The Importance of Business Purpose in 2022

The challenges of the past two years have certainly highlighted the importance of purpose from a social standpoint as businesses have become more vocal and cause-driven than before. We have seen businesses take a stand on the issues their customers care about and that impact us all societally. Those who get it wrong or do so inauthentically have often fallen under the scrutiny of the court of public opinion, but those who get it right can reap major reputational and business reward. Research has found that 52% of purpose-driven companies experienced over 10% higher growth versus of non-purpose-driven companies (42%), benefitted from greater global expansion (66% versus 48%), launched more products (56% versus 33%) and had higher success in major transformation efforts (52% versus 16%).

With all that in mind, what role does business purpose play in 2022? As we begin the new fiscal year, how should leaders be thinking about and enacting purpose within their organisations in order to overcome these challenges, build stronger teams, and earn trust in the marketplace? Most importantly, how do you get it right?

Purpose Today

As a recap, your purpose is your ‘Why’ when following Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle Model. It is that highest level of fulfilment on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs after the basic requirements of sustenance, security, and socialisation are addressed. It is the principle at the heart of all of your business activities and the core reason for the organisation’s existence. On a more individualised level, purpose is the reason why you get out of bed every day. It is why you are in the role that you are in, doing the work that you have chosen to do. Purpose does and should underly every business activity, which is why it is essential that you have one.

Of course, every organisation exists with some money driven objective. It is the aim of organisations in the private sector to turn a profit, and even not-for-profit organisations typically have some sort of fundraising objective tied to whatever cause they support. While these financial goals are fundamental to the operations of the business, they cannot be the sole reason the organisation exists in 2022. Today’s customers will no longer accept it, and staff will no longer support it.

That’s because the past two year have accelerated a change that was slowly boiling under the surface. Being dealt so many societal and personal challenges all at once left us all a bit more empathetic of one another and more pensive about the bigger picture. We have experienced major shifts in the ways we live our lives and do business. Today’s customers want to do business with organisations they feel stand for something or share their values. In the wake of the ongoing ‘Great Resignation,’ staff want to feel like more than just a cog in a machine and want to know that they matter more than the bottom line. Identifying and living out a purpose is how the business and its leadership are able to make that happen. One of our previous blogs goes into more detail on how to identify purpose, how to enact it, and why it matters, all of which are still relevant today.

Our Advice

But as the new fiscal year begins, there are extra considerations that need to be made given our current social, economic, and geopolitical climate. Here are a few things we recommend leaders think about moving forward:

• Be clear about your purpose: If your business does not already have a clearly defined purpose, it’s time to get one. If you do have a purpose statement but it’s tied to profits in any way, it’s time to rethink it. Your purpose needs to be achievable, honest, and in line with what you do as an organisation. You aren’t trying to pull a rabbit out of your hat or make a purpose appear out of thin air. Odds are, you already have one hiding in plain sight. Why do you offer the services you offer or sell the products that you do? How does it benefit your customers or the world around you? The answers to those questions will likely highlight your core purpose, but once that is solidified it is okay to add on. You may choose to align your purpose with some of the macro issues in society. For example, you may decide that your business needs to play a role in helping combat climate change and work that into your purpose via changes in your supply chain or daily practices. You may be disturbed by any talent inequalities in your industry and decide to strive towards fairness, working equality into your purpose via your hiring practices or the makeup of your board. So long as you understand that your business stands for something bigger and you operate from that place, you are on the right track.
• Authenticity matters: That said, whatever you choose to champion needs to be something you are willing to and capable of enacting. Today’s customers are savvy, and they are willing to do their research. If you are publicly championing diversity and equality yet your HR figures don’t reflect that, your customers will see right through you and the reputational blowback will be damaging. Once you define what your purpose is, you then need to live it out. Do not say your organisation is dedicated to making the world a greener place if you aren’t doing anything to improve its environmental impact. You cannot call yourself a people-centric organisation if your staff are unhappy and feel mistreated. It all goes back to the idea of ‘walking the talk’ from our previous blog, which now feels more relevant than ever. Say what you mean and mean what you say. In the digital age, businesses and their leadership are under constant scrutiny. Information spreads like wildfire and all it takes is one viral post to tank your customers’ trust and support. You need to ensure that whatever it is you claim to stand for is what you are living out day to day.
• Purpose and your people: But it isn’t just your customers who are invested in your organisation’s purpose. Your team are critically important for bringing it to life, all while having their own personal investment in the mission. The challenges of the past two years have made many professionals reprioritise what matters to them in their career, and the ways that businesses treated their people during this time had major impacts on their organisational success during this challenging period. Those who were more focused on their own profits while their staff contended will the damaging effects of the pandemic and struggled under the weight of higher costs of living are the businesses who were most likely to be hit hard by the Great Resignation. After living through so much loss and hardship, your people want to be treated like people instead of numbers. Your staff are not a means to an end; they are the heart and nervous system of your business and should be treated as such. Your people want to feel as though they are contributing to something bigger and that their work has meaning beyond just making money for those at the top. Purpose can provide that, especially once it becomes an integral part of the business and its operations. By providing that deeper sense of fulfilment and keeping your people front of mind, you may be able to more easily retain staff who are on the outs or attract new talent as the business grows and evolves. But you need to understand that the modern career is now about more than simply going to work, doing your due diligence for eight hours five days a week, and collecting a paycheque. Our careers are a major part of our lives and should provide some sense of fulfilment on both the micro and macro level.
• Tune in: As a leader, you need to think about purpose from both an organisational and a personal standpoint. You are responsible for helping the organisation define what it stands for, but also for diffusing that message throughout every level of the business. Part of that role is tuning in to what’s happening around you both inside and outside of the organisation. Is your messaging in line with what is happening in the world today? Are you addressing the types of issues that your people care about? What do your team’s individual purposes look like? What ties them to the organisation or motivates them to show up every day? Keeping your finger on the pulse and adapting accordingly can help you more easily transition your business through periods of challenge or change. Taking a stand is only half the battle. How you choose to behave every day after the fact is what will have the most impact.
• Take a human approach: To quote one of our consultants Lesley Lindberg, “Being human needs to come back into fashion.” Purpose is what humanises business and needs to be dealt with in a human way. If you are thinking about purpose as a means to an end or telling yourself that “I have to care about this thing so that the business can turn a profit,” then you are doomed before you even begin. The next chapter of business asks us to step outside of purely commercial thinking and embrace what it is that unites us as human beings. Every single one of us has needs, wants, desires, motivations, and challenges. Once we examine those more closely, it’s likely that we will find more similarities amongst ourselves than differences. The past two years have dealt all of us challenges to overcome, and while differences in opinion caused some societal divisions, we saw a rise in empathy and understanding. The pandemic levelled the playing field, and now that it is near its end we need to remember its lessons and continue to live them out. At the end of the day, we’re all just people. That understanding and mindset will be valuable as we continue to navigate the ongoing geopolitical, social, economic, technological and business challenges that continue to oppose us.

As we enter the 2022-23 financial year, purpose continues to be increasingly important to our business lives. However, given the ongoing and new challenges we face, purpose needs to be more than just pretty words shared on your company website or regurgitated in your comms. Know what you stand for and then actually work to live it out. If you do so authentically, you will have a much easier time navigating change, building trust and credibility, and keeping your people on your side.

Each March, organisations populate social feeds with praise for their female colleagues in celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. While a nice gesture and a much-deserved celebration of women’s success, in many cases it can highlight the ongoing challenges that female professionals experience all year long.

Our Rialto Executive Career Coaches work closely with some of the world’s most accomplished, successful, motivated, and qualified female executives to advance their careers. Despite their acclaim, achievements, education, accolades, and positions, many of these women express feelings of an ever-present glass ceiling above them and limiting how far they can climb and what they can accomplish. But where do these feelings stem from, what limitations construct that ‘ceiling,’ and how can women break through?

A Seat at the Table?

It’s no secret that diversity is one of the biggest issues businesses face. In February 2022, the UK Government published data that revealed that the FTSE 100, 250 and 350 all improved the number of women in leadership roles in 2021. 39.1% of UK FTSE 100 board positions are now held by women, a massive increase from 12.5% just 10 years ago. This increase has allowed the UK to leapfrog over countries such as Norway, which has mandatory representation quotas, to become second in the international rankings for board representation. There are over 700 more women in leadership roles in the FTSE 350, and the number of women in Chair roles rose to 48, up from 39 in 2020.

While these statistics show that we are moving in the right direction, when examined closer it becomes clear that we still have a long way to go. While 39.1% of FTSE 100 board positions are now held by women, there are only eight female chief executives in that group and no women of colour. When you expand the field to the FTSE 250 where many more board roles are available, you might expect representation to be higher as well. Yet, women in boardroom roles for the top 250 companies is lower that the FTSE 100 at just 36.8%. In the FTSE 350, a reported 72 companies are still below the previously set 33% target for women on boards. Overall, only 1 in 3 leadership roles and around 25% of all executive committee roles are held by women.

How Much Are Women Earning?

When examining compensation, the chasm between genders deepens. According to the latest ONS report at the time of publication, in 2021, the gender pay gap among full-time employees was 7.9%, up from 7.0% in 2020 but still lower than it was pre-pandemic at 9% in 2019. The largest closing of gender pay gap between now and before the pandemic was found among managers, directors, and senior officials, showing that female executives are beginning to become more fairly compensated but are still not paid as equals. It would appear that there is a long way to go in order to close this gap, as the ONS data indicates that the largest gender disparity is among the highest earners with the 90th percentile of full-time men’s earnings sitting at an astounding 16.1% higher than those of females in the 90th percentile.

The gender pay gap often varies wildly at the individual company level, as was evidenced on International Women’s Day 2022 when a Twitter account called ‘Gender Pay Gap Bot’ (@PayGapApp) spent the day retweeting UK companies’ #IWD22 messages with their median hourly pay gaps.

Over 100 companies were retweeted on the day across sectors such as government, higher education, sport, healthcare, professional services, retail, and more. Some of the figures were pleasantly surprising. Both IT company Infosys and the UK House of Commons were revealed to have gaps of less than 1%, with several other organisations paying their female staff equally or higher than their male counterparts. Among the highest paid are the women of Barnet Council who are paid an impressive 25.5% higher median hourly wage than their male colleagues and broadband company Hyperoptic whose female staff earn more than double at 55.8%. However, the bot revealed more bad than good, highlighting huge gaps for organisations such as McKinsey (22.3%), Sheffield Wednesday Football Club (41%), Refuge Charity (32%), the Daily Express newspaper (22.5%), Loughborough University (23.2%), the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (30%), and most hypocritically, women’s lingerie brand Boux Avenue (31.4%).

The hourly wage gap is only part of the challenge that female professionals face with compensation. Having to choose between family and professional success is an unfortunate decision that many women end up facing at some point in their careers. As men move up the pay ladder, women fall behind by either staying in lower paid positions, reducing their hours, or both to take on the responsibilities of raising their families while others will choose to drop out of work entirely.

According to recent market research, nearly six out of 10 women (58%) say caring responsibilities have stopped them applying for promotion or a new job and one in five (19%) have left a job because it was too hard to balance work and care. Over time, this imbalance of familial obligations has led to more men in senior roles and some very damaging mindsets. At the core of the issue is a longstanding assumption that senior roles inherently require long hours and constant availability, and thus cannot be done flexibly or part-time. Academic research into the matter has found that long working hours have been proven to be inherently gendered and to exacerbate the gender pay gap. Over time, these mindsets have led some women to believe that they need to sacrifice one in favour of the other and have created biases in employers that female executives may not be ‘up for the job.’ Both of these beliefs are untrue.

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling

Representation and imbalanced compensation are two of the most apparent and most widely addressed issues surrounding women in the workplace, but any female professional can attest that it is so much more than that. We asked our Rialto Executive Career Coaches which challenges they often see expressed by their female coaching clients, and for their career advice for overcoming these hurdles. Here is what they had to share:

• Speak Up: Due to the aforementioned lack in representation, female executives often find themselves in the company of people who are not like them. Often, this can lead to feelings of imposter syndrome, and may discourage some female executives from speaking their minds. Historical ideas of ‘femininity’ have conditioned us to believe that women who take charge, freely speak their opinions, and essentially behave in the same way as their male counterparts are viewed as off putting, bossy, cold, calculated, or worse. These are damaging societal ideas that we are progressing away from but have yet to fully overcome. For male executives, before you judge your female counterparts for speaking up, our advice is to consider whether you would ever think twice about doing the same. For female executives, our advice is to remember that you were hired for your role because of what you have to offer. By keeping your ideas to yourself or not speaking up when something is off, you are doing yourself, your position, your organisation, and your stakeholders a disservice. We know that telling you to ‘speak up’ is sometimes easier said than done, but just remember that that is what you are there to do. Standing in your power does not make you aggressive, pushy, loud, or rude. It just makes you good at your job!
• Build Alliances Carefully: Getting your voice heard is much easier when you have the right support in your corner. But again, women are often surrounded by people who don’t look, think, or act like them. Much has been said about the idea of ‘women supporting women,’ but men need to do the same. Unfortunately, there are some people whose biases run too deep and too stubborn to be swayed, but you’ll find that not everyone is working against you. Instead of wasting time trying to change minds that are unwilling to budge, choose your allies wisely and try to find strength in numbers instead. It’s a sad truth, but some people may be more open to hearing the same idea in a different voice. At the end of the day, the best interest of the organisation needs to come first and biases should not get in the way with that. You’ll find peers who agree and who will back you, helping to get your voice heard all the way through the top of the organisation. You are better off spending your time building and strengthening relationships with these individuals than you are trying to get through to someone who seems unwilling to really listen.
• Don’t Undersell Yourself: If you are putting in the same amount of work at the same level as your male counterparts, then there is absolutely no reason why you should be paid any less. Historically, asking your peers about their salaries has been considered ‘impolite’ or taboo, but there is really nothing wrong with doing so. Having these conversations is the best way to benchmark and to create transparency about whether or not the team is being fairly compensated. Ask the question. You’ll often find that your colleagues are happy to share their figures with you, and those who aren’t will decline and that’s that. Knowing what you could be earning within your same organisation, level, or department compared to what you actually are earning helps provide you with leverage for negotiation. Do not be afraid to ask for what you deserve. If others at your level are being paid higher, it’s often not because they were more qualified or were offered that. It’s often the case that they were simply more willing to ask for it or negotiated after receiving an initial offer. Our advice is to research the market. Use sites like Glassdoor to benchmark what others in your role earn in your city. Take all of these figures with you into salary or raise discussions. Know your number, and don’t back down. If you present these figures to your employer and they are unwilling to close the gap, do not be afraid to move on to a company that will value your work and compensate you appropriately. Women are often told that our contributions, skills, knowledge, and experience are ‘invaluable,’ but that praise isn’t quite enough. All of those factors combine to create a monetary value for the organisation, so why shouldn’t they create monetary value for you? Put a price on your skills and contributions, and do not sell yourself short.
• Set Boundaries: Women have often been the ones to sacrifice for the sake of family, but that doesn’t have to be the case. If the pandemic taught us anything, it is how to achieve better balance. The pandemic’s enforced remote work helped to challenge the misconception that senior executive roles cannot be done flexibly, and hopefully hybrid working becoming the norm will help to support this even further. Hybrid and flexible working models have made it much easier for working parents to be present for their children. This applies to both male and female caregivers, which in turn has helped the responsibilities of childminding become more balanced. However, women are finding it easier now to be both parents and professionals in these models as they do not require a choice between the two. Hybrid is also helping professionals draw clearer lines between their working and home lives and better manage both. This new era of work will likely see professionals regardless of gender setting higher standards and demanding more from their working life. It is essential that female executives determine what their non-negotiables are and stick to them. If flexible working models mean not having to sacrifice, then push for that. Now that we know most of our jobs can be done from anywhere, there is no reason to sideline oneself for the sake of having a family. If your current employer is not willing to work with you on that, perhaps it is time to find one who will. You are not asking for ‘too much’ by having boundaries and not settling. You’re simply commanding the respect you deserve as both a professional and a person with a life outside of their career.

For any real change to happen it’s not just women who need to speak up, demand more, set boundaries, or work together. Male executives, especially those with influence on personnel decisions, need to look inwards to challenge their own biases and assess how those beliefs and opinions might be impacting their decision making. Employers need to actively promote diversity and equality in their organisations rather than just talking about it. We can all do better to be more empathetic, to challenge what we see happening around us, and to speak in support of those we feel are being treated unfairly. The longer we continue to let the ‘status quo’ continue simply because it might not be effecting us directly, the thicker and thicker that glass ceiling gets and the harder it is to break through. Change starts and ends with us all.

It is hard to believe that we are only entering the third month of 2022 given how much has transpired in the executive job market since the start of the new year. We went from battling a dangerous new variant that set us back in our hard-earned progress to a total elimination of all remaining COVID-19 restrictions in the UK. Just as we were seeing a light at the end of the economic darkness caused by the pandemic, an unnecessary war in eastern Europe broke out, causing economic tremors that are likely to be felt worldwide.

As we exit winter, here are factors you need to consider about the executive job market as it stands as of Q1 March 2022.

Executive Job Market Snapshot

Our previous executive job market update was conducted right at the height of the Great Resignation, an employment movement which has seemingly continued into the new year. After a two month fall in the total number of vacancies during a period when businesses froze their hiring plans due to uncertainty from omicron, the total number of vacancies in the UK rose to a new record high of 1.3 million in January 2022. According to recent research from Benefex, 17% of UK workers are actively looking for a new job, 53% are open to new opportunities, and just 30% are committed to staying put for at least the next 12 months.

Even so, there appears to be recovery in the marketplace. According to the most recent Office of National Statistics (ONS) ‘Employment in the UK’ report, the UK employment rate was estimated at 75.5%, a slight increase from the previous three-month period but still lower than before the pandemic.  The unemployment rate also continues to fall, currently at around 4.1%. Many of the employment and economic figures we have been seeing month on month indicate that the market is rebounding, but we are still not where we were before the pandemic. One might assume that should we continue on the path we are on, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a return to ‘normal’ levels by the end of 2022. While that may still be a possibility, certain trends in the market indicate that that recovery may not come as quickly as we had hoped it might.

Key Market Trends

Changing Roles for Compensation

People may feel that they are earning more on paper, but when considered alongside inflation and cost of living, wages are not growing at the rate they should be. Data from the ONS found the annual growth rate for average total pay, including bonuses, increased to 4.3%. The strongest growth was experienced by those in the finance, insurance, and property industries. In January of 2022, median monthly wages for payrolled workers increased by 6.3% compared to January 2021, and they were 10.3% higher than before the pandemic in February 2020. However, once inflation and cost of living are factored in, real pay fell on the year by 0.1% and wages excluding bonuses fell by 0.8%. We are likely to see this worsen as severity of the energy crisis deepens, the rise in National Insurance contributions takes effect, and the cost of living in the UK continues to increase. Prior to the events in Ukraine, inflation was expected to rise above 7% this year, but there is no telling what this figure could be come in the wake of this conflict.

If you are looking to alleviate some of the pressure from this financial squeeze, moving on to an external role may be your best option. Early in Q1, the Resolution Foundation think tank and the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance published a report that found that workers looking to achieve a pay rise this decade will need to change company in order to do so. If a pay rise is a priority of yours or a need to secure an improved financial trajectory, you will need to keep an open mind to making a change. That’s not to say that your existing organisation will be totally unwilling to promote you or compensate you further. You just might find that the grass is greener further afield.

Fierce Competition for Executive Roles

However, finding that new role might be a bit of a challenge. The Great Resignation has created a record number of vacancies in the market, but primarily in more junior roles. Executive roles are still rather hard to come by, with an increasing global pool of qualified candidates vying for the same spot. Executives are likely to find that the majority of jobs in the market do not match their skills or qualification and that when suitable roles that do become available, they go fast.

Executives should leverage and further extend into their networks to get a leg up on these openings, as many executive job market vacancies are never posted publicly.

Recent HBR research indicates that the leading indicator of career success is investing in and growing future relevant and aligned networks.

If your career transition goals involve entering a new territory, changing role, or switching industries, building your personal digital brand is crucial because more talent is sourced and found digitally.

So much of the modern executive job search is digital and having a notable online presence can be a great way to differentiate in a marketplace full of qualified executives with similar skillsets and experience. Not only that, establishing strong thought leadership can also help you get in front of the right people and expand your network to meet your objectives. This blog outlines how to accomplish this effectively. Navigating an executive job search is likely to continue to be a major challenge for executives, so setting yourself up to attract opportunities will be incredibly valuable during your transition period.

Shifting Priorities

But just because roles are scare, that does not mean you should settle for any opportunity that comes your way. If the Great Resignation and this pandemic period as a whole have taught us anything, it’s that the workforce is ready to command more from their working lives. 70% of respondents in the previously mentioned Benefex survey reported that their expectations have changed since the coronavirus, and three quarters said their experience at work is more important than it was a year ago. Nearly half admitted to raising their expectations when it comes to wellbeing, provision of high-quality digital tools, and the ‘where’ aspects of their workday. Benefits packages and adequate recognition for their work was also important for around 40% of UK workers.

With only 25% of workers rating their employee experience as excellent and only 36% of respondents reporting that they felt well looked after by their companies during the pandemic, it is likely that many will feel motivated to move on in pursuit of ‘more’ from their employers. Senior executives might especially experience this shift, feeling that they have reached a point in their career where they have earned the right to have more flexibility in their working lives.

Now that the remaining UK COVID-19 restrictions have ended, the time has come to put proposed new ways of working into practice permanently. Most organisations seem to be changing with the times and listening to their staff’s expressed desires by adopting hybrid or flexible ways of working, but a select few businesses are sticking to their guns and requiring staff to return to the office full time. In our previous market update, we advised anyone considering an executive job search to determine their stance on flexibility ahead of time. That advice is worth reiterating here, with some additional considerations. Businesses have had enough time to decide on a model and test it out, so by now many should know what the road ahead looks like for their teams and are unlikely to change their minds. Therefore, if flexibility is important to you in your next role, ensure you are looking at companies who are already demonstrating a willingness to offer that. The time for trial and error and toying with new models has come and gone, and businesses should know where they stand by now.

If their values don’t align with what you’re looking for, you might be better off holding out for an opportunity that meets your needs. As an executive, you have put in the hard work and the hours to reach the level you are at. But at the same time continue to develop and promote your value and your indispensability to your future employer to continue to succeed in your career.

The goal of an executive job search should always be to enrich your career in some way, whether it comes through higher compensation, increased stimulation, or better work life balance etc .

The marketplace has definitely shifted during the pandemic period to enable the UK workforce to become more comfortable with demanding more, and this is unlikely to revert any time soon. Know what your ‘must haves’ are and get a clear idea of what types of things would allow you to feel like you are progressing rather than remaining stagnant, and don’t settle.

Sought-After Skills

Given these trends, there are several skills that anyone undergoing an executive job search should focus on in order to successfully navigate the evolving world of work, differentiate themselves, and make maximum impact in their new role. Here are the capabilities our experts recommend you champion in the executive job market at this point in time:

• Adaptability: The ability to pivot remains a top skill for executives in the future of work. Things are changing swiftly and often. Demonstrating that you can change alongside of them, or even get ahead of them, will be immensely valuable to any organisation. Disruption has become a regular facet of working life, and the most competent and successful executives are those who do not get bogged down by change. An open mind, a willingness to listen, and a focus on continuous learning will be a major asset.
• Technological Savvy: As always, technological capabilities are of immense importance in an increasingly digital world. That’s not to say that everyone needs to learn to code or become an AI expert. For the executive, the focus should be on understanding the key technologies that are causing disruption and the role that they might play on one’s specific industry, organisation, and job function. We recently published a blog on what this might look like in various different senior roles.
• Soft Skills: This point has been made many times, but is worth reiterating once again in the context of the previous point. Part of developing a future-focused relationship with technology, especially AI, is understanding that the role of the human worker will inevitably change. The fact of the matter is that certain technologies can get the job done better and faster than we can, and therefore the attention will need shift towards filling the gaps these tools cannot reach. Many of these are what have been traditionally considered to be ‘soft skills’ such as creativity, communication, leadership, strategy, and so on. Your hard skills and experience are likely to get you into the running for the types of jobs you may be after, but being able to provide those extra capabilities will help better your chances at becoming the successful candidate.

The end of pandemic restrictions signals the official start of a new chapter in our professional lives, but many of the challenges we have seen in the executive job market these past two years are far from over and new ones are beginning to take shape. It is impossible to predict what shape the rest of the year may take, but there is no need to put career plans on hold. Executives in transition should continue to take the time to assess their capabilities, strengths, and skills to best position themselves in the marketplace and prepare for future success.

At Rialto, we often stress the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) for the future of business. We published a white paper on the digital imperative, discussed how to navigate your career through technological change, outlined strategic priorities for leadership, made predictions for AI’s role post-pandemic, and highlighted some of the ways that AI can help with leader’s people management challenges. This technology has impossibly vast potential that is finally coming into mainstream acceptance, meaning that innovation is happening at a rapid pace with changes happening frequently.

There are a number of forward-thinking leaders who got on board early and are now exploring more advanced applications of AI, but the majority of global business leaders are just beginning on their journeys. In this article, we aim to bring leaders up to date with the state of AI as of Q1 2022, and put this into context in terms of what may be expected of their role during the adoption journey of AI in transforming business models.

The Current State of AI

AI adoption has only continued to grow in the past year, with more businesses and their decision makers coming to grips with this technology. In McKinsey’s latest State of AI survey, 56% of all respondents reported AI adoption in at least one function of their business, which is an increase of 6% from the 2020 survey. Gartner’s Second Annual Emerging Technology Product Leader Survey found that the majority of respondents (87%) predict industry-wide funding for AI will increase at a “moderate to fast pace” throughout 2022. Their survey also found that a third of global organisations with plans to adopt AI intend to invest $1 million or more into the technology over the next two years.

Zooming in on the UK, it seems as though businesses of all sizes are betting on tech for their recovery and growth efforts. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) recently published a report on the current and future use of artificial intelligence by UK businesses, which found that around 15% (432,000) of all UK businesses have adopted at least one AI technology, while around 2% (62,000) are currently piloting AI and a further 10% (292,000) plan to adopt at least one AI technology in the future. 68% of large companies, 34% of medium sized companies, and 15% of small companies have adopted at least one AI technology.

IT and telecommunications (29.5%) and legal (29.2%) currently have the highest rate of adoption, while hospitality (11.9%), health (11.5%), and retail (11.5%) represent the lowest adoption rates in the UK. In terms of actual use cases, the DCMS report found that AI solutions for data management and analysis are the most commonly adopted with 9% of UK firms having adopted them. This is followed by natural language processing and generation (8%), machine learning (7%), AI hardware (5%), computer vision and image processing and generation (5%) tools. Looking ahead, the DCMS report predicts that expenditure on AI technologies could increase to between £27.2 billion and £35.6 billion by 2025. By 2040, that figure could increase to between £50.4 billion and £127 billion.

This reaffirms what we already know: AI is inevitably the future of business and the majority of leaders will need to become more confident in utilising AI. The increase in adoption rates indicate that the resistance to transformation is dwindling as many of the hold outs enter the exploration phase and the more forward-thinking businesses transition to application or explore further AI projects. For transformation projects to be successful, there needs to be buy in and involvement at every level and department. Whether your organisation is just embarking on its AI journey or looking ahead at what other problems this technology can solve, there will certainly be impacts on your specific role and function.

The Role of Senior Leadership

CEOs

The role of the CEO or top executive of the organisation is that of both decision-maker and champion. These executives are tasked with delivering results to various stakeholder groups, while also serving as the public face of the business. The two entities are so deeply intertwined that the failures of the organisation are often considered to be the failures of the CEO in the court of public opinion. Plotting, strategising, and delivering a change project is a massive undertaking and a huge responsibility for the CEO. Getting it right will ensure happy stakeholders and customers, but getting it wrong could have major career consequences.

Of course, any transformation plans should come from the board as a whole, but it is often the CEO who has the final say. Typically, they are also the ones responsible for selecting which tools to adopt, sometimes with input from the CTO or other knowledgeable parties. However, not every organisation has a tech expert on hand to advise, and CEO or top exec might have to go it alone. Therefore, it is essential that these leaders have a strong understanding of AI and its capabilities so that they may make informed decisions about the future of their organisation. Continuous learning and upskilling will be valuable to professionals in all functions, but for top leaders especially. Seeking out training, keeping up to date with the news, or pursuing a proper course on AI can make a massive difference. The most successful leaders are those who realise the world is changing around them and work to change with it.

But arguably more important is the CEO’s role as a champion of change. Wherein staff in the organisation will need to adapt to working alongside these tools, the CEO is not likely to see their role massively reshaped by AI. Instead, top leaders will need to focus on getting the rest of the team on board and encouraging a willingness to give this technology a try. Change is uncomfortable, and there will likely be staff who resist the introduction of new tools. The team will be looking to their leadership for guidance and reassurance, and the CEO is about as senior as it gets. Your people will be looking to the top in order to assess the legitimacy of these new mandates. Does it seem like you truly believe in what you are saying? Are your words telling one story, but your actions telling another? Top executives need to lead by example. If you want your people to buy into new initiatives, then you yourself need to practice what you preach and truly understand what you are asking for.

The Rest of the C-Suite

The rest of the C-Suite serve as the top representatives for each of the business’s various functions, including Marketing, Finance, Operations, Technology, Sales, Growth, and so on. Individually, these executives are responsible for their individual departments and all the staff and activities that fall under their domain. Collectively, these leaders must unite these individual pieces to work towards the best interests of the business. If the sum of its parts is successful, then the senior leadership team could be considered successful as a result.

At this level, you may find yourself less concerned with the day-to-day use of automation tools in your role and more focused on the ‘why’ of it all. It will be your responsibility to determine what role technology will play in your function, give input into the tools that will be introduced, and help to form a business case for adoption and transformation. But more important than that, your role will be to champion and to help shift the rest of the organisation towards an AI mindset. While the CEO may serve as the main spokesperson for your company’s transformation efforts, it will fall on you as a top-level executive to reinforce that message within your division of the company. It is crucial for the senior leadership team to present a united front when it comes to change management. That way, the message is clear and reinforced. Communicate clear expectations with your team so that there is an unimpeachable understanding of roles and responsibilities. Depending on the structure of your organisation, you may choose to funnel this message down via your managers, but your stance as the head of your department should never be in question. Help form the plans and stick by them once they are introduced. Otherwise, you risk losing all confidence from your team and your project may be doomed before it even has a chance to begin.

HR Director

When undergoing a transformation project, ‘people costs’ need to be factored in alongside the costs of the technology itself. According to the DCMS report mentioned previously, the 432,000 UK companies who had already adopted AI in 2020 spent a total of £46.0 billion on labour associated with the development, operation, or maintenance of those technologies. The average labour spend was £24,400 per small business, £1.7 million per medium business and £3.1 million per large business. This overall expenditure is predicted to increase to between £80.2 billion and £103.2 billion by 2025, and between £185.2 billion and £456.0 billion by 2040.

HR Directors (HRDs) will likely be the ones tasked with managing this expenditure, whether it be via onboarding new talent or upskilling existing staff. When adding talent to the team, it will be essential to look for baseline technological skills, but attention should also be paid to the types of capabilities that technology cannot match in order to create a well-rounded team. These are what we typically consider to be ‘soft skills’ such as communication, creativity, strategy, and so on. If adding new talent to the team is too costly, investing in the people you have is a strong option. Upskilling initiatives will likely fall under HR’s domain

Beyond ensuring the right talent and skills are on hand to cope with new technologies, AI tools can also be used to help facilitate a lot of these processes. AI can help to automate some tedious activities that eat up time for HRDs. For example, AI can help with document verification and data entry, scheduling staff, managing leave, setting up meetings and appointments and automating communication with prospects and current staff. Automation can be introduced to various stages of the recruitment process to streamline the experience for the candidate and save time for the HR team. But further than that, AI can help with a major challenge HRDs currently face: retaining their staff in the wake of the Great Resignation.

AI can be leveraged here to gain insight into the mindsets of current staff. How satisfied are your people? What has motivated them to stay, or what is driving them to leave? AI can help provide answers to these tough questions, and also provide insight into the needs and desires of the market. Often, these tools can signal HRDs to potential problems before it’s too late, allowing them to potentially intervene and retain. Investing in existing talent is a draw for people to stay, and HR will likely be tasked with leading any upskilling or retraining initiatives for current staff. E-learning platforms can help support these training efforts by tailoring the materials to suit individual needs, helping to ensure that staff are grasping the information and that HR’s training budget has been used effectively. While the directive for upskilling may come from higher up in the organisation, HRDs should expect to be the ones the board turns to in order to help figure out the logistics and oversee the process. It is recommended that anyone in this position take the time to learn about some of the tools available in preparation.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the greatest technological advancements of our lifetime, and its impacts will be felt across industries and job functions. However, AI is here to assist and augment, not replace and make redundant. This technology can achieve remarkable things, but not without the assistance of human intelligence. These projects will only be as successful as the teams driving them.

After coming to grips with the idea that AI is something you need to explore, we recommend focusing on building your skills and understanding. Knowing that AI is important and actually believing in its potential and the benefits it can bring to your business are two very different things. Your mindset can make or break you when it comes to delivering change, regardless of your role in the organisation. As a senior executive, you need to ensure you buy into what you are looking to achieve before you can ever expect your team to buy in. You need to walk the talk if you want your people to follow.

Who of us hasn’t looked around a meeting room, a networking event, a classroom, or a conference and felt out of place at some point in our lives? It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially in a professional setting.

Perhaps you’ve recently been promoted, switched to a different function or sector, or have just moved company to a more ‘prestigious’ or well-known organisation. Perhaps your meteoric rise to the top happened so quickly that you never had time to pause and assess along the way. Maybe you’re sat at a table with people who are older than you and have been doing their jobs for way longer than you have, or alternatively you find yourself surrounded by people who are younger and sharper.

If situations like these make you feel like a fish out of water or cause you to question your place at the table, it is likely that you are one of the millions of professionals who experience imposter syndrome. But what is it really, how can you be sure you have it, and what can you do about it?

Identifying & Understanding Imposter Syndrome

In the dictionary[1], the imposter syndrome is described as “a psychological condition that is characterised by persistent doubt concerning one’s abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one’s ongoing success.” Essentially, it’s a feeling that occurs when we benchmark ourselves against our peers and believe that we somehow do not measure up, even if that isn’t the case. Some symptoms include increased anxiety, stress over potentially being ‘caught,’ and in severe cases, depression. This fear and panic often leads to stagnation and performance losses, which can severely impact one’s career.

How can you tell if you have it? It might not be immediately apparent. However, if your internal script includes thoughts along the lines of “Oh my God everyone here is brilliant…. and I’m not,” and instead of shutting them down you agree with them, that is a pretty good indication.

All of us experience some form of imposter syndrome at various points in our lives, but may not have had the right words to identify the feeling. In a survey of 1,000 UK professionals, 85% expressed they suffer from imposter syndrome[2]. 25% reported feeling as though their success was pure luck, while 15% felt they were only in their role because their organisation was understaffed.

The sensation affects people of all genders, ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds and statuses, but is known to hit some groups harder than others. Various studies have shown that women are more likely to be impacted, as are those from non-white ethnicities and younger generations. Of the 85% of UK workers who reported suffering from imposter syndrome, 90% were women. In that same survey, millennials were nearly twice more likely to attribute their success to luck or understaffing than their baby boomer counterparts. When you think of the current diversity issues facing the FTSE 100 and the corporate world in general, it makes sense why these individuals. These are still very white and male dominated spaces, with older and more experienced people at the top. Members of these groups may find themselves amongst these peers and fixate on their differences, rather than on what they bring to the table.

That said, this is not just a female, BAME, or young person problem as it is often perceived to be. Absolutely anyone can be affected, not just these groups. Even some of the world’s top business leaders, athletes, government leaders, and other public figures widely considered to be one of the ‘best’ at their craft face these feelings of inadequacy, with the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, Howard Schultz, Serena Williams, Albert Einstein, Michelle Obama, David Bowie and more all having spoken out about their struggles with this mindset. At the end of the day, we are all just human and battling our own insecurities.

Our Advice

In our experience, imposter syndrome is more common the more successful you become regardless of age, demographics, or background. This has become more prevalent in recent years thanks to COVID-19’s restrictions on personal networking and an increasing number of individuals reaching senior positions at an earlier stage in their career. But how do you prevent those insecurities from stunting your growth? Here are the top 3 tips we share with our clients struggling to overcome their own mental hurdles:

• Understand that Benchmarking is Subjective: No one has ever criticised someone who climbed Mt. Everest for not earning it. There’s a silent, universal understanding that this is a major accomplishment that involves lots of training, preparation, hard work, and determination. Our careers are a much more subjective experience, but is it not the same thing? Didn’t you also have to train, prepare, and work hard to get where you are today? While there are 17 known routes to the top of Everest, almost everyone climbs it via one of two routes and likely will have faced either similar or the same set of conditions, obstacles, and challenges as those who made the trek before and after them. Careers are not like that, and so that makes it harder to compare ourselves to one another. Think of all the different places you could be from, schools you could attend, courses you could take, people you could have in your network, and work experience you could possibly obtain. The possibilities are endless, and therefore no one will ever have the exact same combination of all these factors as you do. There are a limited number of ways to get to the top of Everest, but a million different ways to build your career. Understand that your journey is uniquely yours and is valid, even if it doesn’t quite look like the journeys of those in similar roles.
• Challenge and Change Your Self Talk: Very rarely is outside criticism the source of these feelings, and imposter syndrome is most often the result of the things we tell ourselves. We think ourselves into downward spirals and enable these negative thoughts to continue to persist without challenge. When you catch yourself thinking these things, try to flip the thought. Ask yourself why you feel that way, what evidence you have to support it, and if that thought is really true. We are often our toughest critics and lack the same patience and compassion that we might grant to someone else in our same position. Become consciously aware of the conversation going on in your head when you’re in a situation that triggers your impostor feelings in order to stop them in their tracks. For example, instead of thinking, “Wait until they find out I have no idea what I’m doing,” tell yourself “Everyone who starts something new feels off-base in the beginning. I may not know all the answers but I’m smart enough to find them out.” Show yourself the same grace you would show to a loved one if they voiced similar doubts in themselves.
• Fake It to Make It: And if taking control of your thoughts doesn’t have the desired effect, take control of the situation. Now and then, we all have to fly by the seat of our pants, and usually this improvisation is one of the best ways to figure things out. Instead of considering “winging it” proof of your ineptness, learn to do what many high achievers do and view it as a skill. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is a worn-out phrase, but its message still rings true: Don’t wait until you feel confident to start putting yourself out there. Courage comes from taking risks. You just might find that you know more or are more capable than you think.

There is no cure-all for imposter syndrome, and it is likely to come and go throughout your career. The best thing you can do for yourself is to work on building your own confidence and periodically stepping back to appreciate how far you have come. Take time to track and recognise your success, which will help you to more confidently say ‘yes’ to opportunities. For some, this confidence might come from being around fellow colleagues in networks. Sometimes those around us are able to see us more clearly than we can see ourselves during our moments of doubt. When these feelings set in, ask for feedback from those you trust and whose opinions you value. If this is helpful to you, it is worth remembering that you are not the only one who may be feeling this way. As a leader, there are likely other members of your team battling their own insecurities, in which case you should strive to be the type of leader who ‘pays it forward.’ Be that mirror for your people, just as your peers help you see yourself.

For others, validation from your network might not be the key, in which case it might be helpful to take on a mentor or coach to help build your confidence and adequately benchmark your success. If you fall into this camp and would like some help navigating your career progression, get in touch with our team.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impostor%20syndrome

[2] http://hrnews.co.uk/85-british-workers-suffer-from-imposter-syndrome/

Organisations are beginning to put their plans and objectives into action.

From our conversations with our clients, it seems that Covid 19, inflation, talent scarcity, government funding support and policy uncertainties are creating increased challenges to boards.

As a result customer centricity is high up on the strategic agenda for many businesses in 2022.

And it makes sense.

After two challenging years of working to stay afloat, the time has come to build back better and enter the next era of business. Customers are central to the success of these efforts, but their habits and demands have changed along with the market these past few years. They are savvier, choosier, and more digitally-driven than ever before. In order to become truly customer centric, leaders need to tap into what it is that drives customers and influences them to return time and time again.

We asked our experts to share the top challenges they find our clients experiencing when aiming to become more customer centric, and to share their advice for overcoming these hurdles. Here’s what they had to say:

Top Challenges to Customer Centricity

• Learning to Unlearn: Many top executives got to where they are today through a long and successful career journey. The downside of that is that many reached their post years ago and settled in, sticking to what works. The practices may have historically helped to drive the business forward in challenging periods, but today’s market and customer is like nothing we have ever experienced before. We have never been this digital, this globalised, this actively communicative across various platforms and mediums, or this spoilt for choice with who we do business with. As a result, leaders may find that the practices they previously relied on to evolve their offering may no longer suffice and that they have to unlearn everything they thought they knew about the market, their role in it, and the customers they aim to serve. This can feel uncomfortable and unsettling for some, especially those who have adopted a sort of ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ mentality throughout their tenure. There is no room for stubbornness or ego here. To change the organisation and its practices, its leadership team will need to go within and address the attitudes and actions that are holding them back.

• Listening In: The best way to learn what your customer wants is to listen to them, but the acts of ‘listening’ and gathering business intelligence have evolved alongside the rest of the market. There are so many different ways to do this and to do it constantly. Your customers are communicating with your sales and service teams, browsing your website, talking about you on social media, reviewing you online, having conversations with their peers, and so on. That generates a lot of potential insight, but also a lot of noise. The challenge then becomes sorting through that intelligence, finding trends, and prioritising. It can be hard to delineate between what you are hearing and what is actually important to your customers. There may be a temptation to want to fix everything all at once, but that is not always possible or practical. The challenge for leaders is to take a moment to assess what they are hearing,
• Making Sense of Customer Data: All these customer conversations and activities create vast amounts of valuable data for the organisation that helps to paint the picture of what the journey looks like and where it could be improved. Businesses have access to an immense amount of data, but often fail to use it properly. The challenge leaders face is ensuring they have access to the right information and are using it to their advantage. Advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence will be a big help here, but leaders need to get on board with these tools and develop an understanding of them. The pandemic helped push many laggards towards new tech, but most businesses are still in the exploratory phases of their digital transformation journey. Executives need to push past any remaining hesitations towards technology and get to grips with it and soon, otherwise a lot of potential and valuable insights will continue to be missed out on.
• Generating Buy-In: The previous challenges were concentrated primarily on the leadership team, but true customer centricity flows evenly throughout every area of the business. Yes, leaders may have to unlearn, tune in, and make sense of the market demands, but their staff are the ones putting these lessons into practice. If your own people don’t buy into your vision and what you are trying to accomplish, how do you expect your customers to buy in? Not only do leaders need to be able to access all this data and make sense of it, but they also need to be able to present it to their people in a way that tells a story and brings the customer journey to life in a narrative way. Every member of the team from the board to the interns need to be aligned with the vision. The story told to an organisation’s people is the story that will ultimately be told to its customers. There can be no crossed wires. The sales team shouldn’t be saying one thing while IT says another, marketing says something different, and customer service is on a different page entirely. Every department, whether it is directly customer-facing or not, should know what the customer story is and the role they each play in delivering it. Creating that level of alignment at scale can be a major challenge for leaders, especially if the business has historically been insular across departments.

Top Tips for Overcoming Challenges to Customer Centricity

Thankfully, all of these problems are possible to overcome.

At The Rialto Consultancy, we have worked with leadership teams over the last decade in order to help them unlearn what they know and get their people on board. Here are our experts’ top tips for achieving greater customer centricity moving forward:

• Embrace Radical Empathy: It’s time for being human to come back into fashion. The pandemic bonded us all through mutual struggle, and as a result we all became a bit more understanding of one another. The pandemic and its challenges may not be over, but even when it eventually does come to an end, we need to remember that we are all just people. We have feelings. We have challenges. Take the time to be a bit more forgiving and understanding, not just of your customer but of your people. Practice patience and work to see things from their perspectives. That way, you can avoid friction and work more collaboratively to tackle problems.
• Expect Imperfection: Part of being human is making mistakes, learning from them, and continuing to try. The most successful customer centric leaders are those who understand that things won’t always be perfect, and who are accepting of this. What’s important is becoming more fluid and adapting to what comes. With so many different touchpoints and conversations happening all at once, things will inevitably get overlooked or you might feel tempted to try to fix absolutely every complaint brought to your attention. That is not feasible, and leaders need to come to terms with the fact that they might not always have the answers. Instead, be more curious and more tactful about how you address problems and prioritise.
• Understand the Journey: Do you know what it is like to be your own customer? What does the journey look like? What steps and processes do your customers go through when doing business with you? What is it like to complete a purchase on your website, or file a complaint with your customer service team? Every member of your team, not just leadership, needs to know what the journey looks like firsthand. Recently in the US, news broke that food delivery service DoorDash would be requiring every single one of their employees across all departments, including their CEO, to deliver one order each month. The reactions to this were mixed, with some staff outraged that they would be made to do the ‘lowliest’ job of the organisation, while others praised the initiative’s empathetic benefits. Your organisation may not go to these lengths to create an understanding of the journey, but at the very least your entire team should know what your process looks like from the perspective of your customers. That way, you can identify problems from the inside in order to fix them, and ensure that the people interacting the closest to your customers understand exactly what they are experiencing.
• Engage More: In order to listen to and understand your customer, you need to interact with them. Often, executive leadership has very little direct contact with the customer and instead are fed by intel from those ‘on the ground’. Their understanding of their customer comes from reports and second-hand news. By increasing their own direct interaction with the customer, leaders can build that all-important empathy and understanding.
• Trust and Empower Your People: Even if you are more actively engaged with your customers, the majority of the interaction will still fall on your team. Leaders need to trust their staff and find a way to empower those closest to the customer to best advocate for them. This is much easier to achieve if there is alignment across the organisation and a consistent story being told.
• Advocate on behalf of Your Customer: Advocating for the customer shouldn’t only take place during direct interactions. The customer’s perspective needs to be represented in every conversation, always. Someone should be playing ‘devil’s advocate’ on behalf of your customer in every meeting, strategic conversation, presentation, and so on. Instead of focusing on what’s in it for the business, someone always needs to be asking what’s in it for the customer. The more people you have asking this question, the better. Not only that, but everyone should be able to answer it by the time the conversation is done. Weaving this practice and mindset into absolutely everything helps ensure that the customer is always put first. When the customer is properly catered to, everything else will fall into place.

Becoming customer centric cannot happen overnight. It will take time, patience, experimentation and innovation to get it right. However, the organisations that dedicate the effort to get it right will have an easier time navigating what comes next with greater agility the support of their customers.

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.

Executive Outlooks: Securing a 2022 Promotion or Increased Reward

It’s that time of year again. Businesses will be wrapping up their actions for this year and planning for the next, making decisions about strategy, objectives, and skill requirements. Many organisations choose the end of year as an opportunity to reward the year’s high performers with increased compensation, promotions, new responsibilities, or projects for individuals to take on as they enter the new year. When managed astutely, it’s a win for both parties, really. The executive gets to go into the festive break with a bit of good news to celebrate, and the organisation can ensure they have the right people in the right roles for a fresh start in Quarter 1.

But how can you secure a new position or title, or increased reward package? If you are looking to do this at the executive level, here is what you need to know.

Advancement at the Executive Level

For executives, promotions and raises don’t happen quite as often or as easily as they would at other levels. Once you reach a certain point in an organisation, there are often fewer opportunities and a limited amount of career moves you can make without leaving the organisation. For many, the only way ‘up’ is to accept a partnership, secure a directorship, or aim for a seat on the board.  If the latter is of interest, you can read our previous Executive Outlook blog which discusses the process at length here. Board seats are highly coveted, highly selective, and are not the right move for every executive, but at the top of the organisation these are often the only positions one could be ‘promoted’ to.

That said, that does not mean there are no moves for an accomplished and established executive to make. Rather, it means that you may have to rethink what you might have in mind for your ‘promotion’ or enhancing your remuneration package.  In both cases, it is worth taking time to outline a strategy for negotiations. You might want to enter discussions by thinking about your approach from both a professional and wider holistic perspective rather than just focusing on position or salary.

Executive ‘Promotions’

When we typically think of a promotion, we think of climbing the next rung of the organisational ladder, moving a step higher than we previously were. Progression is very straightforward in this model. But like we said, once you reach the top of the ladder, there’s no next rung to climb. Instead, you can choose to step off the ladder and onto the ledge, moving laterally. You’ll stay just as high as you were while on the top rung of the ladder, but in a different spot. From this spot, you might have more solid footing, or perhaps a different vantage point. It’s different, yet does not compromise the hard work you put in to climb this high in the first place.

Essentially, you should be thinking in terms of ‘enhancement’ rather than ‘advancement.’ There are many ways for executives to enrich their career without having to move up or down, or change their career, industry, or organisation altogether.

Career fulfilment can come from a wide range of sources, and some moves you may be able to make within your current organisation include going after that aforementioned board position, taking on more leadership responsibilities, or spearheading a big project or new initiative, perhaps related to the company’s ESG, CSR, or transformation goals. You might choose to enrich your career outside of your organisation by pursing an NED role, establishing yourself as an industry voice or thought leader, offering your time in a mentorship programme, looking into opportunities within academia as a guest lecturer, and so on. Every professional activity you participate in contributes to your bigger career picture and helps to build your reputation as an executive. While more executive responsibilities may not be available at this time or you may not be a clear choice for them now, taking on additional responsibilities at work or establishing your value in the industry outside of your own company may help build your case for consideration when the opportunity arises down the line. Even if that is not your long-term goal, adding variety and enrichment to your current role may help you get more out of your career and enable you to feel more fulfilled.

Executive Remuneration

In the current economic climate, organisations are competing globally for the best talent. The departure of an executive can be a serious setback for business continuity and performance, and more so if he or she joins a competitor. Organisations are therefore increasingly prepared to invest in keeping executives “on board” or rewarding those who have proven valuable to the organisation using financial incentives.

These incentives may come in various different forms. The most obvious option is a salary increase. However, most executive roles are compensated at a rate that is on par with the market, and therefore, salary rises at the executive level are less common than they are at other levels of the business.  Instead, the organisation may offer stock options or some sort of equity stake. Alternatively, you may receive a one-off bonus if the organisation is in a position to offer one.

In some cases, it’s likely you won’t have a say in which form your renumeration takes. The offer will most likely be determined by the organisation’s current financial position and their ability to pay. It is also worth remembering that remuneration at the executive level is often carefully balanced against shareholders’ interests. Executive pay has been at the heart of some recent cases of corporate mismanagement, with escalating pay levels and high-profile pay issues prompting unprecedented shareholder attention. As a result, the organisation may be overly cautious, or executive renumerations may be dictated by structural organisational policy. This is important to be aware of, as it may have an impact on what your organisation is willing or able to offer you financially.

That said, many organisations are open to offering financial incentives if they are in a position to do so. In which case, it is important to ask yourself how prepared you are to present your achievements and articulate the role you played in helping the organisation meet its aims.

Advice for Advancement

If you are ambitious for more responsibility or renumeration in the new year, you want to ensure that you are creating a win-win situation in your negotiations. It’s not only what you did the past year to prove that you deserve recognition, but what you’re eager to contribute in the future.  Progressing at executive level requires a combination of personal traits, positive outward behaviors, leadership competence and trustworthiness.

If you are looking to take on more leadership opportunities, what examples can you provide to demonstrate that you are capable? When trying to secure a new opportunity, it is essential to be able to show that you can work at the level you are aiming for. Are you handling your current responsibilities well enough to add more on top? Are you fulfilling your current operational or leadership duties well enough to take on more, and are your team successful enough under your leadership to warrant you leading others? Prepare some solid examples ahead of time, whether you plan to make your case in an annual review, an end-of-year wrap up meeting, or an informal discussion with a key stakeholder who holds influence. Being able to demonstrate conclusively how you are contributing to the growth and development of your team or the organisation’s future will go a long way.

Beyond proving that you already provide value to the organisation, it is beneficial to demonstrate how you might continue to contribute to the organisation’s success moving forward. Instead of thinking in terms of the organisation rewarding you for the sweat equity you’ve already put in, approach it from a position of why they should invest in you as part of the business’s future. What can you provide that might add value long term? What sets you apart and increases your worth compared to your peers? What new industry insights can you bring to the table?

This is where upskilling can be particularly valuable. If you can bring future-focused skills to the table, that will help to increase your professional value. Perhaps you have already been working on your personal digital brand, and are becoming more visible in your industry as a thought leader. The strength of your personal brand reflects well on the organisation and may provide a bit of leverage when attempting to make your case.

Determining the best next step for your next career requires thoughtful planning, realistic self-reflection, and the right approach. Maybe you know exactly what you’re after and are prepared to go for it straight away, or maybe you don’t have a plan beyond feeling like you want more and need to do something. Don’t rush to ‘just get something done’. This is your career and for you to find the enrichment you’re looking for, you’ll need to be completely clear on what opportunities or activities might provide it. That way, you’ll be more successful not just in the new year, but well beyond.

If you need neutral yet experienced insight to help determine your next move in taking your career to the new level, get in touch with  one our team for a complimentary career discussion throughout January.

Last week, the United Nations closed their annual conference on climate change, known widely as COP26. By the end of the two-week summit, diplomats from nearly 200 countries had reached an agreement known as ‘The Glasgow Climate Pact’ to work together towards global sustainability goals. There was a great feeling of optimism as government bodies and major organisations announced their pledges, targets and commitments throughout the summit, with 60 of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies joining the UN’s Race to Zero campaign. One in three of the largest public companies in G20 countries now has a net zero target, up from one in five last year. After the summit, one thing is clear: climate change needs to be at the top of the strategic agenda for businesses moving forward.

So what does this mean for leaders? Now that pledges have been made and some regulatory standards have been outlined, what is the next step? How can you ensure that your organisation is helping to make the world a greener place rather than just ‘greenwashing’?

Following Through on Promises

While it provides a good basis for setting targets, many critics of The Glasgow Climate Pact feel that it lacks the regulatory muscle to ensure change. As a result, some feel it falls on the businesses who made pledges to make good on those promises, and for the rest of the private sector to play along.

As many leaders know, making a pledge or setting a goal is just the beginning. The challenge is in the follow-through.  With net zero targets becoming a prominent part of the conversation, expect to see businesses incorporating climate goals into their strategic plans for next year. Many may choose to use the guidelines outlined by government pledges, and others may choose to go further or reach for achievable ‘quick wins’ that can easily be accomplished. But given the new focus on climate change on a global scale, businesses can no longer get away with having no sustainability targets whatsoever.

Getting Beyond ‘Greenwashing’

Not only is acting on climate change important from a regulatory standpoint, but it also matters to your customers. A survey[1] conducted by Deloitte in May 2021 found that 65% of respondents expect CEOs to do more to make progress on societal issues, including reducing carbon emissions, tackling air pollution, and making business supply chains more sustainable. Rather than leaving it to businesses to be the change, customers are willing to act on their beliefs. 23% of consumers surveyed by Deloitte say they will switch to buying products from an organisation that shares their values on environmental issues, 42% have changed their own consumption habits to match their stance on the environment, and 21% have encouraged others to switch to a company whose values align with their own.

It is clear that customers want to do business with organisations that stand for something, but there is a difference between taking a stance and actually acting on it. In this case, being all talk and no walk could be classified as ‘greenwashing.’ This term is used to criticise businesses who go to great lengths to market themselves as being ‘eco-friendly’ and use PR initiatives to seem as though they are taking tough action on climate change, when in reality they are doing very little. In recent years, corporations such as Volkswagen, H&M, BP, Nestle, ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and even IKEA have all come under fire for this. Customers are quick to see through the smoke and mirrors to the true story, and leaders need to not underestimate their audiences.

Actions for Leaders

With all this in mind, what do leaders need to know and prioritise moving forward? The first step is to take this issue seriously and understand that this is not just the latest buzzy trend in the marketplace. This is an issue that affects us all and requires swift and decisive action. As a business leader, you play an important role in driving change. Your people, your stakeholders, and your customers are all looking to you to lead the charge and set the course for how to proceed. Here are our tips for doing this effectively:

• Get Up to Speed with Expectations: Big businesses weren’t the only ones who made pledges and set targets at COP26. It is worth reading up on the targets that were agreed in The Glasgow Climate Pact and the targets set by the countries your organisation operates in. What are they aiming to achieve, and when? Even if there are currently no set, mandatory regulations that require your organisation to meet specific targets or behave a certain way, it is always best to understand what the bigger picture looks like. You and your team can use the government’s goals as guidance when plotting out your own climate strategy, and work towards the targets they have set out on a macro level. This is a means of playing it safe as well. Just because no mandatory regulations may have been set, they could be at any minute. If you aren’t already working towards these targets, regulations may make it so that you have to adjust very quickly to catch up. Instead, it is better to operate as if the targets outlined are already law so that if and when they actually do become enforced, you will already be on the right track for compliance.
• Be Realistic: As we have discussed, making a public pledge is a good start for signalling your stance, but you need to ensure your words aren’t empty. Do not overpromise and underdeliver. When creating a climate strategy, take a look at where you can actually deliver results. This might be a series of quick wins to get you started as well as some longer-term initiatives that will be rolled out over time, but everything you are proposing needs to be achievable. No business is going to reach net zero overnight, but every organisation has small actions they can take to start working towards that goal. Take an honest look at your business and where you can improve and start there.
• Don’t Shout About It: While you should be transparent with your audiences about your stance on climate change and what your organisation is doing about it, there is no need to shout it from the rooftops. It is always better to practice rather than preach, as your customers are more interested in your actions than your words. Communicate that you are taking action and be clear on how, but do not make that the central component of your marketing or media unless what you are doing can match up to the hype. Otherwise, you may be accused of greenwashing and lose a lot of credibility and trust in the market.
• Champion Change: As a leader, your people are looking to you to take charge and set the tone for change. They aren’t going to buy into the vision if it seems like you don’t. If you are going to set forth initiatives and make sustainability a key component of your organisational identity, then that change needs to start with you. Be clear on what the stance is and what expectations the team needs to meet. Provide clear actions to follow so that everyone knows what role they play. Ensure everyone is aligned on the vision and why it matters. Adjust your own personal habits if you find that they contradict what you are looking to achieve. It can be little things to start, such as carrying a reusable water bottle or becoming more conscious of how your actions contribute to your own carbon footprint. When you lead by example, you become much more credible for your people to follow.
• Keep Up to Date: The UN’s climate summit only happens once a year, but sustainability is an ongoing conversation. There are new developments constantly, and if you are going to truly become a champion of climate change it is important you stay up to date. Incorporate checking for new updates or research into your regular newsgathering activities. Just as you should be keeping tabs on your industry, you should be keeping a finger on the pulse of climate change. By building an understanding of what’s happening, you may come to find that you need to make some adjustments in your own knowledge or capabilities. Do you need to educate yourself on any specific topics to help better inform your strategy? Do you need to better understand a topic in order to effectively communicate to your team why they should care about it? Do the regulations require you to adapt your approach or capabilities as a leader?

Sustainability is a top-of-mind business issue, but one that requires firm action. It matters not whether you feel the responsibility for leading the charge falls onto the government or the private sector; we all have a role to play. Leaders need to act as champions for change to ensure that their organisation is doing their part and not making promises they aren’t delivering on. The world will be a better place for it.

[1] https://deloitte.wsj.com/articles/consumers-expect-brands-to-address-climate-change-01618945334

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