In a 2018 survey of 6,500 executives worldwide, conducted by BCG in partnership with Harvard Business School’s Man - aging the Future of Work initiative, roughly 40% of respondents said they expected freelance workers to account for an increased share of their organization’s work - Employers can also make a therapist available for confidential appointments. The respondents work in roles such as analysts, engineers, HR personnel, teachers, and health care providers (but generally not in jobs performed onsite such as cashiers or assembly line workers). Companies have reacted swiftly to the changes. Social Connectivity. Companies can also try to make virtual team activities fun. Cisco got ahead of the game. This means developing new hybrid working models that enable employees to move seamlessly between onsite and remote work, as well as thinking about the appropriate physical space—both size and shape—for the hybrid office. To retain digital-age employees seeking greater autonomy and empowerment, it is particularly important for governments to create an innovative, collaborative, and agile culture. Five CEO Priorities To respond proactively, CEOs must under- Most surprising in our analysis is the outsize impact that social connectivity has on productivity: employees who reported satisfaction with social connectivity with their colleagues are two to three times more likely to have maintained or improved their productivity on collaborative tasks than those who are dissatisfied with their connections. These AHCA/NCAL members used BCG Research to collect, calculate and download their CoreQ scores to achieve this recognition. Shifts in the way we work are likely to continue as employers move a growing portion of their employees to more flexible models. While a wholesale change of culture is daunting, governments can introduce new behaviors in select pockets and then embed this culture more broadly. Additionally, Singapore’s Public Service Leadership Programme develops leaders with specialized capabilities for key functions that span multiple agencies in areas such as economy building, infrastructure and environment, security, social issues, and administration. Artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics will make this shift as significant as the mechanization in prior generations of agriculture and manufacturing. This evolution will increase the need for employers to measure employee productivity in conjunction with employee perceptions. Online services company GitLab encourages employees to set aside a few hours per week for virtual coffee breaks and to use Slack for informal connections and conversations. How do you create deep social connectivity in a distanced world where everyone wears a mask, which hides many telling facial expressions? 82. For decades, private-sector companies have leveraged data to personalize customer offerings using a “segment of one” approach. Social Connectivity. Workplace Tools. Investments in physical infrastructure, support (such as daycare), and digital technologies will of course be essential. 58 % Of the workforce expects to be working from home at least 8 days a month. As described in a recent post from one of our BCG leaders, the serendipity of impromptu hallway or cafeteria-style meetings can be recreated by randomly FaceTiming team members to ask how they are doing. Some agencies have established leadership academies that offer courses on pressing digital topics, such as managing tech disruption and adopting a data-driven mindset. And collaborative productivity is essential for any company looking to improve communication, increase efficiency, accelerate skills acquisition, or harness innovation. While some jobs will be lost, and many others created, almost all will change. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has led to economic, health, and social devastation, it has also created an unprecedented opportunity: to run the world’s biggest-ever workplace experiment. Read the research, insights, and innovative ideas that are shaping the future … Initiatives range from helping employees to create comfortable workstations by giving them allowances for the purchase of equipment to delivering technology and office equipment to their homes and subsidizing their broadband costs. It sounds counterintuitive, but by 2030, many of the world's largest economies will have more jobs than adult citizens to do those jobs. Nonetheless, important gaps remain. Perhaps most challenging, but with the highest payback, will be figuring out how to maximize the social connectivity that takes place in the office. to changing customer needs. While governments face many challenges as they prepare their workforce for the future, these five fundamentals of talent management have the potential to transform the way governments function from top to bottom. Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG’s survey also found that employees place a high value on feeling appreciated and receiving recognition for their work— respondents ranked this among the top ten satisfaction factors globally (German work-ers ranked it number one). Notes: 26% feel challenged or unable to cope … Given the speed and scale of the pandemic-related changes and the fact that employers had no time to prepare staff for the shift to remote work, we expected to see a decline in employee productivity. And that’s important, not just for employees at home but for those onsite, where social-distancing practices and the fact that many colleagues are accessible only via video will hamper the kind of social connectivity that took place before the pandemic. The survey contains potentially good news for the many recruiters who are responsible for filling technology or digital-development jobs. This information is provided to managers so they can reduce turnover risk factors and provide training to help reduce attrition. But if, as our survey suggests, employee productivity is possible at the height of the pandemic with little to no training or preparation, some of the new ways of working could be continued in the post-COVID-19 world. While there have Given what our data reveals on this, all companies should be urgently investing in building their virtual social-intimacy muscles. 2 Sharing talent across public-sector agencies can also help governments build long-term capabilities. Moreover, focusing on well-being and social connectivity will serve another important purpose: helping employees to recover faster from what, for so many people, has been a traumatic, painful, and stressful period. to lose ground with every step. A US Congressional Budget Office report found that from 2011 through 2015, federal workers with a professional degree or doctorate earned 24% less than their private-sector counterparts. What steps should you take to help employees manage the burdens of working remotely, such as the blurring of work-life boundaries and the cognitive overload from being digitally engaged all day? On collaborative tasks (including exchanges with coworkers, working in teams, and interacting with clients), the number is lower. Boston Consulting Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In the digital era, the public sector often can’t compete with the generous compensation packages offered by private-sector companies, particularly when recruiting for highly skilled, in-demand professions. The objective is to direct talent toward critical projects while giving employees additional development opportunities. When employees work remotely, how do you replicate the ad hoc, serendipitous encounters with colleagues who work on the same team or were once down the hallway? Remarkably, however, instead of finding a collapse in the functioning of business, our research reveals something few might have predicted: employees perceive that their productivity has predominantly stayed the same or even improved. That’s a difference of almost 400%! Over the last decade, globalisation and new technologies have brought tremendous change to the way we work. Public Sector, flexible models. Our survey shows that only 13% of respondents greatly enjoy working with advanced technologies, and 34% are comfortable with advanced software in their workplaces. Physical Health. By Adriana Dahik, Deborah Lovich, Caroline Kreafle, Allison Bailey, Julie Kilmann, Derek Kennedy, Prateek Roongta, Felix Schuler, Leo Tomlin, and John Wenstrup. People Strategy, Some challenges are more demanding than others. In Australia, a 2015 survey reported that only 34% of pub-lic servants felt their agency rewarded per- Our findings suggest that the future of work will be increasingly hybrid. The good news is that companies have already been investing heavily in the tools needed to work remotely. One of the few certainties coming out of COVID-19 is that it will have a lasting impact on how people work going forward. These efforts continue to be scaled up. But while some respondents did report such a drop, a surprisingly large number said they have been able to maintain or even improve their productivity. People Strategy, May 23, 2019 From free therapy sessions to educational efforts, companies are starting to develop solutions to this challenge. BOSTON—An international Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey on employee sentiment reveals that productivity can be maintained surprisingly well in a virtual or hybrid work setting, according to a new BCG article, What 12,000 Employees Have to Say About the Future of Remote Work. This crisis has presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reinvent the workplace. The 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey shows that 74% of these individuals believe their organization is more innovative when it has a culture of inclusion. Canada’s Free Agent Program, for example, retains high-performing staff by offering them the ability to select projects that match their interests so they can contribute in a way that’s personally meaningful. To meet this challenge, governments need to focus on five fundamentals: delivering a superior employee value proposition; fostering a culture where innovation can thrive; cultivating leaders who are equipped to tackle today’s problems; using creative partnerships to build capabilities; and strengthening the strategic role of human resources. SWP requires two things governments often lack: accurate data on the workforce and an HR team with advanced-analytics capabilities. And this presents both challenges and opportunities: to reimagine the entire employee experience and to create conditions that allow employees to thrive in the workplace of the future—one that will be far less office centric. And this will be even more critical as companies start to hire new employees who have not built social capital from pre-COVID-19 times. While this is a subjective productivity indicator, the data is still striking. The World Bank conducted a staff survey that showed 80% to 90% satisfaction on mission and objectives, but only 25% satisfaction on internal processes and the way decisions are made. This includes forecasting future workforce needs, identifying capabilities gaps, and developing strategies to address these gaps. While companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of this issue, managing employee mental-health challenges—both recognizing problems and addressing them—has never been easy for companies. But to benefit fully from the changes, organizations need to focus on helping leaders, managers, and employees to promote physical and mental well-being and—most important—virtual social connections. In our research, 60% of employees said they want some flexibility in where and/or when they work. In contrast, employee dissatisfaction with a high number of these factors is cause for concern. It can be an outcome that drives productivity, value and impact by unlocking human potential and creating an organization that is resilient to risk, fit for the future and grounded in meaning for workers whose identity will drive sustained results. When teams are split between home and office, remote members often feel at a disadvantage during meetings vis-à-vis those who are physically together. Things that might once have seemed impossible have proved surprisingly workable. (See Exhibit 2.) Early Solutions. Related Expertise: In this data-filled -- and quite charming -- talk, human resources expert Rainer Strack suggests that countries ought to look across borders for mobile and willing job seekers. We found four factors that correlate with employee perceptions of their productivity on collaborative tasks, whether working remotely or onsite: social connectivity, mental health, physical health, and workplace tools. Over 70% of managers said they are more open to flexible models for their teams than they were before the pandemic. have a significant impact on their workforces. One way to increase mobility is through labor-sharing platforms that allow employees to discover new government job opportunities. Future leaders will also need to understand the potential impact of government interventions on complex, interrelated systems—and effectively collaborate across government agencies and with the private and social sectors. It’s now clear that business as usual will be different in the world of work. This isn’t a time to sit back and wait for events to unfold. 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