increasingly challenging. In addition to the challenges of the labour force, leaders are tasked with tackling changing market conditions, catering to customer expectations, answering to stakeholders, and generating value for the organisation during one of the most transitional periods of business in history. Not only that, but every major decision today’s leaders make plays out in the social media arena. Juggling one’s individual and organisational reputation while making the right moves for the business is a fine line to walk.

A dramatically-changed business landscape calls for an overhaul in mindset. The idea of what it means to be a leader needs to change in order to accommodate the shifts in employee and consumer priorities, technological innovation, and ways of working. If you throwing all of your energy into firefighting or profit building and aren’t thinking holistically about how all of these different come together to impact the success of your business, then you will struggle in 2022 and beyond. The shift in leadership needs to begin with the leaders themselves. In the new year, take time to reassess your approach. Be honest and critical, and accept that what has traditionally worked may no longer suit.

Dealing with Disruption: At this point, ongoing disruption has become less of a spanner in the works and more of an inevitability of our professional lives. The challenge for leaders in 2022 will be to come to terms with that reality and progress from there. The surging threat from the Omicron variant demonstrates that this pandemic is far from over, and COVID is something we will have to continue living with. With that in mind, how do you as a leader intend to deal with it? Moreover, our reliance on technology is deepening, with Statista forecasting an estimated $1.5 trillion USD will have been spent globally on digital transformation by the time the year ends. This number is predicted to rise to $1.8 trillion USD by the end of 2022 and more than double to $2.8 trillion by 2025. Technology is quickly advancing and at this rate, it is outpacing the rate at which humans can adapt. Leaders need to ensure they have the right skills to adjust, and the right mindset to generate buy-in. Additionally, sustainability is becoming a global priority, and can no longer be pushed aside for later. In 2022, leaders need to take decisive action to tackle these critical business issues and embrace disruption rather than constantly battling against it.

If the past two years have taught us anything at all, it is to expect the unexpected. There is no telling what 2022 will bring, but if we take the time to reflect and learn from our shortcomings, we can only improve. While 2021 called us to adapt, 2022 will require us to embrace and evolve so that we can not only drive business forward but also better what our working lives look like.

If you were to say that the pandemic changed the whole course of technology in business, you would only be partially correct. In truth, what the pandemic did was push us further and faster along a path we were already heading down. Digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption have been on the annual strategic agenda for many businesses for the past several years, mainly as an exploratory item. At the start of 2020, the average global share of products and/or services that were partially or fully digitised was at 35%. By the midway point to the year, that figure had jumped to 55%, indicating that the onset of the pandemic led to approximately seven years’ worth of progress in around six months[1].

Now that we are well on the path to some version of recovery, no one is going to drop their tools, say “Well, that was fun while it lasted,” and go back to the way things were before we realised we could do it all differently. Nor should we go back. The pandemic not only changed the market conditions that leaders must navigate in order to keep driving their business forward, but also changed the way they need to lead within new target operating models.

Much has been said about AI’s potential benefits for different business functions, but can this technology help leaders bridge some of their key people management challenges? We explore the question in 5 key areas:

1. Can it support business decision-making?

Just as businesses have begun using more technology in their day-to-day practices, so have their customers. Every website visit, virtual appointment, online communication, and social media interaction creates a data story that can tell business leaders more about their consumers needs, habits, wants, lifestyles, and feelings. But the problem usually is that most businesses have no idea what to do with any of this data or no way to make sense of it.

That’s where AI comes in. These tools can continuously collect, process, and analyse large volumes of data quicker and in more detail than any human could possibly replicate. This data is translated into more digestible formats for easier analysis, detailed forecasts, and insightful recommendations that bring focus to leaders and their teams more quickly. This analysis might reveal trends to expect, issues that have been overlooked, or areas for improvement.

Collecting and making sense of this data will fall on technology, but it is up to leaders to decide what they want to do with it. AI gives leaders the clearest picture possible of what they are up against and where the opportunities are. Because these tools work continuously and provide insights in real time, leaders can act fast to course correct and keep their finger on the pulse of an ever-changing consumer market. This capability will become increasingly valuable as global competition rises and the customer journey continues to evolve.

2. Can it support diversity and inclusion?

Issues of diversity, inclusion, and equality have been thrust squarely into the spotlight as several societal conflicts have arisen this past year. As a result, many decision-makers are taking more purpose-led approaches to leadership (we have a blog on that here) and prioritising these issues in their company’s strategy. For these efforts to be genuine, they need to be reflected in the makeup of the organisation.

AI helps to build more diverse teams through hiring by eliminating some of the inherent biases that human decision-makers may unknowingly bring with them into the process. By automating everything from scanning CVs to conducting early rounds of interviews, AI is able to keep the process as impartial as possible. Of course, this does not always work as intended. AI follows the algorithms that it is trained on, so if it is fed biased information its outputs will reflect that. For example, perhaps the algorithm is trained to hire candidates that sound like a good fit for the organisation and was trained to determine this ‘fit’ based on the organisation’s current team. If the existing staff is predominantly male, all went to a certain set of schools, or are a certain racial background, then the algorithm will most likely select candidates that also possess these attributes. Some have tried to counteract this by programming the algorithm to seek out clearly diverse candidates, but this practice of ‘token’ hiring has raised questions of whether this is a truly fair practice.

It is important for leaders to remain conscious of the suggestibility of algorithms if using AI tools with this purpose, but when programmed correctly these tools can facilitate more equal hiring and help to minimise some of the bias that presents itself in the process.

3. What benefits can it bring for recruitment and onboarding?

Beyond promoting more diversity, AI can make it easier to build the right team and support their growth long term. As mentioned, automation can be used to streamline some of the process, such as scanning CVs for keywords in order to narrow down your candidate pool. While this initial screening will likely be handled below the management level, the increased accuracy of this process helps to ensure that the candidates presented to decision-makers are the best talent available for the role.

Additionally, these tools can help ensure you match the right talent to the right roles, every time. This is typically accomplished through the use of augmented and autonomous AI to personalise the experience and guide the candidate to the role that best matches their capabilities. This makes it easier for the leader to ensure that they have the right skills on their team and the support they will need for long-term success.

Integrating new talent to your team is another area where AI thrives. Technology can help to improve the onboarding process by getting new hires up to speed efficiently and via a more tailored experience. For example, there are tools available that can match a new employee’s preferences with recommendations about which benefits package best suits their needs. Starting employees off on the right foot helps to improve long-term retention, meaning leaders can focus their attention on achieving objectives rather than worrying about their team.

4. How does it support upskilling and training?

While many organisations may be actively recruiting and some leaders are having to build and onboard new teams, others have focused their attention on their existing staff. The adoption of new technology impacts all parts of the organisation, not just those at the top. If new tools are being introduced, then training and upskilling activities may need to be undertaken in order to ensure the team has the right capabilities to use them effectively. But your people don’t know what they don’t know, and as a leader, you should never assume that all members of your team are on the same level of capability and comfort with using technology.

AI learning tools can not only assess your team’s current level of knowledge but also meet them where they are. The use of personalised learning tools in L&D functions is on the rise due to their ability to tailor training to suit individual skill levels and learning styles. For example, these tools might offer staff a series of questions or activities. On the back end, AI and machine learning algorithms are analysing the responses to pinpoint the individual’s level of understanding of the topic at hand. Based on this assessment, the platform may offer the information in a new format that is more suited to the individual’s learning style and repeat the lesson until the information is absorbed, or may deem it suitable to move on to the next lesson.

For leaders, this helps to ensure that staff are getting the necessary training in the most effective way possible. Training can be a costly expense for businesses and approaching this in a one-size-fits-all way cannot ensure effectiveness. Tailoring training to your team helps to engage them in their learning and provide the best chance at absorbing these new skills.

5. How can it impact culture, progression, and engagement?

In an ideal world, every team member would be perfectly satisfied in their role and your best team members would stick around forever. But that is not our world, and therefore leaders need to pay attention to their team’s needs, levels of engagement and team atmosphere.

Sentiment analysis tools are able to assess employee communications to identify potential dissatisfaction, while intelligent employee surveying can be used to gather insights directly from staff about their feelings. If an employee is showing signs of displeasure, AI algorithms can be trained to identify patterns that suggest when they may be ready to turn over. The system would then send an alert to the HR team, allowing them to intervene before it’s too late. In some cases, this desire to leave is tied to compensation. AI tools can analyse market factors, the employee’s performance, and their job achievement to help suggest compensation.

Beyond holding onto staff that is on the verge of turning over, AI can help your team progress within the organisation. Some talent intelligence platforms are able to provide personalised career guidance to employees based on their innate capabilities, potential, and future positions of interest to encourage long-term planning. Some companies use this intelligence to match employees with mentors in the organisation who can provide relevant advice related to that individual’s identified pathway. Additionally, these tools can help to identify higher performers who may be ready for the next level or may be well suited to a leadership opportunity.

The mark of a successful leader is a successful team. By partnering with AI, leaders can conduct more regular temperature checks with their people and intervene before issues can have negative consequences.

It’s clear that AI can take on some of the heavy lifting of leaders’ people management responsibilities, but it should be noted that this technology should be treated as a tool rather than a replacement. Leaders should not become complacent and expect that AI will solve all their problems. There still needs to be a ‘human touch’ involved, especially in matters of people management. When considering AI, leaders should simultaneously work to adapt their own styles and skillsets in order to incorporate these tools into their style of leadership, but should not lose sight of all the attributes that make them a strong leader in the first place.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever

The workforce landscape today looks quite different to what we saw back in March 2020. Since then, we have seen the unemployment rate fluctuate, predictions about the economy change like the weather, and a shift in the way we do business. Most organisations are battling an increasingly competitive marketplace, navigating disruptions in their supply chains, and adapting to changes in their customers’ habits and needs. Though the situation appears to be looking up, it is likely that businesses will be grappling with these challenges and impacts for many months to come.

As a result, most leaders recognise that there is an imperative to look at and think about ‘work’ differently, including what it really means, how it’s done, and where it is done. After operating in survival mode for the past year and considering these issues from a place of uncertainty and instability, many organisations will feel it is time to establish a more constant and stable foundation. The organisations that will come out on top are those who seize this moment to shape the future of work, developing new business models and ways of working that successfully encompass their purpose, goals, and vision while also improving the customer experience.

At the core of bringing these plans to life and enacting the vision day-to-day is the business’s people. People now need to be valued more highly than capital, or at least on par. Business leaders need to be thinking about the contributions their people can make, how their people need and want to work, and what their people need to do to help the business reach its objectives. This is where strategic ‘workforce planning’ can and should come into play because oftentimes, the most impactful change starts from within.

What is Strategic Workforce Planning?

Strategic workforce planning involves pulling together a coherent and agile plan that blends business strategy, people, data, and technology in order to make workforce composition and capability decisions that meet the organisation’s financial, productivity and customer targets.

During the planning process you may uncover a need to make some restructuring decisions, but there is far more to strategic workforce planning than hiring new talent or making redundancies that, if not thought through, can also create the risk of losing existing talent. These plans need to encompass how you intend to meet current demands in a sustainable, timely, and cost-effective way and they will likely require you to take an honest look at your existing workforce to spot risks and opportunities. If meeting the demands of the business means growing a specific area of it, do you intend to bring in new talent or invest in what you already have? Do you have the right skills in the right roles? Are there internal promotions you could make, or talent that would be better utilised in a different area of the business? Do you have the right expertise on your side in the necessary areas?

Putting people at the heart of any restructure is what will separate a successful attempt from a high risk one. The people in question will include both your internal and external stakeholders, such as your staff and your customers. All stakeholder groups have specific needs and roles to play in the function of your business, and the complex and wide-ranging needs of these varying audience groups may require deeper expertise in topics such as employment law, social planning, engagement, psychology, or consumer behaviour. Identifying the areas that need strengthening and working that into your plans by allocating the appropriate workforce resources will go a long way in helping restructuring efforts or transformation projects to succeed. Putting the building blocks together now ensures that HR teams, line managers, and business leaders have the opportunity to implement a smooth with mitigated risk.

A People-Centric Approach

People are one of the biggest if not the biggest expenditure of most organisations. Maximising the potential in this area is crucial, not just for the sake of your investment but also for the sake of your organisation. While strategising and planning happens at the top, your staff are the ‘boots on the ground’ actually bringing these plans to life. The C-Suite may determine what customer targets need to be met, but it’s the organisation’s employees who interact with those customers on a regular basis and have a direct responsibility for accomplishing the goals set by the higher ups. The people you choose to put in those roles matter.

Each member of the C-suite normally represents a different specific function of the business, whether it be Marketing and Sales, Operations, Technology, Diversity, Innovation, or even People, but they cannot properly fulfil their roles without all of the individuals representing different roles, specialisations, and functions throughout the organisation. Managing a dynamic workforce and supporting capability development that spans the entire business is a central challenge for leadership to overcome and relies heavily on successful communication.

Communication and Culture

In an ideal world, every business experiment, innovation, restructure, or project would run smoothly, effortlessly. Unfortunately, organisations don’t always have all the answers needed in order to make that happen and today’s environment is too dynamic to enable such change. As a result, successful firms are relying on their workforce to be part of the journey and play an active role in developing solutions to the problems that arise.

A key component of keeping a people-centric approach is not just assuming what’s best for your staff or customers, but actually communicating with them and shaping a fully inclusive culture. Don’t assume that your staff automatically have the skills you need, and attempt to identify which areas seem to be lacking. Don’t deliver your plans as edicts and expect buy-in, either. Allow your workforce to be architects of the organisation’s future structure and culture. Clarify and communicate an inspiring vision of what success looks like and how it will be measured, solicit employees’ opinions, listen to their contributions, take feedback on board and allow it to inform the strategy, and share impact measurements as they’re achieved. Ensure individuals know what is expected of them in terms of action and behaviour, and the role that they play in the bigger picture.

It would be remiss of the leadership team to not include elements of organisational culture in their strategic workforce planning. Focus on employee satisfaction in order to dam the flood of staff dissatisfaction or turnover and to build brand goodwill. If the last year has taught us one major HR lesson it is that one uniform way of working may not be the most effective approach for all staff. It’s worth rethinking ways of working to be more stimulating or providing staff with an environment that supports them in how they want or need to work, whether that environment be a designated office or a remote location. If skills gaps have been identified, encourage continuous learning or support upskilling initiatives. By investing in your people, you can broaden your horizons rather than narrowing them and build an environment that engenders a sense of purpose.

The most progressive employers will give their people a choice to join them on this new journey, or to bow out. Those employees who are not committed to the vision should be allowed to go with grace and without spectacle. After all, once they are no longer your employee, they could very well become your customer or a key thought leader in your industry.

The Role of Staff

While the brunt of strategic workforce planning will fall on the leadership team, there are a number of actions staff can do in order to support these efforts and ultimately shape their own career paths and future contributions.

The first and most imperative is to keep up with trends and identify future-focused skills that may be of long-term value to the organisation or may become a requirement for their role down the line. This provides a bit of leverage for the individual during organisational cutbacks and having these skills already on the payroll may help minimise leadership’s need to recruit new talent in order to meet their goals.

Once the new business models or plans have been introduced and the expectations have been clearly outlined, staff should take stock of their own behaviours to identify what needs to change in order to support a potential culture shift. It might involve becoming more open-minded to change, collaborative, communicative, innovative, or curious.

Finally, the people-first focus should not only be a leadership priority. As mentioned, it’s the staff who work most closely with the customers and who have the most first-hand knowledge of what their needs, priorities, habits, attitudes, or behaviours might be. It’s important to understand how these influences might impact the business on a large scale in terms of its products, services, profits, messaging, and so on. However, it’s also valuable to be able to maximise this knowledge on an internal basis in order to further your own career and help inform wider strategy.

In order to create impactful and widespread change for the business, the process often needs to start at its core with its people. From top to bottom, an organisation’s people play a crucial role in driving success, and therefore need to be one of the first areas considered when developing plans and solutions. But in order for a business to get the most out of this resource, it’s crucial to invest the time into proper planning, the resources for proper skills development, and the effort of cultivating a culture worth buying into. This may be a challenge for some Leaders, but it can make all the difference.

We recently discussed some of the strategic priorities regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology that leaders will need to keep in mind for the future. Whilst deciding on the best plan of action, there are many factors to consider. What is the current vs future 2–5-year climate likely to be? What will this mean for workforce reskilling and day-to-day practices? What ethical and governance issues need to be considered? These are just some of the crucial questions to consider when undertaking any digital or change programme.

The State of AI

One core message relayed in the previous blog is well worth reiterating here: artificial intelligence is no longer a distant ‘maybe.’ The time has arrived to either sink or swim, adapt or get left behind. AI is guiding decisions from crop harvesting, to bank loans, to medical and pharmaceutical testing.

The gravity of the situation is evidenced strongly in the various tech-focused initiatives included in the UK Government’s latest budget plans. Their aim is to support businesses, enabling them to come to terms with an increasingly digital climate. Two initiatives worth mentioning are a new fast-tracked visa to draw in top tech talent from around the world, as well as the £520 million Help to Grow scheme which is aimed at aiding SMEs to be more competitive while enhancing digital skills. The scheme will allow up to 130,000 SMEs to have subsidised access to university-level training, 50 hours of tuition, and one-to-one business mentoring. In order to further support digital transformation in enterprise, the scheme also includes a 50% government contribution towards productivity software up to £5,000 and delivered in vouchers.

According to a report released at the end of 2020, the UK is ranked third out of the G20 countries in terms of total implementation, innovation, and investment in AI. Britain is ranked first overall in ‘Operating Environment,’ which encompasses the regulatory context and public opinion surrounding artificial intelligence.

The UK government has been taking strides for years to secure this position, most notably through the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence (APPG AI), of which Rialto is a permanent board member. The group meets regularly for evidence sessions and discussions of the major issues and innovations in AI, all with the intention of supporting the adoption of the technology in enterprise. Membership of this community and access to these sessions is one of the benefits of our AI Leaders Programme, designed to help leaders stay up to date with key developments.

The Human Cost of Automation

The Help to Grow scheme itself is an acknowledgement of the government’s understanding of the necessary role which AI and other technology will play in this next chapter. The pandemic was a ‘trial by fire’ lesson in the importance of digital transformation, as even the most resistant organisations and individuals were left with no choice but to rely on technology to function. The difference now is that while most of the technology we turned to during the pandemic helped us simply stay connected and stay afloat, the technology we turn to next will be strategically focused on creating impactful and long-term change.

Much has been written about the numerous benefits that AI and automation can provide to organisations, especially in terms of productivity and cost savings. Normally, when business leaders are thinking about their AI adoption plans and their objectives, it is these benefits that they tend to focus on. But opportunity has its costs, and the change in practices that AI brings about raises some very serious questions about the impact on human staff.

The major focus we should take from the Help to Grow scheme is the emphasis on skill building, which is both intentional and necessary. It is crucial that any organisation looking at digital transformation, no matter how big or small, ensure that human staff understand the technology they are adopting as well as its uses and implications. A common misconception surrounding AI is that it is here to replace the human workforce. The reality is that AI has not yet reached a level of human intelligence that would allow it to be fully self-sufficient. Most tools that businesses will be looking to adopt tend to rely on a partnership between human and machine. Teams will be needed to oversee the technology, but more importantly they will be required to make sense of any insights and transform them into actions for the business.

That said, there will be certain cases where technology does displace human staff. In AI’s current phase, this is more likely to occur in tasks or roles that are heavily routinised, potentially dangerous, or methodical. There are many examples of this already occurring in manufacturing, agricultural, and distribution functions, amongst others.

When beginning a transformation project, it is essential that the organisation’s leadership look beyond the benefits to the business and examine the potential impacts on staff. On one hand, effort is required to ensure that the staff you have on hand are well prepared to deal with any changes. This is where upskilling initiatives such as those included in the Help to Grow scheme become crucial in terms of involving staff in the next phase of development.

On the other hand, what action is required to assist those left behind by AI? One option is reskilling and helping leaders and staff to develop skills and capabilities that differ from those required by their current role so that they may serve the business in another area. This reskilling may also focus on the human capabilities that technology (currently) cannot replicate, such as empathy, understanding, or strategy. However, if redundancies are deemed necessary, how can you provide support? It might be worth investing in executive outplacement services to help these individuals transition to a new role. Regardless of the approach you select, it is essential that you factor in the human and reputational costs when adopting AI.

Bias and Ethics

Apart from the displacement and critical reskilling needs of the human workforce, additional concerns with AI tend to focus on macros issues such as privacy, bias, and ethics. Customers are wary about the amount of personal data collected and how it is used. In Europe and the UK there are certain policies in place such as GDPR which partially govern this, but at present, AI remains largely unregulated.

Several professional bodies have begun developing their own codes of practice, and governments around the world are working to do this on both a national and global level. The work of the APPG AI community is helping to contribute to these efforts in the UK, and these issues are often discussed in the group’s evidence meetings. But until there are a set of standards or guiding principles that businesses can refer to and adhere to, how can you ensure your AI project avoids violating any ethical rules?

The past year raised some very pertinent ethical discussions, especially in regard to diversity and equality. The leadership team will need to deeply examine and make decisions about potential issues that may affect the outputs of the new technology. This will require answering some very important questions. Who do you have overseeing these systems? How do you plan to use the data you collect? What steps do you intend to take to protect this data and the customers it belongs to? What potential biases may arise from the data or how it is treated? Having answers to the tough questions will help to develop a set of standards or practices for the entire organisation to abide by to ensure any major breaches are avoided.

When adopting AI or other disruptive technologies, it is easy to become blinded by the potential benefits for the business. As we enter the next ‘normal’, it is essential that leaders deepen their understanding of what is happening with technology on a macro level, what impacts might be felt within the business, and how they can ensure that their new endeavour has both internal and external benefits. Membership of the Rialto AI Leaders Programme is a great way to accomplish this, which enabled members to take part in thought-provoking high-level evidence sessions, hearing discussions of the major macro issues first-hand. Furthermore, members are kept up to date with the latest developments, trends, innovations, ROI case studies, and investments on AI.

In the first instalment of our Personal Digital Branding series, we introduced the foundations to creating a representative ‘personal’ profile. In the second blog of the series, we delved into the ‘digital’ side of personal digital branding and provided our top tips for selecting the right social medium and using it to your advantage.

This article continues the series, exploring the ways in which you can bring your brand to life through thought leadership and the creation and curation of quality content. The right thought leadership can make the difference in positioning you as an aligned and relevant leader in the future world of work, thus ensuring you are better known and sought after in target areas.

What is Thought Leadership?

Every industry has its key players, the individuals that others turn to for insights or expertise on selected topics. These individuals are considered thought leaders and have earned that distinction through the active and strategic building of their profile within their designated space.

If executed properly, thought leadership can be a hugely beneficial tool for differentiating oneself in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace. This may prove helpful in an executive career transition, with securing new business, or attracting other opportunities for networking, NED roles, or further reputation-boosting publicity. Implicitly, people want to work with someone they can trust; an individual who they believe is best suited for the job. Thought leadership helps build that trust, authority, and credibility.

Thought leaders actively connect with others in their industry and attract valuable connections from outside of their immediate network, too. They are up to date with the latest developments and engaged in discussion about the issues, trends, and news impacting their space. They may be frequent commentators in the media, or active on the global keynote circuit (virtual or face-to-face). Alternatively, these individuals benefit from having a really strong and active social media presence or a great content strategy.

Our previous blog provided guidance for developing this strategy, but a key question is what should you actually be sharing in order to build your credibility? What separates good thought leadership content from average material?

What Do Thought Leaders Share?

We work very closely with our Personal Digital Branding clients, helping each Executive to perfect their thought leadership. In doing so, we help them to stand out from the crowd. Typically, once a client reaches this point in the process, they have already completed the essential work of clarifying their objective – for example, identifying the top organisations for whom they would particularly like to work and clarifying the compelling value proposition they have to share. They will understand their personal digital brand and areas of expertise. Our experts will also have helped them research the best ways to reach their target audiences and helped them to articulate key messages through different communication channels. Strong digital content is the next step for bringing those elements together to create results.

The types of content you should share as a thought leader will and should vary. Here are just a few examples:

• Blogs/Articles: The long format of this type of content allows you the space and freedom to go into depth about your key topics. You may choose to publish these directly on your personal website or your company’s site, if allowed, and share a link to the article via your chosen social platforms. Alternatively, LinkedIn allows its users to publish ‘Articles’ directly on the platform. These articles function exactly the same way a blog would and are an excellent option for executives who lack a platform for posting elsewhere.
• Personal updates: These posts provide your network with glimpses into your professional life. This may include news of any nominations or awards won, initiatives you have taken part in, promotions or new roles you have taken on, and attendance of or participation in any relevant industry events. However, do not confuse the definition of ‘personal’ here. Any updates you share about yourself should pertain to your professional developments or achievements.
• Company updates: If allowed and appropriate, you should share the projects your company is working on, relevant news or updates from your organisation, any mentions of your company in the news, case studies, or awards won.
• Third-party resources: Sharing news, articles, blogs, or other content from credible third-party sources about relevant topics is a great way of showing that you are tuned into what’s happening in your industry and the wider world around you. That said, when you share this type of content, you should always ensure that there is some sort of value add. Do not simply share a link and go. Always try to add a bit of insight, commentary, or critical thought.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, a great way to get a feel for what this content looks like in practice is to examine the profiles of the thought leaders you admire. Visit their social profiles, read their blogs, and note the things you feel that they are doing right. Take those lessons back with you and adapt them to suit your style, goals, and strategy.

Thought Leadership Content Tips:

Thought leadership takes time to cultivate. To become a thought leader, you need to remain vigilant and stay on top of your posting. Here are a few final pieces of advice to build your personal digital brand:

• Tag to build your network: Tag in posts wherever you can in order to draw more eyes to your content. Tag anyone directly related to the content, or you can even tag individuals who you think might be interested in what you have shared. Actively interacting with peers is a great way to continue growing your network and raising your name recognition in the industry.
• Add value: Reiterating our earlier point, thought leadership content should always come with a value add, no matter what the style of content. When sharing third-party content, avoid presenting it without any type of commentary or simply recapping what is there. A few brief lines of analysis will help to establish your position as a thought leader in that particular topic or area. When writing a blog, share any advice or insight you can with your readers. Do not be afraid to inject your own professional experiences in order to provide real-world context.
• Let your brand shine through: After all of the hard work you have put in up to this point, you should have a very clear idea of what your personal digital brand identity is. This should hopefully make it very easy to shape the content you create and select the topics you discuss. The time has come to let your brand shine through. Be your own champion. Do not be afraid to voice your opinions or share your insights and expertise on the topics you are experienced in and passionate about.
• Stay active: This will play into the strategy you previously devised, but in order to become a thought leader and stay that way, you do need to engage with your audience regularly. Our previous blog provided tips for determining the frequency of your activity. But a mistake that many professionals tend to make is pursuing thought leadership to achieve a specific goal, and then dropping their activity once that goal has been met. Maintain it if you can. If your thought leadership activity helped you to secure a new role, it is likely that your new employer was drawn to the idea of having a respected expert on their team. If thought leadership brought in some new connections or opportunities for you before, it will continue to do so if you maintain momentum.

Personal digital branding and thought leadership can be hard work but can also bring about some incredible and valuable opportunities for your career including internal promotion or external appointments. Once you have found your stride and determined which content works for you and your audience, keeping up with thought leadership should become a natural and effortless part of your normal professional activity. Make it part of your daily routine. Be patient, as it will take time to build trust and credibility. But with time, you are likely to find that putting in the work to pursue thought leadership was a worthwhile investment in your career and professional development.

Reflecting on the events of 2020 feels more like gazing back at a decade rather than a single year. At the start of the year, our biggest concerns surrounded Brexit. But then COVID-19 happened, and completely disrupted all areas of our day-to-day life. The pandemic we originally hoped would be a distant memory by now continues to be the top issue affecting our personal, professional, social, mental, and physical circumstances. Furthermore, Brexit implications are back on the table as we face the ‘moment of truth’ on trade talks, which could make or break a deal being finally agreed.

Unfortunately, these challenges will not suddenly evaporate once the clock strikes midnight and we enter 2021. It is therefore important that we reflect back critically on the events of this past year to identify what worked and what did not in order to better prepare for what comes next.

Where We Started

At the start of this year, we published a blog outlining some of our predictions for what CEOs may need to prioritise in 2020. COVID then happened, and suddenly those priorities shifted. Consequently, some of what we predicted was put on the back burner. For example, we predicted that organisations would focus on seeking out the right talent, but instead the focus was on supporting existing staff and helping them adapt to changing working conditions.

Digital transformation was on the list of priorities for many organisations at the start of 2020 but may not have been a top item. Many businesses were still in the exploratory phases, while a few were still completely resistant to change. The pandemic left these businesses with no choice but accelerate and adopt new technology. We witnessed a steep rise in remote work models, which required a heavier reliance on Cloud technology and software such as Zoom, Teams, and Slack, to name just a few. Many organisations were not ready to make this jump at the start of the year and had to quickly undergo the transformation process with little lead time for strategic planning.

Where We Stand

But not every trend or prediction was put aside. Some simply took a different shape than anticipated. In our 2020 predictions, we discussed the importance of an organisation’s “innovation effectiveness,” or its ability to identify new opportunities, determine which of these to pursue, and adjust business processes to act on them. This was a key element for success this year, as some businesses needed to get creative in order to stay afloat during lockdown restrictions. For example, some pubs and restaurants pivoted to meal kits and takeaway pints to prevent inventory waste and generate revenue under lockdown restrictions.

As predicted, there was a focus on businesses being ‘a force for good’ this year, but not in the way we expected. Millennials and Generation Z are some of the most socially conscious consumers and employees we have seen in decades, and these young people want to work for and support organisations that champion social causes and possess strong values. 2020 was a pivotal moment for many organisations in this respect. Some came under fire for their lack of compassion and poor treatment of staff amid the emotional and financial hardships of the pandemic. Global social unrest required many businesses to take a public stance on issues such as inequality and race relations. Some organisations faced backlash and were called out for hypocrisy if their actions did not match up with their words. 2020 was a true test of how authentically leaders and businesses live out their CSR and proved how essential it is for organisations to be honest, transparent, and consistent when striving to truly be a force for good.

The applies also to trust, which proved more important this year than initially predicted. We identified building trust as one of the biggest challenges many CEOs would face in 2020, and stated that they must work hard to achieve trustworthiness with honest and transparent behaviours and actions that make people want to follow them. This prediction was correct, as leaders had to guide their organisations through uncertainty and disruption as well as new working conditions. Managers and C-suite executives were looked to as a stabilising force, and how they handled this duty had major impacts on their staff loyalty and confidence levels regarding both the organisation and its leadership.

What Lies Ahead

 As stated, the 2020 challenges will not magically disappear when the new year begins. It is likely that we are going to feel the impacts of 2020 well into 2021. But hopefully, leaders will accelerate learning in order to move forward stronger and smarter. So, looking ahead, here are our predictions for five key trends we might see in 2021:

• Tech to thrive rather than survive: This year, digital transformation was primarily driven by a need to keep business afloat amid lockdown restrictions. As a result, tech has become so integral to our day-to-day operations that it is unfathomable we will revert once things return to normal. Expect to see many businesses taking the next step in their transformation journey to adopt more tools aimed at creating efficiency, better experiences, and competitive advantage.
• Welcome to the experience age: This next phase of digital transformation will be driven by the changes in customer behaviour that arose from the pandemic. Just as businesses became more reliant on technology, so did consumers. Customers have come to expect high-quality virtual experiences throughout the customer journey. This will require a higher focus on convenience, speed, and customer service. Expect to see businesses invest in their CX in 2021. It is likely that we will see investments in automation and AI to help boost efficiency and personalisation in the sales pipeline.
• Upskilling for competitive advantage: Those businesses that want to stay ahead have realised that they will need to continue to accelerate the adoption of AI and automation, whilst also investing in the upskilling of their talent. There is a slight risk that some organisations may become over eager when it comes to new technology, and either over automate or over digitise too quickly. By that we mean adoption without involving or communicating to all relevant stakeholders. This struggle may also largely be due to a lack of deep understanding of new tools and their functions or benefits. It will be essential for business leaders and the workforce to further develop their digital skills in order to better understand the available converging technologies so that they can make more informed decisions about which vendors, tools, or strategies will work best for their specific challenges.
• Remote work is here to stay: Even with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, it is unclear when UK businesses will receive the all-clear to return to the office. However, recent data suggests that remote work will continue in some form even after the pandemic ends. Employees like the flexibility of remote work models, and business leaders are enticed by the reduced overhead costs. Expect fully remote and hybrid working models to become common practice for many organisations moving forward, which requires new models and communication styles to maintain engagement and innovation from all levels.
• Emphasis on empathy: 2020 has left leaders, staff, and customers mentally and emotionally exhausted. There was widespread stress, anxiety about the future, and hardship. Some became ill or lost loved ones. Remote work was efficient but required adjustment, and lockdown restrictions felt very isolating at times. Managers and C-suite execs had to lead with compassion while also navigating these issues themselves and having to take responsibility for difficult business decisions. However, the hardships of this year brought out the human side of business and emphasised the importance of strong human connection, shared experience, and empathy. This cannot and should not be left behind in the new year. The leaders and organisations who take a people-first approach will benefit from increased customer loyalty and stronger staff morale, making these organisations more resilient when faced with further obstacles.

Though 2020 was difficult, it provided many valuable lessons for leaders looking to come back stronger in 2021. It is important not to dwell on the difficulties of the past 12 months, but to instead derive an understanding of what worked and did not. That way, we can drive business forward instead of remaining stuck in the past.

We at Rialto wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year break and look forward to sharing more of our insights with you in 2021.

We know that digital is the new normal. As Nike CEO John Dinahoe has put it, the customer today is digitally grounded and simply will not revert back.

With more aspects of our lives incorporating digital, a strategic personal digital branding programme is now an essential component of a successful career plan.  In a previous blog, we discussed the steps you should take in order to define your personal digital brand. This stage required you to think realistically and critically about your personal and professional talents, strengths, achievements, and aspirations. You took the time to determine your purpose, set out your short to mid term goals, audit yourself, and identify the key accomplishments, skills, and attributes you need to champion to align to future market needs. The next step is it to delve into the ‘digital’ element, and how you can begin to convey that personal brand online.

The ‘Digital’ Aspects of Personal Digital Branding

For many, their perception of a ‘personal digital brand’ may be limited to a social media presence. While it is arguably the area with the most opportunity for growth and experimentation, your social profiles are not the only place where your brand comes to life.

Your online presence needs to match who you are in every other setting and scenario of your professional life. Your personal digital brand identity should be felt in the text and WhatsApp messages you send to your contacts. It needs to come across in the email communications you have with partners and prospects. Is the tone consistent? Do you convey similar messages across your digital footprint? This echoes the message in the earlier blog about consistency being the key to authenticity. Your personal digital brand will only work for you if it truly reflects who you are and what you have to offer professionally and how relevant it is for the future market trends and needs.

Social media is not the only digital element of your personal digital brand, but it is definitely where it will be leveraged and showcased the most. It is a tool that is proving too vital to ignore. According to a recent report, the most social media-savvy CEOs had a 5% higher Glassdoor rating, with their companies being rated 3% higher, too. C-suite leaders from some of the world’s top brands use social media daily to advocate for their organisations, establish themselves as industry voices and thought leaders, manage reputation, and build their own personal digital brand. To see some strong examples of this in action, visit the LinkedIn profiles of Walmart Inc’s Doug McMillon, Nasdaq’s Adena Friedman, or Royal Dutch Shell’s Ben van Beurden.

Looking at how other leading executives are using their social media to leverage their personal digital brand online should provide you with inspiration for developing your own strategy. Here is some guidance from us to get you started.

Deciding which Social Medium is right for you

We recommend that you choose one platform and focus your efforts on actively engaging your shareholders, employees, prospects, partners, industry peers, and the general public there. You do not need to maintain a presence on every single site. In fact, if you allocate your efforts properly, you can usually secure better results from a single platform than you would from attempting to be everywhere at once.

Typically, LinkedIn and Twitter are the two most popular platforms for professionals. LinkedIn is the most popular platform for corporate leaders with 44% of CEOs having some sort of presence, while Twitter is second choice with 15%. The choice of which platform to use may come down to personal preference. Some executives may feel overwhelmed by the range of available features on LinkedIn, while others may find Twitter’s character limit to be a bit challenging for detailed thought leadership.

There is a vast amount of data available about social media usage, segmented by a wide range of demographic and psychographic characteristics. If you know who you want to target, you should definitely look into where you have the best chance of reaching them and how they actually use their chosen platforms. It will vary by site.

It is called social networking for a reason, so ask your peers, colleagues, and contacts what platforms they use and how they use them. Check out your competitors’ profiles to see how they exploit social media. If there is a person you particularly admire, learn from their profiles and note what you believe they are doing right.

Even if you already have a social media presence, there is always something you can learn from your peers. Social media is not static. Platforms, trends, and user behaviours change regularly, and your strategy will need to evolve.

Top Tips for Social Media Engagement

Here are some general social media guidelines to follow for those wanting to build their own personal digital branding presence

• Don’t Overwhelm Your Audience: The point of maintaining a professional social media presence is to get in front of your audiences, but there is a fine line between under sharing, oversharing, and just the right amount of frequency. You will of course want to post frequently enough to be seen and considered ‘active,’ but not so much that your posts become irritating and off-putting. If your posts clog their feeds, you risk your audience tuning out or unfollowing. A good rule of thumb is to post three to five times per week, and no more than twice in one day.
• Build an Online Community: Treat your social media community the way you would treat your wider digital or offline contacts. Follow or connect with your colleagues, stakeholders, partners, contacts, and prospects. If you attend an event or speak at a conference, connect with the other attendees or speakers. Also, be sure to follow key figures in your specific industry, news sources, or prominent companies. Interact with others’ content by liking, resharing with commentary, or leaving value-add or encouraging comments. LinkedIn has a Groups feature, which allows professionals to connect with and share insights with professionals they share interests or characteristics with. There is a group for almost everything. Start by exploring relevant groups for your industry or job function, and then look into others related to your geography, education, or other characteristics (i.e. ‘Women in Business’ groups)
• Be Personable: When reaching out to new connections on LinkedIn, be sure you always customise the invitation. These requests feel much more personal and are less likely to be ignored or denied. Your invitation should briefly introduce the contact to you, highlight any common ground you may share (i.e. attendance at a recent conference, group membership, mutual contacts), and close with a friendly message. Just as you would not lead with a sales pitch when meeting face-to-face, you should not attempt to sell overtly in these connection request messages.
• Content is Key: Ensure that your content reflects the goals you set for yourself and the personal digital brand image you defined early on in the process. Your content should not be self-promotion, and to be considered a thought leader you need to contribute to the greater conversation. Share third-party articles relevant to your industry job function, new regulations, or pertaining to other areas of interest or causes you champion. However, instead of simply sharing links, be sure to add some analysis or commentary. If allowed, keep your followers updated about the projects you are working on, the events you are attending and participating in, or the latest news from your company. Your content should reflect that you are tuned into what is going on in your industry and you have valuable insights to offer. Your followers should be able to get a good sense of your interests and positioning based on the content you curate.
• Pay Attention to Your Audience: Keep track of what’s working and what isn’t for your audience. What types of posts resonate the most or earn the most engagement? What time of day does your audience seem to be most active? Do not be afraid to experiment with different times and alternative types of content until you find what works for both you and your followers.

Your hard work in the early stages of digital personal branding will start to take a concrete shape once you begin applying the principles of your brand online. It will require trial and error, but so long as you remain authentic and stay focused on your goals, maintaining your brand will become a natural and integral part of your regular workday activity and attract opportunities you seek.

Reflecting on the ways we worked 15 years ago feels like gazing into another world. If you wanted to check your emails out of hours, you didn’t have a smartphone to do it on; you used a Blackberry or a mobile made by Nokia. We had yet to truly reap the business benefits of social media, as at the time Facebook was just for students, Twitter was still a year from introduction, and we wouldn’t post to Instagram for another five years. Jobs like SEO specialist, UX designer, Cloud services manager, and more simply did not exist. We even sent faxes still – and regularly!

That was 2005, which simultaneously feels like yesterday and eons ago. If that much change can happen in the workplace within a period of 15 years, imagine what the next five, ten, or 15 years will bring.

The truth is, the future of work is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed. Certain industries and sectors have adapted quickly to new technology and have been successfully implementing it for a while now. Even in the laggard industries, there are certain companies that either had the foresight or the budget to adapt quickly, and now find themselves leagues ahead of their peers and competitors as a result. But soon enough, those laggards will be faced with a sink-or-swim ultimatum to either catch up or be left behind for good.

It can be extremely hard to prepare when you aren’t sure what lies ahead, or how to get there. Many times, it is a team and stakeholder alignment issue of getting people onto the same page quickly – and understanding all voices. In the face of so much disruption and rapid change, how can you scale top line growth at the right margin, ensure high performance, improve employee wellbeing and customer experience, or develop and successfully execute new business strategies? The answer lies in Augmented Intelligence – Consulting (AI-C).

Defining the ‘Future of Work’

Before you can prepare for what’s next, you need to understand exactly what that entails. Many people hear the term ‘future of work’ and envision a world run by robots or a scene from a science fiction film. While elements of increased automation will play a key role in the future workforce, what we’re discussing here is much less drastic as humans and robots work together to form hybrid working. As mentioned, the future of work is already here; it’s just that your organisation may not be there yet.

Essentially, the future of work involves humans and technology working together in partnership to accomplish tasks in a more agile, effective, and efficient manner than ever before. Smartphones, social media, and other technology have become commonplace not only in the office, but in our everyday lives. As a result, today’s customers and multi-generational workforce increasingly value personalised, immersive data-driven experiences.

Business leaders have access to more data than they ever have before. In fact, the total amount of data that is created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to reach 59 zettabytes in 2020 and more than double to 149 zettabytes by 2024[1]. Businesses are beginning to understand the value of the data they generate and collect, but many are struggling to use it properly. Technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) can help to make sense of and use this data in ways we never would have imagined possible previously.

New software and tools are introduced to the market daily, all of which aim to turn available data into insights or to accomplish a specific task. There are tools available that can monitor every online conversation about your brand to provide insight into customer attitudes, write content for you, handle your hiring, identify sales opportunities, and so much more.

Surely, tech-driven environments require tech-focused solutions. But there’s so much more to this than simply adopting some new tools and updating your equipment.

Securing increased Alignment with AI-C

The humans involved in the change process are far more important than the technology. Most change or transformation programmes fail because of misalignment, with research sources quoting between 50% to 84% over the last 25+ years, which negatively impacts careers and business progress. The way that leaders think and manage their teams needs to become more agile and flexible in order to keep up with the rate of change and effectively execute new growth strategies.

It’s ‘easy’ for the C-suite to decide to sign off a transformation process, but most of the implementation will happen at every level of the business. A typical team raises on average 167 opinions on a given topic and 61 barriers as to why it can’t be done. If there is discord, lack of clarity, or miscommunications throughout the business, the change process has a very high potential for failure.

This is where Augmented Intelligence – Consulting (AI-C) can be massively advantageous. This advanced method of management consulting combines concepts from Harvard academics Professor Chris Argyris (Action Science) and Professor Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize recipient (Game Theory), as well as SchellingPoint’s applied research into Relational Network Analysis. It has been proven in over 500 real-world business projects and applications. This breakthrough in change management and leadership methodology is also now being taught at some of the US and UK’s leading business schools including Wharton, Warwick and Cornell.

Through this ‘lean’ consulting process, AI-C helps business leaders produce a credible and complete roadmap to address today’s business, cultural and digital transformations. This can include the creation of a new target operating model, cost reduction, efficiency, productivity requirements and strategic growth. AI-C gives everyone in the organisation a voice in co-shaping change and optimises alignment to future goals. It accelerates business-focused learning, reduces bias, increases collaborative thinking and insights in relation to securing future business goals. As a result, AI-C helps leaders adapt and increase the speed of decision-making to rapidly changing marketplaces, overcome increased competition, improve processes by implementing automation or next-generation technologies, determine policies, and develop new market-winning business strategies.

One of the key benefits of AI-C is its cost-effectiveness. It is delivered predominantly through virtual dialogues without the need for in-person meetings or workshops, which is ideal in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. The average timeline for an AI-C project is 6-8 weeks but it can be completed in as little as 3 days. Therefore, the AI-C process is concluded as efficiently and effectively as possible for significantly less cost than deploying internal resources and results in a more reliable, valid and endorsed set of actions to deliver business outcomes.

Business has come a long way in recent years, and there’s more change yet to come. While some businesses thrive ahead of the curve, others risk getting left behind indefinitely if they do not adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace. It’s clear that in this face-paced and increasingly competitive space, the old tools and methods of leading will not suffice. AI-C can help business leaders undergo their transformation process as effectively as possible by ensuring organisational alignment. In a time where leaders and workplaces need to become more agile to succeed, AI-C is fit for purpose for the digital age and gives both internal/external stakeholders more of a voice in tackling any business challenge.

We invite you to join us for our Future of Work virtual seminar on 18^th November. Associate Director Russell Beck and Rialto Director Richard Chiumento will examine the global trends impacting the workplace and providing useful insights into how organisations and employees can futureproof themselves. Register here

Additionally, to learn more about our AI-C methodology, you can join Associate Directors Lesley Lindberg and George Mystkowski for our virtual seminar on 3^rd December where they will be sharing how one Company used AI-C to help shape and implement new and high performing working practices following COVID-19 challenges. Register here

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/