If there’s one constant in today’s workforce is the ever-changing dynamic brought about by disruption. 🤔 

This disruption is presented today in many guises: HR tech, new methods of sourcing, changing means of talent assessment, a growing non-employee workforce: these were just some of the themes discussed during our expert panel on disruption and transformation at this year’s #EWS.  

The collective expertise of our ‘Disruption & Transformation’ panel was beyond impressive: each a leader in their fields, the insights for #EWS delegates was both accessible and practical. A key theme? Keep people at the core of your strategy. And keep them front and centre amidst the changes your business is experiencing throughout this era of disruption.  

The nature of disruption in the world of work has been evolutionary: having moved from a siloed, hierarchical, top-down structure; to a more operationally integrated system; to today where technology, data and its resultant decision-making improvements, are establishing a free-flow of information across the organisation and greater reward and recognition for skills and abilities, over position. This situation feeds nicely into the emerging workforce of multiple worker types, and meritocracy thinking. 

It’s an incredible time to be in the workforce! 

We hope you enjoy this synopsis of the #EWS Disruption Panel’s insightful showcase of ideas. 

 Paul Chiswick, CXC

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Panel members...


Jon Williams - Co-founder at Fifth Frame

Rebecca Houghton – Founder, Bold HR 

Keith Wilkinson
Principal Consultant, T2C Consulting


Deb Jackson – Head of Talent Acquisition, Transurban

Nick Jones – Recruitment Manager, Viva Energy



 

There’s no denying the multitude of opportunities presented by the emerging workforce, both from a worker and an organisational perspective.

It’s important for organisations to be aware, that they need to take action to capitalise on these opportunities: they won’t simply materialise. A workforce plan, factoring in all categories of workers alongside business goals, will drive positive change, and will stimulate improved worker engagement, and better business outcomes. 

A mature market like the US, compared to Australia, provides us with many lessons and insights especially regarding the management of process hurdles, and change. Not to be taken as a pathway, the US insights provide us with knowledge and understanding, all of which we can apply to our individual organisational situations.​



There’s a massive difference between continuous improvement and transformation. If we look at some of the more obvious benefits of each, the need to keep them conceptually distinct is strategically evident. Continuous improvement offers the organisation’s HR function benefits including leadership development, greater talent collaboration, a decrease in turnover, and in today’s data driven environment, accessibility to HR intel which offers the business better forecasting capability, better talent ROI and better workforce output.

HR transformation on the other hand, is the process of rechartering and implementing change to the way an organisation undertakes its HR function. And with an ever changing workforce, divergent categories of workers, and an increasingly tech enabled workplace, the need for transformation today is omnipresent. HR won’t keep up with the change in today’s workforce through inertia.
Importantly, amongst these cutting-edge processes and systems, that capture the best of today’s technology and changing worker mindsets, organisations have to remember this: people are still at the core of the business no matter what the disruption or transformation taking place. So, in this context, a people-first, technology-led approach will serve the organisation well. A good example provided was about engaging and assessing worker types, with consideration and relevance. Some workers (indigenous being the example) may not respond to desktop assessments and perform better in-person.
 
Human touch, human consideration and human engagement remain core to an organisation's success in the talent management landscape. 
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