What will new ways of working mean for your people?

Rowena Morris:

Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of our Business in Focus podcast, I am Rowena Morris, a director at PwC and I am your host for this episode. For many organisations, COVID has brought to the fore the discrepancy between the skills people have and those that are needed for the future. At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society, and solve important problems, and part of this involves making sure everyone has the opportunity to live, learn and work in the digital world. To help us do just that, we've launched our upskilling hopes and fears research, a survey of over 32,000 workers across 19 countries. We ask people how they feel about the new technologies and trends that is changing the way that we work. In this episode, we are going to be discussing some of the most important findings of this research, and we are going to share some practical tips to help businesses, governments and individuals to upskill in preparation for the future of work. I am delighted to be joined in our virtual studio today with Fiona Camenzuli and Pete Brown. Fiona is our people and organisation leader here at PwC in the UK and Pete is the global leader to our people and organisation practice. Hi both, how are you, where abouts in the country are you today?

Fiona Camenzuli:

Hi Rowena, lovely to be here. I'm actually in Essex today.

Rowena:

Pete, how about you?

Pete Brown:

Hi Rowena, lovely to be here. I am halfway between London and the sea at Portsmouth, on the South Downs which is lovely today.

Rowena:

Fiona, we're going to kick off with you then. So much fascinating insight to cover across the research and it was really great to see that people feel mostly optimistic about the challenges of work in the future, with 80% saying that they're confident that they can adapt to new technologies entering their workplace.

My first question for you is, do you think that the public is right, to be confident about the future of work?

Fiona:

Firstly, I have to say given how difficult the last year has been for everyone, it’s really positive to hear how confident people are actually coming through the survey. Actually, I do think they are right to be confident. Interestingly, that positivity that we are seeing coming through, is also mirrored by how a lot of CEOs and leadership are feeling, a lot of organisations in the UK. The majority of leaders feel very positive and confident about the future too. There are several reasons why they should feel confident, that actually a lot of new tech and automation is opening up a lot of new opportunities and different ways of working. We've seen a lot of organisations in the past 12 months really change and adapt very very quickly to very stark circumstances that we've all lived through. Actually, that speed of change has enabled a lot of organisations to really open up their thinking about how they can transform very quickly, and actually help their people work a different way. We've seen many digital transformations happen very quickly in the past 9 to 12 months, things that previously might have taken a year or two to implement, and they are happening within weeks. We are seeing different opportunities open up for how people work, virtual working, blended or hybrid working. People have had to learn new ways of working very quickly, but they've adapted, actually we've really seen that. We've got in your survey 76% of CEOs think there will be economic growth over the next 12 months, so a really positive outlook for the future. Actually, when we've asked workers how they feel, 77% said they would learn a new skill to remain employable. There's a lot of opportunity out there, and whilst we know jobs might change, but actually we also know a lot of new ones are going to emerge. We are seeing a period where organisations are seeing that they need to create agility, but we are also seeing that both organisations and people are adapting to a much more dynamic future. There is a lot of positivity, they are right to be confident.

Rowena:

That’s right, isn't it, lots of opportunity, but on the flip side, we did hear that many people are concerned about job security, with 60% saying that actually they'll see jobs at risk through automation and 39% think that their own job will be obsolete in just five years. What risk does automation currently pose to people's jobs?

Fiona:

Well yeah, as I said, as you just alluded, Rowena, there is no doubt that the world of work is changing. The impact of automation, technology, and also actually much broader impacts on organisation, whether that be different countries use around globalisation versus protectionism, changing social dynamics and attitude, changing demographics, all of these things are really changing the way that organisations are going to have to think about how they operate in a new world. Actually, if the pandemic has taught us anything, the reality is that change is happening and it's happening now. It's true that there will be a number of jobs at potential risk from automation, our survey showed that 30% of jobs were potential risk of automation by the mid 2030s. Two in five people believe that their job will be obsolete within five years. That optimism I talked about in the beginning needs to be balanced with how do we manage through this time when some jobs will disappear, but like I said before, tech and automation will create new opportunities. That's where organisations have to understand and work through the challenges of the fact that you can't necessarily protect all the jobs, some of them will necessarily change, more disappear, but there is a responsibility for organisations and other parts of society to think about how do we help people, how do we protect the people if you can't protect the jobs, and how do we help people get the skills they need, and therefore the opportunities they need to go into different roles, new types of work to really fulfil that future potential.

Rowena:

That sets the scene really nicely. Pete, I’ll move over to you now, and looking at the global findings. We've seen that 77% of people are saying that they are ready to learn a new skill or completely retrain in response to new technologies in the workplace. Does this ring true with your experience working with clients over the past year, would you say?

Pete Brown:

It really does, that degree of optimism that Fiona just talked about, but I would balance that with an underlying slight fragility, just in terms of growth prospects. On the one hand CEOs and workers are optimistic, but if you think about the last 12 months, we've seen digitisation into the record speed, with organisations having to respond frankly for survivability. As we are starting to hopefully approach the end of the pandemic, we all hope, we will see organisations, they continue that charge in terms of investment around digitisation, so it's not going away. There will be more automation. Also looking into the mergers and acquisitions activity, looking to increase market share through better consumer experience and better products and price. As we start to emerge, it's those organisations that are coming out of survival mode, and really looking at how can they capitalise on certain parts of what they've invested in, particularly around the digitisation space, and invest in people and technology in innovation. Those organisations that can get that right, better data, better decision making and scale quickly, are those who will probably win the race in terms of growth.

When it comes to the workforce, the optimism is that the vast majority of workers are happy to reskill, to learn new skills to do their job. They recognise the impact of technology, which has been accelerated during the pandemic. They’ve also actually been realists, recognise there are some great advantages. It takes away elements of the job that are perhaps repetitive or unengaging, and it frees them up to do other things, more value adding, more creative with their time. What's also clear as well as in terms of people taking accountability for that. Yes, they do, perhaps three quarters of respondents. They want their organisations to invest in them and that's actually no difference to the surveys of the last four or five years, but they also recognise it’s their responsibility as well, some 80% of the respondents recognise that it is up to them as well to actually want to embrace and take that training, but positively they are wanting to do that.

Rowena:

I thought it was interesting and seeing in the survey that 40% said that they did. Then, new digital skills so, I will be interested in your views around how you think organisations can continue to encourage that digital upskilling, especially while people are working remotely?

Pete:

That's a really good question. We’ve all recognised the challenges of working remotely. There's a number of things that we are seeing organisations doing, not at least PwC. First and foremost is, really setting the message from the top of the organisation around learning has been a positive and essential part of the people's development, and providing opportunities for people to do that, a really interesting area actually. 28% of people say they started the pandemic without adequate skills and 40% say they actually have improved their skills throughout the pandemic, but when you drill down into the details there, it is typically those with a college degree or above, who have been given more access, and they feel they've got more access to training opportunities, and only 20% of college leavers, school leavers, say they have that opportunity. There is a note of caution there in terms of employers around making sure that the opportunity is open to everybody, not just those with the higher qualifications and above. The reason that's so important is because if you look at the roles that are most likely to be disrupted first, it is those where the required people will have a lower educational background that seem to be being hit first. There's a huge responsibility to help equip those people, as Fiona said, looking after people not jobs, help those people with having the opportunity to access new qualifications, new skills, such that they are relevant for the future of work as we know it.

Rowena:

It sounds like those who most need the digital skills are still the least likely to get them and workers are facing inequality and missing out on career advancement on that training. Fiona, I saw that 50% unfortunately saying that they've faced discrimination at work. It will be interesting thing to get your views in, what do organisations need to do now to challenge biases and tackle that discrimination at work?

Fiona:

Yeah, it's a disappointing statistic, but obviously it's an issue which has been really front of mind even before the pandemic, but actually the knock on effects of COVID-19, have really put a spotlight also on where some of those other discrimination, also gaps or inequalities exist in society. We've seen that the knock-on effects of COVID-19 have been particularly rough to certain demographics. For example, women who have been in particular forced to drop out of the labour market at a higher rate than men during the pandemic. From a discrimination perspective, we've seen some of the stats come through. Also, for example, 22% in our survey say that age discrimination is the most reported. Here the challenges that organisations, we've always known that organisations that invest the most in diverse and inclusive environments are the ones that attract the best talent. They foster really great innovation. Actually, they have improved business outcomes and financial performance. We've known that there is a lot of evidence behind that for a long time. That organisations actually now interestingly are at a really pivotal moment and leaders of organisations and CEOs really need to think about how they can use this point of time almost to reinvent how they approach these challenges, because they've got a real opportunity to create fairer, more inclusive, more equitable places to work, but this really means actually thinking about a range of issues.

Things about how you're going to incorporate flexibility in your organisation to make sure that people do have access to opportunities, across all different demographics, and being really transparent about those, but also being really thoughtful. Flexibility alone, for example, isn't going to solve a problem, just saying we're going to give people, empowered flexible working or agile working is a really great way of creating a more inclusive workforce, but it's not the only solution to the problem. I think employers as they are going to have to think about how they create an environment where they are really clear about the expectations that they want from employees, and also be really open, really transparent around career progression, making sure that they can be instill open communications and open conversations in the organisations that people can understand, where are my opportunities, how can I advance my career, how do I get access to the skills I need to progress, and how do I actually get the opportunities to upskill myself and build confidence myself. But, as ever with these challenges around diversity and inclusion. It's really important to also tackle the cause and not the symptoms. So, organisations need to take a really hard looks at the culture, the behaviours and leadership and the role models that they set in their organisations, in order to really sort of, you've got to walk the talk. So, how do you actually get the right processes, environment, behaviour, and then align that with how you, the  messages that you send out and making sure that you can really follow through those opportunities. So, it's a big challenge, but one that has enormous benefits on a number of different levels for organisations and for society.

Rowena:

That point around walking the talk really resonates with me and we've done many of these podcasts over the last couple of months speaking with a number of different clients and actually one of the main themes that have come out is that value of purpose becoming much more pronounced during the pandemic. Interesting to see in the survey, 75% of people are saying, I really want to work for an organisation that makes a positive contribution to society. Pete, I want to move on to you now though, so looking at the uncertainty over the pace of the recovery, CEOs are continuing to primarily rely on cost cutting to drive growth. So, what's the case for investing in upskilling now like Fiona was talking about when so many organisations are still actually just navigating through the economic damage caused by the pandemic?

Pete:

Cost cutting is inevitable as we come out of the pandemic and frankly look to fund a lot of the recovery of the pandemic, and clearly automation plays a huge part in that in terms of process simplification and getting machines to do things that they're able to do that you don't require a human for. But I think the case itself for investing in skilling, speaks for itself in terms of, you can put whatever technology you want, but you do require that interface with humans and people to bring the best out of that technology. For example, if you look across the banking sector, where for many years, an area they were focused on was trying to increase the engagement with customers through digital channels. There was something that many of them were struggling with quite frankly. Well, literally overnight with the pandemic that change was forced upon that sector, with many people around the world now interfacing routinely with their banks through digital channels, because that's the only way they can.

Well, that leaves you with a very capable workforce, which in the traditional roles they had, those roles are no longer needed. Actually, those organisations are focused at how can they pivot out that resource, of those colleagues into much more value adding roles around customer experience and that's created new jobs, but you obviously got skill people to do those. In terms of the uptake there that's an example of a sector that is changing, the nature of jobs is changing very rapidly, and we are seeing that across other sectors as well, but we know it's not something that organisations can do in isolation. Organisations require policymakers, government, requires educators to really come together to work out. What are the kinds of roles, we're going to need in the future, and how do we best equip people in order to be ready for those roles? This is not just around, people sometimes think, well let's just turn everybody into coders and focus on Cyber jobs, yes those critical skills are important, but again consistently, if you speak to CEOs and look at the result of the survey there, the kind of skills they are in desperate need of, are those innately human skills, problem solving, creativity, innovation, teamwork, followership, really hard to train, but in short supply, but in high demand. So, focusing on skilling people to have those attributes and abilities, really important.

Rowena:

You mentioned teamwork is one of the key attributes there, and that makes me think of, what would you say would be the role of the office in the future given the popularity of hybrid working we are seeing, 72% of people saying they prefer a mix of in person and remote working, and only 9% saying that they want to go back to a traditional commute and work environment full time.

Pete:

Yeah, I think there are varying schools of thought of either extreme of that continuum. So, there are some CEOs who are very publicly said, the day of the office is over and they're happy with their workforce to be working away from the office full time. There are other CEOs who very publicly have said, it's an experiment that's not sustainable and we want everybody back in the office as quickly as possible. All the evidence we're seeing from the various studies we do and actually from client conversations is, it is probably two to three days back in some form of office environment, either the main office or in some kind of satellite office. But I think that's so important. I think PwC is a great example. We are fundamentally a people business, and our people have a great sort of requirements and need actually to get to the office, two or three days a week I'd say for learning, for learning and collaboration, and actually just those social interactions, those non-curated moments where you bump into people at the coffee machine. That's where we do a lot of our learning, a lot of our networking and collaboration, and I think we've seen that mirrored actually in many organisations, both in the UK and beyond.

Rowena:

It is interesting because we're talking to Kevin Ellis about this the other day on an earlier podcast and he picked up that point around linking that to the role that business leaders take in supporting the health and well-being of their employees. I thought it was interesting in the survey that 38% of respondents said they feel that their work environment is safe and enables them to give their best, but worryingly just 20% say that their employer helps them manage stress, so I would be interested, maybe Fiona if I come to you first to understand your views on what do you think those actions are that leaders could be taking to better support that health and well-being of their staff?

Fiona:

Yeah, I mean this is the topic that we are hearing a lot of our clients talk about now, and they were talking about it, obviously a lot, probably last summer after we sort of been through the first stages of lockdown where wellbeing was really high on their priority list. I actually think also now we're hearing organisations talk about well, what does it mean as we go forward in terms of what does our future workforce look like, how they're going to work together to the points that Pete raised around the role of the office versus working virtually, which I think poses some interesting and different challenges for organisations about how they think about wellbeing. I mean some of the things that we've done at PwC. For example, you might be familiar Rowena we introduced, we invested in the headspace app which allows access to all of our staff, and it is the way in which they can access time for themselves think about how they can actually manage their stress, it is a really helpful tool for them and provided to them for open access. There's also a lot we've done around, trying to create the right support networks and communities and thinking about how we can support people through agile working. I think this is going to be a big challenge for companies where you might have people, some in the office, some days a week; some working from home. It does change the dynamic about where do you take breaks, for example, something really practical. Our survey found that only 23% of them were actually encouraged to take short breaks during the day, which is really worrying, and actually only a third said they were able to disconnect from work outside of work hours.

There is something that you could say, ‘okay that's quite a practical way that organisations can start thinking about how do you frame some of the boundaries of what's acceptable and what's the right way of working.’ Companies need to do that quite thoughtfully, otherwise you could end up in a situation where either you encourage a culture of presenteeism, for example, or people not being able to manage their workload appropriately. So thinking through what boundaries, you're going to set, so while you're going out and saying here's the new deal, how we’re going to work, here's our expectations of you as an employee, here's how we're going to support you to make sure that we can balance work and life or how you can balance the number of hours that you work in a day. I also think some of the stress that comes out of pure virtual working has been really tough for a lot of employees, being sort of on the end of a laptop or screen for hours with back to back calls can be really quite stressful, or not being in contact with your team. I've been trying to the find ways of encouraging how to connect with others, and there are lots of different, some of our clients are thinking about using even digital tools, so that where you are in the office, there are ways of creating connectivity, communication and connection with workers and your colleagues and actually, you've got some of those channels to help manage your stress as well as things that you might do outside of work, so I think it's a real combination, but I do think that it needs to be done. I think employers have got a real role here to sort of intervene and provide, whether it's platforms, forums, guidance, and also just making sure they give employees the right sense of permission to feel like they should shout out and say actually, they're really open communication environment. I am feeling a sense of stress, how can I get some help about this, there are a number of things here.

Rowena:

Pete, anything that you’d add from your client conversations around that.

Pete:

Well, just to add to Fiona’s point around that leadership giving permission. Just some small things. We released a blog during the pandemic, around some top tips around easing the burden of hybrid working. For example, we all routinely seem to schedule meetings for 30 minutes or an hour. Well, if you're really clear upfront to say actually this meeting is going to be 25 minutes, I am going to need five minutes, just to stretch your legs, get away from the screen, or also, just because it's a video conference type of call, it is okay for people to dial in sometimes, not always be on the screen and always on. Also, there are little things as well, like Fiona mentioned around the psychologists and psychiatrists, and the GPs actually, we've been using very regularly with our teams, just in terms of providing comfort and advice. Little things like making sure you're drinking enough water in the day, all things around the whole person, that's the wellbeing, physical and mental, which is so important in order to enable people to bring their best to work.

Rowena:

Some really useful practical tips there. I suppose just conscious of the time, if we finish on actually some more top tips with going back to that upskilling piece, so Fiona maybe if I come to you first.

Fiona:

Yeah, I’ll give you three Rowena. My first one would be, ‘don't wait, start now.’ So now is the time to really look at how you can really start to think about how you are going to upskill and get the right skills, those broad skills that Pete talked about earlier, so, start now. The second is do it in a way where you can empower your people to upskill themselves, so this shouldn't just be a sort of top down exercise actually allowing them to do it themselves, and give them confidence, and give them the tools they need to learn. The third one would be, think about how you can use upskilling as a way to unleash innovation in your organisation to allow creativity, but also actually now, to enable better agile working actually, and use it as part of how people can work in a different way, and learn and carry on developing themselves.

Rowena:

How about you Pete?

Pete:

I’ll match Fiona's three actually. For me, number one is, have a really clear story, clear narrative as to why you're doing it, and what's in it for the individual, what is in it for the organisation, what's the reason you are going through this upskilling journey. Secondly, involve your teams, people tend to adopt what they've helped to create. People have extraordinary talents in their organisations, use that talent to help you define that journey. Thirdly, if the last 12 months hasn't taught us anything. It has taught us one thing around, extraordinary capability, and the ability of people to deliver extraordinary things, particularly when under intense pressure. My advice there would be when you're going down some form of transformation journey, if you think you're being bold, be bolder, double it. be bolder, because you'd be surprised about what people are able to deliver.

Rowena:

Really great, six top tips there for everyone, and nice and practical as well we like that. Thank you very much Fiona and Pete for a fascinating discussion and of course thanks everyone for listening too. If you'd like to explore our hopes and fears research that we were talking through, visit our website at PwC.com/hopes-fears, and finally don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date with future episodes. Thanks everyone and stay safe.

Participants

• Rowena Morris, director, PwC
• Fiona Camenzuli:, partner, PwC
• Pete Brown, partner, PwC