Organizations exploring the post-COVID-19 future of work will need to tailor their approach to their unique context. Balancing three symbiotic elements can provide a holistic understanding of the forces shaping the future of work:
- The nature of work. Organizations should be able to answer two big questions clearly. First: How do we make money? Second: How does work get done? Linking the answers to these two questions to a dollar value can yield a clear set of organizational priorities and enablers for delivering the strategic vision.
- The workforce of the future. People are an organization’s most valuable asset, and getting ready for the future will include understanding the workers you have (supply) as well as those you need (demand). Getting clear on both can expose skill pools where you are either long or short on talent—and allow you to take action before the talent gap becomes a competitive liability.
The workplace of the future. A combination of physical location and organizational norms and ways of working make up the workplace. And while in the past, companies brought people to work, say, in massive factories or industrial centers, technological advances in recent decades may be influencing a shift that takes work to the people, for instance, in more flexible long-term remote or hybrid models.
