The workplace of tomorrow

The workplace of tomorrow ,is going to be radically different than what we have seen so far. Nobody would have imagined how businesses will transform overnight and thereby, the places of work too. I am trying to predict the workplace of tomorrow based on my imagination and insight. If it comes true, you can give credit to the teams with whom I worked in my career , as they instilled this wisdom in me and if it fails, I take responsibility for it, as I failed to assimilate knowledge over the years ,from my teams.

1. Work from anywhere : Work from home has become the norm in the days of the lockdown in most organisations today. In tomorrow’s organisation, work from anywhere will be the norm. This is because organisations will realise, that if majority of their employees are able to connect online, it does not matter where they work from. In the past, many old age leaders felt insecure allowing employees to work from home, since they were not sure how productive they would be. However, thanks to Covid, work from home was thrust on organisations ,as the only alternative and most organisations and employees have willingly and effectively adopted it.

2. Offline to Online : While most of us have got used to fulfilling most of banking needs online due to internet banking and mobile apps, it will be seen that ,most business transactions will move online. People will prefer to buy everything possible online. This would mean that physical infrastructure will have to give way to a robust IT infrastructure. What we have seen in the days of the lockdown is that, the internet speeds are impacted due to heavy overload as the service providers were not ready for this catastrophe.

3. Interpersonal to intra-personal behaviour : All organisations focussed a lot on building teams and thereby developing interpersonal skills of their team members. This is likely to give way ,to focus on individual behaviour, which I have termed as intra-personal behaviour. How do I behave when I work alone at home and still have to deal with other teams online. This would mean conscientiousness and self discipline. Employees and their managers have to trust each other and focus on deliverables rather than the time spent by the employee at the workplace.

4. Manufacturing will get robot driven: We will see a radical transformation in the shop floors of production units. We may see more robots and automation , take over manual labour. This would mean that human beings have to move up the value chain and focus on quality, productivity and innovation. The minimalisation of human interface in production lines , will see improvement in quality, productivity and consistency. This does not mean that human interface will vanish from shop floors. It means that human beings will add value to what robots can never do even in the future.

5. Remote Servicing : An interesting development will be that ,servicing will become more remote ,than it is today. Most service centres will provide remote diagnostics and will be able to service products remotely. Even today power plants are monitored remotely and even troubleshooting and repairs can be done remotely through connected devices. In the digitalisation era, it may become possible for all products to be monitored and serviced remotely except for possibly replacement of parts. Even that may change ,with modular design where consumers may be able to replace parts themselves based on artificial intelligence and remote service guidance.

6. Paperless organisations : One of the positive outcomes for the future will be ,that organisations will truly become paperless. Everything will be transacted online. From the offers of employment to employees to purchase orders to suppliers and invoices to customers, the entire value chain will be operated with the aid of online -connected technologies. This will not only ensure efficiency and effectiveness, it will also eliminate waste and non productive processes within organisations.

7. Boundary less organisations : One of the dreams of organisations is to dissolve the stringent boundaries between functions within the organisation, which actually come in the way of delivering value to customers. In the future, we will see that such needless boundaries will not only disappear within the organisation but will also vanish between organisations. All institutions which add value to a customer or supplier, will form a continuum and thereby produce more, with less, in the future.

8. Social equity : The transformation of workplaces in the future will have a positive outcome ,in terms of social equity amongst employees. Employee value addition will be clearly measured by outcomes and not by efforts and time spent. This means that people contributing the same or similar outcomes are likely to get paid similarly. This will become necessary rather than obligatory ,as it will be otherwise very difficult to monitor remotely ,how employee performance can be differentiated.

9. Employment types : Organisations will no longer have all employees on their rolls. It will be a combination of full time employees, part time employees, consultants, gig workforce, contractual, interns and short term employees. While all these categories may exist in most organisations of today, the proportion of full time employees to others may reverse. This means most organisations will try to operate with a basic minimum number of employees on their rolls. The rest of the workforce may consist of, all or most of the above categories of employees.

10. Work-life-balance : The line of demarcation between workplace and home, is going to diminish further. While this will bring in flexibility both for the organisation and the individual employee, it will have its repercussions ,in terms of relationships both at the workplace and at home. Family and marriage as institutions will be under strain and hence psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists , counsellor and coaches will have a bigger role to play in maintaining harmony at the workplace and at home.

If all or any of the above predictions come true, I may be lucky as I will survive as a student of management. However, if all of them bite the dust, then I have to start writing on philosophy in the future.

Being a born optimist, I believe that the changes in workplaces will benefit organisations and individuals, as long we prepare for it and train our employees to embrace the change.

S Ramesh Shankar

7th April 2020

 

 

 

 

Family as a social institution

 

I have been a student of sociology for many years now. I have always wondered why “family” as a social institution is breaking down in India like the west.

While it is a great idea to ape the west for all the good things they have, vis a vis the east, it may not be a good idea to learn how to degenerate social institutions like family from anyone.

Family is the basic unit of society. It is built around parents and children. Historically, in India, the joint family was prevalent where multiple generations lived together. This ensured that the seniors acted like mentors for the juniors and there was social support all around every individual.

Joint families have given way to nuclear families today and nuclear families are gradually but surely leading to live in partners and family as an institution , is breaking down.

I remember my childhood where I would always dream of growing up, settling down in life and my parents staying with me and giving an opportunity for me to take care of them , for all that they did for me. However, this remained a dream , as my parents died at an young age.

Today with the world as the market place for talent, it has led to individuals migrating and settling, in different parts of the world. This has led to parents staying back in India and taking care of themselves. Even in India, with children working in different parts of the country, parents stay on their own , in their home turf.

While we can neither blame the children nor the parents, family as an institution has indeed broken down. I shudder to even imagine , my parents living in an old age home. But today it is a reality. Children put their parents in old age homes since they are not able to be with them due to physical reasons but have the financial capacity to sponsor their stays.

Parents have accepted this reality but emotionally break down as they have only walls and furniture for their company in old age homes. It is indeed a vicious circle and may be difficult to find an optimal solution.

Just like the pandemic ensured that we find the right balance between work and life, it may be time to rethink our priorities in life. We need to think if taking care of our family and seniors at home is important or only climbing up personal career ladder , at all costs. If there is a conflict on either of these, which one would you choose?

I am not sure if we have the answer to all the difficult questions of life. However, on reflection, I believe that at every stage of life, we have a choice and it is upto us to define and redefine our priorities in life. We may go wrong at times and it is ok. But, reimagining and reviewing our priorities in life ,from time to time ,may help us be on track.

It may be time to think of returning to the joint family system of our forefathers where multiple generations lived together and provided a social security net within the family. Even with multiple family members working, there was always someone in the family to look for emotional bond.

I do not have any solutions to this social problem because every family may have a different challenge to handle. But I do think that we have a lot to learn from our forefathers.

Time to think ?

S Ramesh Shankar

20th May 2022.

 

Customer orientation

I always wondered if being customer oriented is a difficult thing. I was travelling in a flight recently. We had pre-ordered our snacks. When my wife requested the flight attendant to exchange her pre-ordered Upma for some other snack, she was rude to state that it has been pre-booked and cannot be changed.

I then recalled the research I had done on “Customer orientation” during my corporate career and I realised that being customer oriented does not need complex things to be remembered. It is just having a positive attitude, being empathetic to the customer and keeping up your commitments. It is as simple as that.

It does not depend on the product or service you are offering. You may be dealing with any product or service. It is your ability to being positive in your attitude, putting yourself in the shoes of the customer’s shoes and understanding their issues and then keeping your word. That’s all we need to be customer oriented.

Let me analyse how this behaviour of the air hostess could have been customer oriented. When my wife requested her to exchange her snack, she could have understood the reasons why my wife asking for the same. Then she should could been empathetic and understood the pain of the customer. After that she could have checked with her seniors if needed and exchanged her Upma with another snack of equivalent value. This would have not only satisfied a hungry customer but delighted her and airline would have not lost a penny.

After she refused to exchange the Upma for a snack, my wife requested for some tea, which also got delivered after two reminders. This shows you have not keep your word although you promised the customer that you will serve tea and hand over the Upma box. You did neither.

I have a met a lot of employees dealing with customers day in and night out. I have done workshops with thousands of customer facing employees and listened to their stories. When I analysed the same, I found that customer orientation is not dependant on the product or service we offer. It all depends on the attitude we have towards our customer.

Customer orientation is all about “Attitude”, “Empathy” & “Commitment”. Our ability to instil the positive attitude in our employees, making employees empathetic by feeling the pain of the customer and then living up to the commitments they make without fail every single time.

Now I wonder as to why organisations cannot be customer oriented when it is so simple. I realise that the simplest things in life are the most complex and hence may be we are not able to instil these values in our employees and ensure that they consistently follow them.

We need to believe that retaining customers is more important then winning new customers. It is like retaining employees is more important than recruiting new employees when they leave organisations.

Let me summarise that “Customer-Orientation” is as simple as “AEC” ( Attitude, Empathy & Commitment) and let us not complicate it any further.

Let us start being customer oriented today. It is true for individuals as much as organisations.

S Ramesh Shankar

23rd May 2022